Lead Image © Matty Sysmons, 123RF.com
Safely integrating and running Office 365
One-Stop Shopping
Office 365 is becoming increasingly important to companies. One reason is that Exchange Server 2013 now works in hybrid environments in combination with Office 365 without any problems. Administrators can therefore use local Exchange servers and gradually migrate users into the cloud. The cloud solution's security is also important in this context, however, and a few points need to be considered regarding this matter.
Corporations that run Office 365 and Exchange Server 2013 in parallel or want to migrate to Office 365 can use all the same tools from Exchange Server 2013. Microsoft enormously improved the Hybrid Configuration Wizard in Exchange Server 2013 with Service Pack 1 and upgraded the subsequent cumulative updates to CU7. You can connect your local Active Directory (AD) forest to Office 365 using a wizard. It used to be possible only to connect one AD forest and thus just one Exchange organization to each Office 365 client.
However, since SP1 for Exchange 2013, you can join multiple AD forests, each with their own Exchange organizations, in a single Office 365 subscription. Companies can therefore also group distributed Exchange organizations in a common organization. This alone increases security because connectors are no longer needed and fewer administrative accounts and interfaces are required. The backup process is also simpler, and it's easier to keep track of things.
Microsoft also provides instructions for hybrid deployment on TechNet [1], which can help you plan the transition. The certificates in the various AD environments are an important aspect in hybrid deployments as well as in the security field. You need to use a separate certificate from a trusted certification authority in each forest: You can't work with one common certificate for all forests (Figure 1).
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy ADMIN Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Related content
-
Microsoft 365 and Teams settings and security
Office 365 and Microsoft Teams come with useful settings for setting up communication channels and securing environments. -
Managing Office 365 in PowerShell
Microsoft offers its Office programs as a service in the cloud. To integrate the Office 365 service into your own infrastructure, PowerShell is a natural choice. -
Changes in Exchange Server 2013
Exchange Server 2013 sees Microsoft complete the latest version of its groupware solution. In this article, we introduce new features in the server and reveal which features have been eliminated. -
Managing Office 365 in PowerShell
Microsoft offers its Office programs as a service in the cloud. To integrate the Office 365 service into your own infrastructure, PowerShell is a natural choice.
-
Windows security with public key infrastructures
A rarely used feature for improving security in Windows environments relies on certificates issued for various applications, services, and procedures that is based on a public key infrastructure.