migrate all mailboxes to the cloud with a cutover exchange migration

6/12/2014 Migrate All Mailboxes to the Cloud with a Cutover Exchange Migration

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Migrate All Mailboxes to the Cloud with a Cutover ExchangeMigration

Applies to: Office 365 for professionals and small businesses, Office 365 for enterprises, Live@edu

Topic Last Modified: 2012-06-26

Use E-mail Migration in the Exchange Control Panel to migrate all the mailboxes and corresponding mailbox datafrom Microsoft Exchange to your cloud-based e-mail organization. This type of migration is called a cutovermigration because all on-premises mailboxes are migrated in preparation for moving your entire e-mailorganization to the cloud. To migrate only some of your on-premises mailboxes, you need to perform a stagedmigration. For more information, see Migrate Mailboxes to the Cloud with a Staged Exchange Migration.

An organization can migrate a maximum of 1,000 Exchange 2003, Exchange 2007, or Exchange 2010 mailboxesto the cloud using a cutover Exchange migration. To migrate more than 1,000 Exchange 2003 or Exchange 2007mailboxes, you can perform a staged Exchange migration. You cant migrate Exchange 2010 mailboxes using astaged Exchange migration. Therefore, to migrate more than 1,000 Exchange 2010 mailboxes, you mustimplement a hybrid deployment. For more information, see Exchange Hybrid Deployment and Migration withOffice 365.

Important:

Cutover Exchange migration isnt available for Microsoft Live@edu. Schools can install and configure OutlookLive Directory Sync (OLSync) and then use a staged Exchange migration to migrate Exchange mailboxes to thecloud.

In this topic

What happens during a cutover Exchange Migration

Before you begin

Step 1 Create the migration batch

Step 2 Configure the connection settings

Automatically detect connection settings with Autodiscover

Manually specify connection settings

Step 3 Name the migration batch

Step 4 Start the migration batch

Step 5 Configure your MX record to point to Office 365

Step 6 Delete the migration batch

Best practices

Next steps

What happens during a cutover Exchange migration

When you migrate Exchange mailboxes to the cloud in a cutover Exchange migration:

The migration service provisions new mailboxes in your cloud-based organization. It creates a cloud-based

mailbox for each user account in your on-premises Exchange organization. On-premises distribution

groups and contacts are also migrated to the cloud.

After the new cloud-based mailboxes are created, the migration service migrates e-mail messages,

contacts, and calendar items from the Exchange mailboxes to the corresponding cloud-based mailboxes.

After the initial migration, the Exchange and cloud-based mailboxes are synchronized every 24 hours, so

that new e-mail sent to the Exchange mailbox is copied to the corresponding cloud-based mailbox. This

process is called incremental synchronization.

When you're ready, you can route e-mail directly to the cloud-based mailboxes and delete the migration batch.Then you can remove your on-premises Exchange organization if you want.

Before you begin



Important:

If youve activated and installed the Microsoft Online Services Directory Synchronization tool, you cant run acutover Exchange Migration. If youve installed the directory synchronization tool, you can deactivate directorysynchronization and then run a cutover Exchange migration. For more information, see Manage directorysynchronization.

Configure Outlook Anywhere on your on-premises Exchange server The e-mail migration

service uses RPC over HTTP, or Outlook Anywhere, to connect to your on-premises Exchange server. For

information about how to set up Outlook Anywhere for Exchange 2010, Exchange 2007, and Exchange

2003, see the following:

Exchange 2010: Enable Outlook Anywhere

Exchange 2007: How to Enable Outlook Anywhere

Exchange 2003: Deployment Scenarios for RPC over HTTP

How to Configure Outlook Anywhere with Exchange 2003

Important Your Outlook Anywhere configuration must be configured with a certificated trusted by a

certificate authority (CA). It can't be configured with a self-signed certificate. For more information, see

How to Configure SSL for Outlook Anywhere.

Verify that you can connect to your Exchange organization using Outlook Anywhere Try one

of these connection methods:

Use Microsoft Office Outlook from outside your corporate network to connect to Exchange.

