Configuring your Exchange hybrid deployment, in a nutshell
This less than 5-min video provides key information on how to setup an Exchange Hybrid Deployment. In addition, the articles below contain updates on topics covered by this video, along with their main takeaways, in bold. Subtitles in brazilian portuguese (my native language) are also available, which can be enabled/disabled from the built-in YouTube player. Enjoy!!! Hybrid deployment best practices "Should we have a hybrid specific URL? - We have seen deployments where a decision is made to keep the existing Mail.Contoso.com and Autodiscover.Contoso.com pointing to a bank of Exchange 2010 servers and have a new hybrid URL, such as hybrid.Contoso.com, pointing to a couple of Exchange 2013 servers. This is an example of an environment that did not introduce Exchange 2013 in a recommended way. "Some might ask: “Can I keep just my hybrid server up to date?” The answer: there is no such thing as a “hybrid server” (meaning that companies shouldn't add Exchange servers exclusively for hybrid, unless the sizing says it differently). What this question is really asking is: “Can I just update the server were I plan to run the Hybrid Configuration Wizard (HCW) from?” The answer to that is “No.”" Hybrid deployment prerequisites "Before you create and configure a hybrid deployment using the Hybrid Configuration wizard, your existing on-premises Exchange organization needs to meet certain requirements. If you don't meet these requirements, you won't be able to complete the steps within the Hybrid Configuration wizard and you won't be able to configure a hybrid deployment between your on-premises Exchange organization and Exchange Online." Exchange Queue & A: Handling hybrid environments "With older hybrid servers—that is, hybrid servers running Exchange 2010—you need to create an Autodiscover record in DNS for all SMTP domains. Also, the SAN certificate has to include all used autodiscover DNS records in the SAN list. With the Autodiscover domain feature, you have the option of setting one of your SMTP domains as the Autodiscover domain. This is indeed a great new feature of Exchange Server 2013." Introducing the Microsoft Office 365 Hybrid Configuration Wizard "This article tells you what’s new and shows you how to run the wizard. We also explain the various issues that have been addressed with the new Wizard, and touch on some of the telemetry we pull with every run of the wizard." Hybrid Configuration wizard "This topic gives you an overview of the Exchange hybrid deployment configuration process, hybrid deployment features and options available to you, and the Hybrid Configuration Engine, which executes the core actions necessary for both configuring and updating a hybrid deployment." Exchange Hybrid Product Key Distribution Add multiple domains to Office 365 *** UPDATE on 10/17/2017: Added a note to the top of this post to make it clear that there's actually not such a thing as hybrid servers. Thanks so much Tiago Souza for the feedback!
config.office.com gets a face lift and a few new features
On Monday, Sept 24 2018 at Ignite the Office team unveiled the new look for config.office.com as well as the addition of a few new deployment features to help you deploy Click-to-run Office products. The interface has been updated to ease navigation when using the full experience in the web browser and also optimized for the embedded experience for those of you who are using the Office Client Application Wizard in Configuration Manager (as of Current Branch 1806). New deployment features like MatchOS, Fallback to the CDN and RemoveMSI have been added making it easy to build more complex and capable deployment configurations. One of the most anticipated features allows you to include Office app settings with the deployment settings, allowing you to set the user preferences for Office according to how your organization uses Office. Take a look at the session from Ignite 2018 to see an overview of the new experience and a review of the deployment options available. Session code THR2022 – https://myignite.techcommunity.microsoft.com/sessions/64635
