Azure Active Directory Synchronization Tool: Password Sync as Backup for AD FS Federated Domains

9th of July, 2014 / / No Comments

Kloud has helped many Australian businesses leverage Microsoft cloud services such as Office 365, Intune and Microsoft Azure and most have implemented Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS) to provide a highly available Single Sign-On (SSO) user experience. In mid-2013, the Windows Azure Active Directory Synchronization Tool was updated to support password synchronisation with Azure Active Directory, which provided an alternative way to leverage on-premises authored identities with Microsoft’s cloud services.

Password synchronisation is a feature of the Azure Active Directory Sync Tool that will synchronise the password hash from your on-premises Active Directory environment to the Azure Active Directory.… [Keep reading] “Azure Active Directory Synchronization Tool: Password Sync as Backup for AD FS Federated Domains”

Hybrid Exchange 2007/2013 and Lync EWS Integration

14th of May, 2014 / / 1 Comment

I came across an interesting issue recently with a client currently running Exchange 2007 and looking to migrate to Exchange Online. Since Update Rollup 10 for Exchange 2007 Service Pack 3, it has become possible to coexist Exchange 2oo7 and Exchange 2013.

After installing Exchange 2013 as the Hybrid server, this particular client ran into an issue with the Lync 2013 client losing EWS integration with any mailboxes that still reside on Exchange 2007. The net effect of this is that any users that hadn’t been migrated from Exchange 2007 to Exchange 2013 or Office 365 would have to rely on Outlook MAPI (and Outlook being open) for anything to do with the Personal Information Manager feature of Lync.… [Keep reading] “Hybrid Exchange 2007/2013 and Lync EWS Integration”

MEC ‘14

15th of April, 2014 / / No Comments

Earlier this month I attended the Microsoft Exchange Conference in Austin, Texas, which was a fantastic opportunity to find out what is in store for the future of Exchange and to connect with other peers and people from the product groups at Microsoft. There were over 100 sessions meaning MEC was packed with loads of quality information – although it was impossible to get to see it all. It was great to see these sessions presented by the Program Managers, Lead Developers, MVPs and Masters.… [Keep reading] “MEC ‘14”

Exchange Online Inactive Mailboxes

20th of June, 2013 / / 5 Comments

In an enterprise deployment of Office 365 Wave 14, one of the recurring pain points was how to handle mailbox data retention once a user left the business and the data is required for compliance purposes. There were a number of options available to handle this:

  • Leave the mailbox in-situ and disable the user account
  • Change the license SKU to Kiosk Plan 2 as it’s a cheaper license cost and disable the user account
  • Migrate the departed user mailbox back to the on-premises hybrid Exchange platform
  • Use a 3rd party cloud archive solution

While all of these will work, on an enterprise scale they’re quite clunky and even with an identity management solution in place, they’re not particularly practical or cost effective.… [Keep reading] “Exchange Online Inactive Mailboxes”

Office 365 Preview and Windows Azure Active Directory Rights Management

28th of November, 2012 / / 2 Comments

Recently I was asked to implement an Office 365 Preview for Enterprises tenant that would demonstrate the new functionality provided by Windows Azure Active Directory Rights Management (AADRM). Windows Azure Active Directory is the cloud identity management service that underpins Office 365 and many other Microsoft cloud products; you can read more about it here.

Rights Management Services (RMS) are a feature set that allows for the protection of information, regardless of where it goes or who it is sent to.… [Keep reading] “Office 365 Preview and Windows Azure Active Directory Rights Management”

Office 365 Licensing with Powershell

2nd of April, 2012 / / 8 Comments

The Basics

Recently I’ve had to explore the dark art of license assignment using Powershell. It’s not particularly well documented so this might help you…

Displaying a list of the current licensing assignment is pretty straightforward. Get-MsolUser can be used to return information on an individual or a list of users.

Get-MsolUser -All run on its own will return all of the users available in the tenant along with whether or not there is a user license assigned.… [Keep reading] “Office 365 Licensing with Powershell”

Deploying Office 365 Desktop Updates

21st of December, 2011 / / No Comments

When migrating to Office 365 it is necessary to distribute updates to your client machines which will facilitate authentication with the Office 365 service along with adding features and support for the Office 365 services into the Office suite on your desktop.

There are a couple of ways these updates can be distributed to the client machines: –

Centralised Deployment

Many businesses will have an SOE and a managed environment in which the most effective method of distribution will be using a patch management system such as Microsoft System Centre Configuration Manager.… [Keep reading] “Deploying Office 365 Desktop Updates”