Use the Microsoft Exchange Remote Connectivity Analyzer (ExRCA) to test your connection settings.

Run the following Windows PowerShell commands.

Copy

$PSCredentials = Get-Credential

Copy

Test-MigrationServerAvailability -Autodiscover -EmailAddress -Credentials $PSCredentials

Assign the migration administrator permissions to access mailboxes in your Exchange

organization The on-premises account that you use to run a migration batch must have the necessary

permissions to access all user mailboxes. You can assign the Full Access permission for individual

mailboxes or assign the Receive As permission for a mailbox database. For more information, see the

following:

Exchange 2010 Allow Mailbox Access

Exchange 2007 Use the Add-MailboxPermission cmdlet to add

permissions to a mailbox

How to allow mailbox access

Exchange 2003 Microsoft Knowledge Base article 268754 -

How to assign users or groups full access to

other user mailboxes

Microsoft Knowledge Base article 821897 -

How to assign service account access to all

mailboxes in Exchange Server 2003



Add your Exchange organization as an accepted domain of your cloud-based e-mail

organization The migration service uses the SMTP address of your on-premises mailboxes to create the

Windows Live ID (and e-mail address) for the new cloud-based mailboxes. Migration will fail if your

Exchange domain isn't an accepted domain (or the primary domain) of your cloud-based organization. For

more information, see Create Accepted Domains - Office 365 for enterprises.

Verify that user mailboxes arent hidden in on-premises address lists Migration will fail for on-

premises mailboxes that are hidden from address lists. If a users mailbox is hidden, clear the Hide from

Exchange Address lists checkbox on the users properties page in the Exchange Management Console.

Disable unified messaging If the mailboxes you are migrating are enabled for unified messaging

(UM), you have to disable UM on the mailboxes before you migrate them. You can then enable UM on the

mailboxes after the migration is complete. For more information, see Plan to Migrate UM-Enabled

Mailboxes.

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Step 1 Create the migration batch

1. Select Manage My Organization > Users & Groups > E-Mail Migration > New. On the Welcome to

E-mail Migration page, select one of the following migration types:

Exchange 2007 and later versions - Automatically detect connection settings with

Autodiscover Select this option if you want the migration service to automatically connect to

your on-premises Exchange server using the Autodiscover service.

Exchange 2003 and later versions - Manually specify connection settings Select this

option if your on-premises messaging system is running Exchange 2003 or if you are running a

later version but want to manually provide the connection settings to your on-premises mail server.

2. Click Next after you select a migration type.

Step 2 Configure the connection settings

Provide the credentials and connection settings for your on-premises Exchange server depending on themigration type that you selected. Perform only one of the following tasks based on your migration type.

Automatically detect connection settings with Autodiscover

1. If you selected this migration type, configure the migration to use the Autodiscover service to detect the

connection settings. The connection settings you configure will persist on this page the next time you start

E-Mail Migration to run a new migration batch.

In this field Do this

* Migration administrator e-mail address Type the e-mail address for an administrator

account that has access to your Exchange server

and all mailboxes.

* Domain\Username Type the username for the migration

administrator account. Use the

Domain\Username or UPN format.

* Password Type the password for the migration

administrator account.

Number of mailboxes to migrate

simultaneously

Specify the number of connections to the

Exchange server available to migrate mailboxes

to the cloud. If the value is set to 3, the default

value, you can migrate up to three mailboxes at

the same time until all the mailboxes in the

migration batch have been migrated. The

maximum number of connections is 10. To learn



more about how to optimize this setting, see

Maximum Number of Connections to Your Mail

Server.

2. Click Next. Microsoft Exchange tries to communicate with the on-premises Exchange server to verify the

Autodiscover connection settings. If the test connection isn't successful, youre prompted to manually

specify the connection settings. You have to connect to the Exchange server to continue.

If you cant connect to your on-premises Exchange server, see this video for troubleshooting tips.

