Migrating from POP Domain to O365

EvilGrin · 4 Dec 2014 at 10:14

Hi guys,

One of the companies I've just inherited support for, has just been through a rebrand and as a result changed their domain. Originally they had a web hosting company register their domain and make POP mail accounts on their web host, we now have a new domain registered through our ISP with an MX record set up for this domain, but they don't want to configure mailboxes for us, so everything is just set up to forward from the new domain to old domain. Users then have the new domain essentially spoofed when emailing out, which is causing issues with clients receiving email.

So, I want to move them to office 365/exchange online and remove the headache of relying on two separate companies to configure a single email address, as well as the headache of dealing with the issues surrounding their POP email. Could anyone advise on the easiest migration path? Would it be possible to configure the new domain in O365, create the mailboxes, and set these to forward to their old domain mailboxes for now to keep them all working until we're ready to deploy?

Any advice appreciated, cheers guys!

CleverBalls · 4 Dec 2014 at 10:24

How big is the company? I find Cobweb are very good at migrations and I have used them in the past with no issues.

HecFam · 4 Dec 2014 at 10:41

Ive always used migrationwiz for migrations. You can use 10 passes per licence and you should have a licence per mailbox, but if one mailbox finishes, you can change the input and output addresses to migrate a second one using the same licence. Bit cheeky, but it saves buying another licence.

Toughnoodle · 4 Dec 2014 at 12:11

1) Add both domains to O365.
2) Set up accounts for the users. Use the new domain name as the primary email address (i.e. their reply address).
3) Add aliases to the accounts for the old domain (so they keep coming in).
4) Change the MX records
5) Do a final Send&Receive, reconfigure Outlook and import old PST's into O365 for each user.

Hardest part is coordinating the other companies to do the DNS.

RichIbizaSport · 4 Dec 2014 at 15:13

Toughnoodle said:
1) Add both domains to O365.
2) Set up accounts for the users. Use the new domain name as the primary email address (i.e. their reply address).
3) Add aliases to the accounts for the old domain (so they keep coming in).
4) Change the MX records
5) Do a final Send&Receive, reconfigure Outlook and import old PST's into O365 for each user.

Hardest part is coordinating the other companies to do the DNS.

I'd vote for this option.

Caged · 4 Dec 2014 at 21:48

If it's actually POP then there's no migration to do, as all the data is local.

I'd consider Google Apps though unless you have a good reason to go 365 (all clients want to use Outlook on Windows, can't wrap their heads around web apps).

EvilGrin · 5 Dec 2014 at 15:05

Thanks for the replies guys, Toughnoodle's approach is pretty much what I'm looking for I think. The part that does concern me are the changes to DNS, as ideally I want little to no downtime if at all possible! I'll have around 20 users to configure at the same time too...

O365 is definitely the way we want to go, I'm going to be moving their parent company's mail across to O365 from locally hosted Exchange 2007 as they're starting to integrate more of their processes into the main company now, so it makes sense to keep everything as simple as possible.

jameshurrell · 5 Dec 2014 at 15:25

I have several clients on O635 and I (and they) are very pleased with it. The level of control you have is extremely good - you can pretty much do everything from within the control panel (sharing calendars, giving delegate access etc.). Setup from Outlook, iPhone, Android is a synch - just enter the email address and password and it will do it for you (as long as your DNS records are good!).

Good luck. Let us know how it goes.

visibleman · 5 Dec 2014 at 17:54

Toughnoodle's guide is about long and short of it for dealing with your POP mailboxes. Just make sure you have working backups of the current mailboxes (PST from Outlook etc) before doing any form of mail importing into O365/Exchange Online.

Obviously use the migration process (use the 'Exchange Server Deployment Assistant' to find the correct guide) if you're moving from onsite Exchange to O365.

And do it outside of business hours if you're worried about downtime.

I'm likely to be stating the obvious but it's worth pointing out that migrating between Exchange Online/O365 'families' (ie - moving from Exchange Online to O365 Business etc) requires a complete redo; so if at any point you need the 'Office' features (desktop Office apps etc) of O365 Enterprise/Business then it's best to purchase licenses within that 'family' from the get-go to save the headaches.

Toughnoodle · 5 Dec 2014 at 17:57

It helps if you can turn the Time-To-Live down on the domains to an hour ahead of the migration. Also make sure you can create more advanced type DNS records on the nameservers (e.g. SRV and TXT). Some DNS control panels are too basic for O365.

When you import the PST's it won't show new emails until it's finished synch'ing with the cloud. They're not lost, but just waiting to come down. You're going to be bored of doing this if you've got 20 to do. Hope your upload bandwidth is up to it.

Also make sure they're all on at least Outlook 2007 (supports one O365 account). Outlook 2010 onwards can support more. Make sure all of the PC's are up-to-date with Windowsupdate otherwise you can get never-ending password prompts on just the setup alone (without any useful error message to go on - good work Microsoft).