Cloud Integration Solutions

Exchange Online is one of several cloud-hosted applications in the Office 365 family of products supported by Microsoft Azure. Exchange Online offers the benefits of lower investment in hardware infrastructure, simplified management, on-demand scale, high-availability, and other advantages inherent with public clouds instead of local IT facilities. Microsoft has designed Exchange Online to operate seamlessly with on-premises implementations of Exchange Server, enabling customers to create hybrid information systems. Hybrid networks include on-premises resources with cloud-based services to create a unified network.

Typical motives for integrating on-premise Exchange deployments with Office 365 Exchange Online include compliance with government or industry standards or corporate policies that prevent certain mailboxes from being hosted off site, performance requirements involving virtualization or cloud connectivity, the need for more management flexibility, the need to accommodate certain non-standard or legacy systems, company culture, or business continuity strategies. Also, hybrid deployments are commonly on the critical path for moving safely from a local to an Office 365 Exchange Online cloud-centric environment.

If you want a transitional hybrid Office 365 Exchange Online implementation to carry out a full move to Azure or you want to build a robust hybrid network model, Progent's Microsoft-certified consultants are available help you with every phase of designing, integrating, managing, and debugging your hybrid system. Progent's Exchange specialists can deliver occasional assistance to help resolve challenging technical bottlenecks and also can provide end-to-end project management outsourcing to make sure your hybrid Office 365 Exchange Online initiative is completed on schedule and within.

Progent's Exchange consultants have valuable experience working with Microsoft's Office 365 technical support personnel to resolve complex integration problems and Progent can provide on-going expertise to help you to manage and enhance your hybrid Office 365 Exchange Online solution as your needs evolve. Progent has 20 years of experience delivering organizations of all sizes high-level consulting services remotely, and Progent also offers onsite support in major metropolitan areas across the U.S. (See Progent's client testimonials.)

Hybrid Integration Services for Office 365 Exchange Online
A hybrid deployment of Exchange Online and on-premises Exchange allows you to have a combination local and cloud mailboxes and brings other important capabilities including:

• Protected mail transfer with a domain namespace and an Outlook on the Web address shared between local and Office 365 organizations
• A shared global address list with complete recipient details
• A shared free/busy calendar
• Control of inbound and outbound mail travel across Office 365 networks organizations
• Easy movement of mailboxes between on-premises Exchange infrastructure and Office 365 Exchange Online including Exchange ActiveSync profile redirection
• On-premises Exchange Administration Center for centralized mailbox administration
• Multi-mailbox search across on-premises and Office 365 mailboxes
• Office 365 Exchange Online Archiving for on-premises and cloud-hosted mailboxes
• Seamless incorporation with local and/or Azure-hosted implementations of Skype for Business and SharePoint server
• Support for Microsoft Edge Transport server to filter out spam and enforce mail flow transport policies
• Single sign-on via Azure Active Directory Connect, password sync, or AD FS
• AD Federation Services allows multi-factor authentication and adheres to FIPS

Office 365 supports several hybrid architectures. Judicious analysis with Progent's network design experts can save considerable time and expense, since re-structuring an inappropriate implementation can be difficult and distracting. Building an optimal hybrid Exchange Online ecosystem can be intimidating. The degree of difficulty depends on the design of your existing email system and the functionality you hope to achieve. Major tasks are:

• Determine your essential goals for your hybrid Office 365 Exchange Online solution
• Assess your current network resources and update as needed
• Plan and validate your new system architecture
• Design a deployment plan and identify migration tools
• Identify local vs. Office 365 users
• Select appropriate cloud services and purchase subscriptions
• Add and verify the domain of the cloud portal
• Update DNS records
• Use IdFix to resolve on-premises Active Directory issues reported by Azure AD Connect and configure on-premises Active Directory and optionally AD FS
• Configure single sign-on (SSO) and Directory Sync
• Assign licenses and create Accounts/mailboxes in Office 365
• Export mailboxes to PSTs and import them from PSTs to Exchange Online mailboxes
• Integrate smartphones and tablets
• Migrate public folders
• Activate and Test services ,li>Tune system performance
• Update and test firewalls and proxy servers
• Educate network support staff and users

Microsoft has developed an assortment of tools to help you to simplify many of the tasks needed to create a hybrid environment for Office 365 Exchange Online. These utilities include the Hybrid Configuration Wizard, Windows PowerShell, the Exchange admin center, the Office 365 Deployment Readiness Toolkit, and the IdFix utility. In practice, many phases of configuring a hybrid Office 365 Exchange Online solution are prone to technical hiccups. Progent's Microsoft-certified experts have dealt extensively with issues associated with designing and implementing hybrid Office 365 projects and can show you how to you follow leading practices to anticipate problems, overcome them quickly, and shield your users from service disruptions.