When the connection to the Exchange server is successful, the migration service connects to the directory

on the on-premises Exchange server and queries it to get a list of the mailboxes, distribution groups, and

contacts that will be migrated. It might take a while to collect this information.

When this query process is complete, the Specify what and how to migrate (Step 2 of 3) page is

displayed.

Manually specify connection settings

1. If you selected this migration type, provide the connection settings to your Exchange server.

In this field Do this

* Domain\Username Type the username for the migration

administrator account. Use the domain\username

format.

* Password Type the password for the migration

administrator account.

* Exchange server Type the FQDN of the on-premises Exchange

server. For example, EXCH-MSG-1.contoso.com.

* RPC proxy server Type the FQDN of the RPC proxy server for the

on-premises Exchange server. For example,

mail.contoso.com.

Authentication Select Basic as the authentication method usedby the Exchange server.

Number of mailboxes to migrate

simultaneously

Specify the number of connections to the

Exchange server available to migrate e-mail to

cloud-based mailboxes. If the value is set to 3,

the default value, you can migrate up to three

mailboxes at the same time until all the

mailboxes in the migration batch have been

migrated. The maximum number of connections

is 10. To learn more about how to optimize this

setting, see Maximum Number of Connections to

Your Mail Server.

2. Click Next. Microsoft Exchange tries to communicate with the on-premises Exchange server to verify the

manual connection settings. If the test connection isn't successful, you'll be asked to verify the connection

settings. You have to connect to the Exchange server to continue.

If you cant connect to your on-premises Exchange server, see this video for troubleshooting tips.

When the test connection to the Exchange server is successful, the migration service connects to the

directory on the on-premises Exchange server and queries it to get a list of the mailboxes, distribution

groups, and contacts that will be migrated. It might take a while to collect this information.

When this query process is complete, the Specify what and how to migrate (Step 2 of 3) page is



displayed.

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Step 3 Name the migration batch

In the Batch name field, type a name that identifies the migration batch. This name is displayed in the E-MailMigration dashboard. Batch names cant contain spaces or special characters.

To send copies of the migration reports to other users, click Browse to select one or more users.

Click Next to create the migration batch. The Migration batch created successfully (Step 3 of 3) page isdisplayed. Review the information about the migration batch, and then click Close.

Step 4 Start the migration batch

After you create the migration batch, its displayed in the list on the E-mail Migration dashboard. Details about theselected migration batch are displayed in the details pane. The status of the migration batch is set to Created.

To start processing the migration batch, select it and then click Start.

What happens after you start the migration batch?

After you start the migration batch, the status displayed in the details pane in the E-mail Migration dashboard ischanged to Queued or Running.

The following table describes the information displayed in the details pane for the migration batch.

Field Description

Status The current state of the selected migration batch.Includes the following states:

Created Indicates that the migration batch is

created. In this state, you can start, edit, or

delete the migration batch.

Queued Indicates that the migration batch

has been started. In this state, you can stop the

migration batch.

Running Indicates that mailboxes in the

migration batch are being actively migrated. In

this state, you can stop the migration batch.

Stopped Indicates that the migration batch is

stopped, and no more mailboxes from the

batch are being migrated. In this state, you can

re-start the migration batch.

Synced Indicates that migration batch is

completed, and no mailboxes are being

migrated. A migration batch in this state may

contain errors when mailboxes werent

migrated.

Requested The number of mailboxes to be migrated in themigration batch.

Synced The number of mailboxes from the current migrationbatch that have been created in your cloud-basedorganization. This field is updated during themigration.

Active Specifies the number of mailboxes being activelymigrated. This number corresponds to the number ofmailboxes to migrate simultaneously that youspecified when configuring the connection settings.



Errors The number of mailboxes that failed migration.

Creation Time Date and time when the migration batch wascreated.

Start Time Date and time when the migration batch was started.

Initial Sync Time Date and time when the migration batch wascompleted.

Initial Sync Duration The amount of time it took to complete the migrationbatch.

Last Synced Time The last time the migration batch was re-started orthe last time that incremental synchronization wasperformed for the batch.

