Recently, I got a challenge to move Office 365 to on-premises Exchange Server 2016 of a small business. That business hub was not having any on-premises infrastructure. They only has Windows server that is hosted in public cloud running with Active Directory and file services with fee LOB applications. All of the collaboration was with MS Office 365.
Now, the challenge was getting higher for me to import Office 365 mailbox to on-premises Exchange Server. In the following segment, I have outline the solution as well as obstacles that I faced in this cloud to on-premises server migration.
All the experts in Exchange Server space remember the main challenges in sizing the servers. As they know, where to put light and heavy mail users with proper balance. Even, users do not fit in the pre-defined boxes, also not change their habits or making the sizing problematic.
When I met the actual users and begin my investigation over their usage on Exchange and Outlook. I found it something more challenging. As this business is of Travel Company that makes travel plan for various people. Mainly challenges that I realised was:
Challenge 1:
The very first challenge was the actual size of mailboxes with lavish limits on Office 365 account. They had accumulated quite mass of emails from last 8 years. After cleaning and archiving to share the Outlook PST files of old stuff. Still, there was 10 GB with 8 GB rest that is not huge but still a pain point for download speeds.
Challenge 2:
The second challenge was, they were going have an addition to new email domains. Along with the need to main point of existing domain from MS Office 365 to on-premises server. So, I had to simply add a new email domains to the DNS.
Challenge 3:
The third challenge was, they did not have any particular mailbox. But they were having huge user mailboxes, which they shared with other users. Along with this, they were having huge collection of signatures who picked from the manual at the time of sending emails. It particularly depends on the address on which they are sending.
Planning is the most important factor, mainly for the organization that is dependent on email. The plan that I made after understanding all the main things:
This was the actual plan that I made. But I found that it will consume a lot of time. Then, one of my team mate suggested me to use BitRecover Email Backup Wizard. As, it is a direct solution to migrate from MS Office 365 to on-premises Exchange Server. I found it sounds interesting, as the task was high and time was less.
So, we contacted to support@bitrecover.com and shared all my issue with them. Then, they assisted us throughout the process of data migration from OWA to on-premises Exchange Server. Even, guided me in various other technical things related to the same.
We purchased BitRecover Office 365 to On-Premises Exchange Server migrator. As the migration from O365 to on-premises server was large in size. But we used their free demo before purchasing the software as a way to test the process of migration from cloud to server.
Finally! By using this application I easily migrated data from Office 365 to on-premises Exchange Server easily. By migrating the data, all I easily completed my whole project. I am really Thankful for helping me out in this migration project. Even, in my other projects of data migration I used BitRecover Software as well.