Why to use Cutover if hybrid is better

[niazstinu]

Hi all

I have been reading about the Exchange Online migration and I understand that the cutover migration is for small business, as it will take everything to cloud, but I dont understand why to use the cutover over the hybrid migration, at the end using the hybrid migration keep the services available and migration is doable in both direction, plus free busy information are there, and after all the migration is finish, the admin can decommission the exchange server.

so why admins might chose to use the cutover with all the limitation is has comparing to Hybird migration.

[#2]

For one, Hybrid requires you to keep some on-premises footprint for AAD Connect and management purposes. Cutover is a "shift and lift" type of approach, after doing it you can forget about your on-prem environment completely. But you are right, the Hybrid experience is much better overall, for both the admins and users alike. 

[#3]

@Vasil Michev 

Thanks for the answer, so for Cutover, will it even 'shift and life' the Active Directory, or what about the AD in this case.

Thanks

[#4]

Office 365 doesnt offer anything that's a replacement for AD, this is not the scope in any type of migration.

[#5]

@Vasil Michev 

Thanks for the reply, so basicly what you are telling is Exchange will be fully on cloud but users will still relay on the on-premise AD, so only Exchange server can be phased-out.

I have been watching some vedios https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlZ7C5iqxVo

and as the presenter says on the time 1:25 "that all the user information will be stored in the Azure AD and you dont require AD or exchange server once the migration is completed."

surely I got something I did not understand.  !, would you please explain this part.

Thanks

[#6 · Accepted solution]

Again, cutover assumes you are moving everything to the cloud, so you have no dependencies on AD or any other on-premises infrastructure. Users are managed directly within Azure AD/Office 365.

For Hybrid, you have the requirement to sync objects from on-premises AD, thus you still have the dependency on it. Even if the migration is completed. The only way to remove this dependency is to disable synchronization and convert all objects to cloud-only, as detailed for example here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/decommission-on-premises-exchange

[#7]

Thanks for the provided information.