Per-User Details Click Open to display status information about eachmailbox in the migration batch. For moreinformation, see E-Mail Migration Users StatusReport.

Reports This section of the details pane contains links to themigration statistics and error reports. Links to thesereports are sent to the administrator after themigration is complete.

Click Success or Errors to download the followingreports:

MigrationStatistics A CSV file that contains

a row for each mailbox that was successfully

migrated. Each row contains the e-mail address

of the mailbox, the status of the migration, the

number of mailbox items migrated and the

number of mailbox items that were skipped and

not migrated.

MigrationErrors A CSV file that contains a

row for each mailbox that wasn't migrated or

configured for mail forwarding. Each row

contains e-mail address of the mailbox and a

description of the error.

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Monitor the migration batch

Use the E-mail Migration dashboard and the per-user migration statistics to monitor the status of the migrationbatch. For more information, see the following:

Manage Migration Batches in Exchange Online

E-Mail Migration Users Status Report

Stop the migration batch

To stop the migration batch, in the Active E-Mail Migration pane, click Stop.

What happens when you click Stop? The migration of any mailbox currently being processed is stoppedimmediately and isn't completed. Stopping a migration batch won't affect mailboxes that have been migratedalready.

After you stop a migration batch, you receive a status e-mail message that says how many mailboxes weresuccessfully migrated before the batch was stopped. This message also contains a link to the MigrationErrors.csvthat identifies the active mailbox migrations that were in progress when the migration was stopped and the rows



waiting to be migrated. The status message also contains a link to the MigrationStatistics.csv file that identifiesthe mailboxes that were successfully migrated.

If youve started the migration batch and it has a status of Queued or Running, you can stop it. To stop themigration batch, select it and then click Pause.

When you stop the migration batch that is running, any mailbox currently being processed is stopped immediatelyand isn't completed. Stopping a migration batch won't affect mailboxes that have been migrated already.

After you stop the migration batch, you receive a status e-mail message that says how many mailboxes weresuccessfully created in the cloud before the batch was stopped, and how many mailboxes werent migrated. Thismessage also contains links to the statistics report, which lists the mailboxes that were successfully migrated andto the error report, which lists the mailboxes that werent migrated.

Restart the migration batch

If there are errors in the migration batch or if new mailboxes, contacts, or distribution groups were created inyour on-premises Exchange organization, you can restart the migration batch. To restart the migration batch,select it and then click Resume.

When you restart the migration batch, the migration service connects to your on-premises Exchange server andqueries the directory for new mailboxes, distribution groups, and contacts. When this query is complete, a pagedisplays the number of mailboxes, distribution groups, and contacts that will be migrated.

Note If you restart the migration batch, the migration service skips the mailboxes, distribution groups, andcontacts in your on-premises Exchange organization that have already been migrated.

Step 5 Configure your MX record to point to Office 365

Until you change your MX record, e-mail sent to users is still routed to their on-premises Exchange mailboxes.After a mailbox is successfully migrated, the incremental synchronization process synchronizes the on-premisesExchange mailbox and cloud-based mailbox once every 24 hours until you delete the migration batch. When youconfigure your organization's MX record to point to your cloud-based e-mail organization, all e-mail is sentdirectly to the cloud-based mailboxes.

After you change the MX record and verify that all e-mail is being routed to the cloud-based mailboxes, you'reready to delete the migration batch.

Important It can take from 24 to 72 hours for the updated MX record to be propagated. Wait at least 24 hoursafter you change the MX record before you delete the migration batch. Verify that mail is being routed to cloud-based mailboxes before you delete the batch.

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Step 6 Delete the migration batch

After all mailboxes in a migration batch have been successfully migrated, verify the following before you deletethe migration batch:

That mail is being routed to the cloud-based mailboxes after you change your MX record to point to Office

365.

That cloud mailboxes were synchronized at least once after mail began being routed directly to cloud

mailboxes. To do this, make sure that the value in the Last Synced Time field for the migration batch is

more recent than the date and time when mail started being routed directly to cloud mailboxes. This will

help ensure that the most recent mail was copied to the cloud mailboxes before mail was routed directly.

