Case Studies Exchange Online Migration—as Exchange 2010 Nears End of Microsoft Support

Exchange Online Migration—as Exchange 2010 Nears End of Microsoft Support

Overview
Our client, a building materials firm, requested our assistance in addressing a need to upgrade the Exchange environment in place for the company’s several hundred users. Microsoft’s official mainstream support for Exchange 2010 ended in 2015; Microsoft’s “extended support” phase ends in January 2020.

Recognizing the need to upgrade, our client chose this point in time to move to the cloud. 

Solution
As is often the case in an initial Exchange migration to the cloud, this project featured a hybrid implementation of both Exchange Online and Exchange 2016 on-premises. The hybrid approach enables administrators to conveniently move users from the local environment to the cloud—and then to continue to manage certain needs on-premises going forward, as needed.

Concurrency’s project team included a business analyst and project manager working together with an Exchange engineer—both onsite and remotely. The team began with onsite workshops and maintained close collaboration with the client throughout the project’s duration.

To ensure a smooth transition, we helped our client plan and execute a migration approach that moved users in small batches. As there was no rush from either technical or licensing standpoints, the bit-by-bit approach was a natural fit as it made the process easier to schedule and manage.

This Exchange project was our client’s first Office 365 workload; with its successful completion, our client is now taking steps to add additional Office 365 services—and thereby take advantage of more cloud benefits throughout the company.