The Case Against the Cloud →

It's safe to assume if you're reading this you're very aware of "the cloud." Unless you've been under a rock for the last five or six years, you know Microsoft has gone all in on their cloud services. You've heard a thousand reasons why you should move your organization’s IT services to the cloud. But that doesn't mean every organization should. Here are some reasons not to move to the cloud. 

I should start off by saying I’m not against Office 365. It's a great service that fills a need. I’ve personally migrated hundreds of organizations and millions of people into Office 365, and I expect to continue that for years to come. 

It’s also not uncommon for me to talk to customers who have already decided they are moving into Office 365, but their organizational requirements are completely incompatible with Office 365. It’s important to take an honest look at cloud solutions like Office 365 and make an informed decision if it's the right solution for your needs.  

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Encrypting email in Office 365 with PGP →

I had an interesting discussion recently with a customer about email encryption in Office 365.

The customer wanted to know the pros and cons of each encryption option in Office 365. I've written quite a bit about this, since it's an area of interest to me — this customer’s main goal was how to encrypt email messages so Microsoft can’t access them.

Today I’ll summarize the different encryption options in Office 365, and how to encrypt your data (and why you would want to) so Microsoft can’t access it inside Office 365.

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Office 365 Migration — Exploring Tenant to Tenant Migrations →

Since June 2011, Office 365 has been the destination for many Exchange, Skype for Business and SharePoint migration projects. Depending on the range of estimates, somewhere between 20-50% of all Exchange mailboxes are currently run from Exchange Online in Office 365.

Moving your organization’s Exchange, Skype for Business and SharePoint services to Office 365 solves a lot of problems, but it can also create complications. One problem that Office 365 makes more difficult is getting your data out of the service, or re-configuring your data to another tenant within Office 365.

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New Calendar Sharing Experience in Office 365 →

Microsoft is rolling out a new calendar sharing experience in Office 365. The change is intended to make sharing calendars between users easier and more reliable, although there are some unintended consequences for some Office 365 customers.

Today I’ll detail how the new calendar-sharing experience looks and functions and address potential confusion and frustrations end users might encounter.

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New Exchange Online migration options →

Microsoft is constantly updating and improving services; it’s a hallmark of Office 365. The constant Office 365 updates are great for me, providing new content and tips to share with you on a regular basis.

The Microsoft Exchange team recently made significant improvements in moving on-premises email from Exchange to Exchange Online. Here’s a breakdown of the new Exchange migration options for Office 365.

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New Features in Office Pro Plus →

This is a blog post I never thought I'd write, and just a short time ago, I couldn’t have imagined it would be something that you'd want to spend 10 minutes reading. Turns out “the cloud” really does keep us on our toes.

Recently I’ve seen some new features in Office Pro Plus, and they are pretty cool. I’m just as surprised as anyone to be interested in PowerPoint and Word updates, but stranger things have happened I guess. In this blog post, I will go into detail on recent Office Pro Plus updates. I’ll talk about some new features I discovered and how they're improving the Office product.

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Introducing Microsoft Teams →

On November 2, Microsoft introduced “Microsoft Teams,” a new collaboration suite within Office 365. Office 365 already has several different “collaboration” tools available, so what’s new about Teams and why do you need another way to collaborate?

In this blog post, I’m going to break down what I know about Teams so far by addressing common questions and what the future holds for Teams and other collaboration tools in and out of Office 365.

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MCSMLab: Now with 100% more SSL

I've turned on SSL for all pages on this site, or at least I think I have. If you experience any issues, please let me know below.

Thanks!

-Nathan

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New and Advanced Features for Azure Active Directory Connect →

Identity management is a huge part of any organization's migration into “the cloud.” Sure, you can move your email, your IM and presence, your document libraries, maybe even your voice and video services into Office 365. But unless your organization is very small, identity management will still take place in your own on-premises Active Directory.

Since the introduction of Office 365, and even before that with the ironically named “BPOS,” Microsoft has had several different solutions for cloud identity management. These solutions have ranged from bad to confusing. The solutions that have been easy to use have lacked good functionality, and the solutions with enterprise functionality have been difficult and costly to deploy.

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Manage Office 365 Groups with PowerShell →

There are a few very compelling reasons to move to Office 365, and in my opinion, Office 365 Groups are at or near the top of that list. Office 365 Groups combine resources from across Office 365 in ways that are not possible on-premises to give end users interesting new functionality.

Originally, Microsoft envisioned Office 365 Groups as resources that did not need much, if anything, in the way of administrative control. The idea was that end users should be able to control their collaborative experience without pesky admins getting in their way. This, of course, is a ridiculous concept that Microsoft has since corrected. Now Office 365 administrators have the controls necessary to ensure Groups are being used in accordance with organizational data usage policies within their Office 365 tenants.

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AD FS in Windows Server 2016 →

With the impending release of Windows Server 2016, we will soon have a new version of AD FS available to use with our various cloud deployments. I thought this would be a good time to start looking at the new features and functionality of Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS) in the new version of Windows Server.

In this post, I’m going to introduce three new features to AD FS in Windows Server 2016: The upgrade process, improved auditing, and the AD FS rapid restore tool. In a future blog post (after Windows Server 2016 is released), I’ll dive into the specifics of setting up and using each of these features.

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Using Multi-Factor Authentication for Office 365 →

Multi-factor authentication has been available, at least for users with administrator roles assigned, in Office 365 since June 2013. The problem is that there is a confusing warren of options and configurations that greatly affect the MFA experience an Office 365 user will, or will not, see. In this blog post, I will explain what configurations you need and what MFA experience you will get based on those configurations.

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Office 365 Hold Your Own Key →

Encryption is hard. There is really no way around that fact.

One of the great benefits of Office 365, or any cloud product, is that these complex solutions are deployed and maintained for you by those who are best qualified to make them work. The downside to having someone else deploy and run your IT solutions is the lack of control you have over your information. You don’t really know who has access to your information when you’re moving it to the cloud.

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Upcoming Features for Skype for Business Online →

Generally, I write about Exchange and Office 365 topics, but recently I’ve been doing more work in the Skype for Business Online area. That is still Office 365, but it’s an area I haven't paid much attention to in the past. Until the release of the E5 license with Cloud PBX, I don’t think there was a reason to pay attention to Skype for Business Online. It was really only good for IM and presence, and there was nothing to configure or set up there.

With the recent release of the Cloud PBX features, I’ve been spending a lot more time thinking about Skype for Business Online, so I figured I would start writing about it, too. In this post, I’m going to look at some of the upcoming Cloud PBX features.

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New Features in Outlook and Exchange Online →

Microsoft has been busy releasing features for Exchange Online over the last couple of weeks, so I thought this would be a good time to talk about three new features: Focused Inbox, Outlook Mentions and Certificate Based Authentication.

What is Focused Inbox?

Focused Inbox is a feature that came from Microsoft acquisition of Acompli in December 2014. Focused Inbox has been a part of the iOS Outlook app since it was launched shortly after Acompli was brought into Microsoft.

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