After you delete the migration batch, on-premises and cloud mailboxes will no longer be synchronized.

To delete a migration batch, select it and then click Delete . When you delete a migration batch, ExchangeOnline:

Cleans up any records related to the migration batch, and then deletes the migration batch.

Removes the migration batch from the batch list on the E-mail Migration dashboard.

Best practices

Here are some tips to optimize your Exchange migration:

Change the DNS Time-to-Live (TTL) setting on your MX record Before you start to migrate

mailboxes, change the DNS TTL setting on your current MX record to a shorter interval, such as

3600 seconds (one hour). Then, when you change your MX record to point to your cloud-based e-mail

organization after all mailboxes are migrated, the updated MX record should propagate more quickly

because of the shortened TTL interval.

Communicate with your users Give users a heads-up that you are migrating the content of their on-

premises Exchange mailboxes to your cloud-based organization. Consider the following:



Ask users to delete old or unnecessary e-mail messages from their Exchange mailbox before

migration. This helps reduce the amount of data that has to be migrated and can help reduce the

overall migration time. Or you can clean up their mailboxes yourself.

Suggest that users to back up their Inbox.

Tell users when they can use their cloud-based account to access the e-mail that was migrated from

their on-premises account. Don't give users access to their cloud-based accounts until you're ready

to complete the migration.

Need a good way to provide users with their sign-in credentials and autogenerated password for their

new cloud-based accounts? See Send a Welcome Message to New Users.

Next steps

Assign licenses to Office 365 users If you have a Microsoft Office 365 e-mail organization, you must

assign licenses to new mailboxes or they will be disabled when the grace period ends. For more

information, see Assign a License to New Mailboxes in Office 365.

Create an Autodiscover DNS record After all on-premises mailboxes are migrated to the cloud, you

can configure an Autodiscover DNS record for your cloud-based organization to enable users to connect to

their new cloud-based mailbox with Microsoft Outlook and mobile clients. This new Autodiscover DNS

record has to use the same namespace that youre using for your cloud-based organization. For example,

if your cloud-based namespace is cloud.contoso.com, the Autodiscover DNS record you need to create is

autodiscover.cloud.contoso.com.

Exchange Online uses a CNAME record to implement the Autodiscover service for Outlook and mobile

clients. The Autodiscover CNAME record must contain the following information:

Alias autodiscover

Target autodiscover.outlook.com

For more information, see Use a CNAME Record to Enable Outlook to Connect.

Implement a single sign-on solution After all mailboxes are migrated to the cloud, you can

implement a single sign-on solution to enable users to use their on-premises Active Directory credentials

(username and password) to access their Office 365 mailboxes and existing on-premises resources. You

implement a single sign-on solution by deploying Active Directory Federation Services 2.0 (AD FS 2.0). For

more information, see Cutover Exchange Migration and Single Sign-on.

Decommission on-premises Exchange servers After you verify that all e-mail is being routed

directly to the cloud-based mailboxes, have completed the migration, and no longer need to maintain your

on-premises e-mail organization or dont plan on implementing a single sign-on solution, you can uninstall

Exchange from your servers and remove your on-premises Exchange organization.

Important:

If you implement a single sign-on solution, we strongly recommend that you maintain at least one

Exchange server so that you can access Exchange System Manager (Exchange 2003) or Exchange

Management Console/Exchange Management Shell (Exchange 2007 and Exchange 2010) to manage

mail-related attributes on the on-premises mail-enabled users. For Exchange 2007 and Exchange 2010,

the Exchange server that you maintain should have the Hub Transport, Client Access, and Mailbox

server roles installed.

For more information, see the following:

Modify or Remove Exchange 2010

How to Remove an Exchange 2007 Organization

How to Uninstall Exchange Server 2003

Caution:

Decommissioning Exchange can have unintended consequences. Before decommissioning your on-

premises Exchange organization, we recommend that you contact Microsoft Support.

migrate all mailboxes to the cloud with a cutover exchange migration

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