Cloud Computing FAQ - More questions answered |
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Here you will find answers to more of the detailed common questions as well as explanations of a lot of the cloud based terminology and acronyms.
Coexistence Questions
A: AD DS stands for Active Directory Directory Services and is the new name for Active Directory from Windows 2008 onwards.
Generally most Microsoft Windows based businesses with over 100 users will be using a Microsoft Active Directory Directory Services 'Domain' to manage their user accounts and passwords. Your workstation and laptops are members of the Domain and when you logon in the morning you are prompted for your user name and password to logon to the Domain before you can access your files and email.
A: You can only use ADFS if you have a Microsoft Active Directory (AD DS) domain in your company. ADFS allows user accounts from your AD domain to logon to other 'trusted' system (like Office 365) seamlessly.
A: If you have Active Directory and Exchange deployed internally then you can install ADFS into your existing domain and then setup a 'trust' with Microsoft's Office 365 cloud platform that allows your users to connect with their existing logon credentials. Once single sign on has been implemented users can access their email the following ways:
- If you are at work then you will logon to your compute and open Outlook like normal and won't notice anything.
- If you at home on a work laptop, you will login with you work username and password and open Outlook like normal and won't notice anything.
- If you are in an Internet kiosk and are accessing email via a web browser, then you will go to your Outlook Web Access web site and you will enter in your work username and password and login.
Please note: If your ADFS servers are offline for any reason then users will not be able to connect to their email. So you must install ADFS in a High Availablity (HA) solution with at least two of each ADFS server role.
A: If you don't have the support staff or infrastructure to install and maintain ADFS then you can choose to have an 'Online Logon' instead. This is generally the same username as your on premise username however it is a seperate password that Microsoft will force to change every 90 days. The password must meet standard complexity rules. You can not change the complexity requirements or how often the password must change, these are set my Microsoft.
Whenever you open your email
- If you are at work then you will logon to your compute and open Outlook like normal and won't notice anything.
- If you at home on a work laptop, you will login with you work username and password and open Outlook like normal and won't notice anything.
- If you are in an Internet kiosk and are accessing email via a web browser, then you will go to your Outlook Web Access web site and you will enter in your work username and password and login.
A: Again, if you have Active Directory and Exchange deployed in your organisation already, it would be preferable to synchronise the objects into the cloud service from your on- premise system, rather than create them again in the cloud manually. Attributes such as 'photo', office data, name etc. will be synchronised, so you only have to manage your on- premise directory and not the cloud version.
Migration Questions
A: All mailboxes will be synchronised up-front to the cloud email service. The migration service will then run one full synchronisation pass on each mailbox every 24 hours. When we are ready we will switch all users to the cloud service in one go and redirect all internet mail to the new cloud mailboxes. One final migration run will occur 24 hours later to pick up any other email left in the old system, and then the migration will complete.
A: This migration is used when there are too many mailboxes to achieve a short cutover. In this scenario mailboxes will be moved in batches over a longer period of time. Inbound email flow will continue to arrive at the on-premise email system and be forwarded to the cloud mailboxes for those users who have been migrated to Office 365.
A: Any settings that you would have set in outlook options such as rules, signature lines, fonts etc. will be lost. If you are in cached mode, where you take the mailbox offline, this cache will also be lost. After your mailbox is migrated you will re-cache the new mailbox which can take some time if you have a large mailbox. You will need to manually re-create all outlook settings yourself.
Is your question not answered above? Let us know
Next Steps ...
- Read about what Microsoft offers on the Office 365 cloud platform
- Read about Hybrid Clouds to see whether you need one
- Read about the 5 tiers of Migration Services Parative offer for Office 365
- Book Parative to come in and connect you to the cloud
- Book to see a demo of the Office 365 features in action
- Sign up to a trial of Office 365 right now. Free for 30 days for 25 users. Test it for yourself and see how good the cloud is
Book a meeting now to talk about connecting to the Office 365 platform and start leveraging the power and convenience of cloud computing.
