Deploying Cloud-only mailboxes in Office 365 using On-Premises Directory objects

8th of October, 2017 / / No Comments

First published at https://nivleshc.wordpress.com
In this blog, I will show you how to create Cloud-only mailboxes in Exchange Online (Exchange Online is the messaging part of Office 365) that are bound to objects synchronised from your on-premises Active Directory. The Cloud-only approach is different to the Hybrid approach because you do not need an Exchange server deployed in your on-premises environment.
There are a few reasons why you would want to link your Cloud-only mailboxes to your on-premises Active Directory.… [Keep reading] “Deploying Cloud-only mailboxes in Office 365 using On-Premises Directory objects”

Configuring Remote PowerShell to a Remote Active Directory Forest for FIM/MIM GalSync

7th of September, 2017 / / No Comments

Introduction

Windows Remote Management (aka Remote PowerShell) is a wonderful thing; when it works straight out of the box when you’re in the same domain. Getting it working across Forests though can feel like jumping through hoop after hoop, and sometimes like the hoops are on fire.  When configuring GALSync ([Exchange] Global Address List Synchronisation) with FIM/MIM this always means across AD Forests. The graphic below shows the simplest relationship. If there is a firewall(s) in between then you’ll have additional hoops to jump through.… [Keep reading] “Configuring Remote PowerShell to a Remote Active Directory Forest for FIM/MIM GalSync”

Exchange Online – Mapi over Http Transition

1st of September, 2017 / / No Comments

Microsoft has announced that from 31st October 2017, outlook clients using RPC over Http protocol to connect to Office 365 will be no longer supported. Only Mapi over Http clients will be in action onwards. This announcement has left many administrators thinking, What exactly does that mean for my organization? What actions are required to avoid any business impact? Is it time to update outlook clients and upto what level? And last but not the least how can I verify if all necessary steps have been taken to ensure business as usual.… [Keep reading] “Exchange Online – Mapi over Http Transition”

What's a DEA?

14th of August, 2017 / / No Comments

In my last post I made a reference to a “Data Exchange Agreement” or DEA, and I’ve since been asked a couple of times about this. So I thought it would be worth while writing a post about what it is, why it’s of value to you and to your business.
So what’s a DEA? Well in simply terms it’s exactly what the name states, it’s an agreement that defines the parameters in which data is exchanged between Service A and Service B. … [Keep reading] “What's a DEA?”

Decommissioning Exchange 2016 Server

26th of June, 2017 / / 2 Comments

I have created many labs over the years and never really spent the time to decommission my environment, I usually just blow it away and start again.
So I finally decided to go through the process and decommission my Exchange 2016 server in my lab environment.
My lab consisted of the following:

  • Domain Controller (Windows Server 2012 R2)
  • AAD Connect Server
  • Exchange 2016 Server/ Office 365 Hybrid
  • Office 365 tenant

Being a lab I only had one Exchange server which had the mailbox role configured and was also my hybrid server.… [Keep reading] “Decommissioning Exchange 2016 Server”

DKIM for Custom Domain in Office 365

14th of June, 2017 / / No Comments

 
As Office 365 service keeps adding new features and functions, it is important for global admins to keep up with the latest offerings and service enhancements office 365 provides. In this blog post I am going to discuss one of the security feature offered by office 365 and how it can be beneficial to organizations when it comes to securing their office365 tenants. This feature is called DKIM. DKIM has been offered by Microsoft for some time now and most of the organizations are using it quite effectively.… [Keep reading] “DKIM for Custom Domain in Office 365”

Exchange 2010 Hybrid Auto Mapping Shared Mailboxes

30th of May, 2017 / / 2 Comments

Migrating shared mailboxes to Office 365 is one of those things that is starting to become easier over time, especially with full access permissions now working cross premises.
One little discovery that I thought I would share is that if you have an Exchange 2010 hybrid configuration, the auto mapping feature will not work cross premises. (Exchange 2013 and above, you are ok and have nothing to worry about).
This means if an on-premises user has access to a shared mailbox that you migrate to Office 365, it will disappear from their Outlook even though they still have full access.… [Keep reading] “Exchange 2010 Hybrid Auto Mapping Shared Mailboxes”

Try/Catch works in PowerShell ISE and not in PowerShell console

30th of May, 2017 / / No Comments

I recently encountered an issue with one of my PowerShell scripts. It was a script to enable litigation hold on all mailboxes in Exchange Online.
I connected to Exchange Online via the usual means below.

$creds = Get-Credential
$session = New-PSSession -ConfigurationName Microsoft.Exchange -ConnectionUri https://outlook.office365.com/powershell-liveid/ -Credential $Creds -Authentication Basic -AllowRedirection
Import-PSSession $session -AllowClobber

I then attempted to execute the following with no success.

try
{
Set-Mailbox -Identity $user.UserPrincipalName -LitigationHoldEnabled $true -ErrorAction Stop
}
catch
{
Write-Host "ERROR!"
… [Keep reading] “Try/Catch works in PowerShell ISE and not in PowerShell console”

Synchronizing Exchange Online/Office 365 User Profile Photos with FIM/MIM

23rd of May, 2017 / / No Comments

Introduction

This is Part Two in the two-part blog post on managing users profile photos with Microsoft FIM/MIM. Part one here detailed managing users Azure AD/Active Directory profile photo. This post delves deeper into photos, specifically around Office 365 and the reason why you may want to manage these via FIM/MIM.

Background

User profile photos should be simple to manage. But in a rapidly moving hybrid cloud world it can be a lot more complex than it needs to be.… [Keep reading] “Synchronizing Exchange Online/Office 365 User Profile Photos with FIM/MIM”

Azure AD Connect – Upgrade Errors

16th of March, 2017 / / No Comments

 
 
Azure AD Connect is the latest release to date for Azure AD sync or previously known as Dirsync service. It comes with some new features which make it even more efficient and useful in Hybrid environment. Besides many new features the primary purpose of this application remains the same i.e. to sync identities from your local (On-Prem) AD to Azure AD.
Of the late I upgraded an AD sync service to AD connect and during the install process I ran into a few issues which I felt are not widely discussed or posted on the web but yet are real world scenarios which people can face during AD connect Install and configuration.… [Keep reading] “Azure AD Connect – Upgrade Errors”