How Progent Can Assist You to Combine Office 365 with Your On-premises Resources
Progent can help you in every stage of migrating to Microsoft Office 365 and integrating your local Exchange implementation with cloud-hosted Exchange. Progent can assist you to prioritize your operational objectives, evaluate the readiness of your existing infrastructure, design the topology for a hybrid environment, devise an implementation plan, configure and test a pilot deployment, install your hybrid network, automate administrative functions, tune performance, manage licenses, provide expertise for disaster recovery plans, validate security compliance, and provide training for your network management team and clients. Progent can provide cost-effective remote consulting services to assist you to resolve occasional problems, or Progent can provide full=service project management outsourcing services to help you finish your hybrid deployment of Office 365 on time and within budget.

Besides Office 365 Exchange Online, Microsoft offers other software packages within the Office 365 product line. These include Microsoft Teams, Skype for Business Online, SharePoint Online, and Project Online. All of these applications can be deployed in cloud-based or hybrid implementations. Progent's Microsoft-certified O365 configuration consultants can help you to build hybrid solutions that incorporate Office 365 packages and on-premises infrastructure by delivering services that include Windows Server consulting, Exchange expertise, Microsoft Teams migration consulting, Skype for Business management and debugging, SQL Server configuration and application development, SharePoint design and integration, Office 365 integration and training, Microsoft Project expertise, and Dynamics GP support.

To help you to manage your hybrid network, Progent offers System Center 2016 deployment help, System Center Data Protection Manager (SCDPM) consulting, SCOM consulting, Configuration Manager consulting, Virtual Machine Manager hybrid cloud configuration expertise,

Typical samples of online and on-premises consulting services offered by Progent to help businesses to combine Office 365 with local Exchange environments include:

• Tidy up folders before exporting them into Office 365 Exchange Online
• Configure authentication with Office 365 and local Domain Users
• Configure Office 365 Exchange Online and allocate purchased licenses
• Reconstruct profiles of Windows clients
• Move Google Gmail accounts
• Carry out manual mailbox migrations as necessary
• Add email accounts to Apple iOS and Android smartphones and tablets
• Specify and implement Office 365 Exchange Online archival storage
• Set up local or hybrid email filter appliances from other vendors
• Correct Office 365 Exchange Online synchronization problems with Active Directory Users and Active Directory Global Security Groups
• Troubleshoot Outlook autodiscover issues
• Fix issues with MX and SPF records
• Define, configure, test, and troubleshoot mail flow
• Resolve Active Directory Federation Services and AD Connect authentication issues
• Deploy PowerShell scripts for administration, repair, and email migration
• Work together with Microsoft staff to identify and repair issues at Microsoft's end (for example, a misconfigured Connector)
• Debug Office 365 Message Encryption problems
• Update on-premises Exchange Servers to current versions of Exchange and upgrade equipment
• Train Human Resources on procedure to delete email accounts for departed employees

Other Public Cloud Integration Solutions from Progent
The choices available for public cloud services are increasing rapidly, making it difficult for IT managers to determine the right cloud strategy for their organization. Progent has worked extensively assisting businesses of all sizes to plan, deploy, and maintain hybrid environments that integrate various cloud services from leading public clouds. Progent's cloud integration experts can help you to evaluate the relative advantages and shortcomings of competing public cloud options and can show you how to build a cloud-centric or hybrid network that provides maximum business value.

Public cloud products supported by Progent's consultants include:

Progent's Azure planning and integration experts can assist you with every stage of Microsoft Azure integration such as requirements analysis, readiness evaluation, system architecture, pilot testing, implementation, centralized administration, performance optimization, software license management, disaster recovery strategies, security policy enforcement, and compliance assessment. Progent can assist you to configure and troubleshoot firewalls and VPN tunnels so that your clients can securely access to Azure-based resources, and Progent's Microsoft-certified consulting experts can assist you set up key Microsoft platforms to work in Azure including Microsoft Windows Server, Exchange Server, SQL and SharePoint. Progent can also help you to set up a hybrid environment that transparently combines on-premises datacenters with Azure services.

Progent's Microsoft Office and Office 365 consultants can help businesses to integrate Office desktop and Office 365 apps such as Office Excel, Office Word, PowerPoint, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Access, Project and Publisher into a seamless solution that offers quick ROI and enables improved business outcomes. Progent can help your company to interface Office or Office 365 applications with one another and with other key Microsoft platforms including SharePoint Server, Exchange Server and Microsoft SQL Server deployed on-premises or hosted in the cloud. Progent can also help you to resolve compatibility issues with various releases of Office desktop and can provide live online Microsoft Office and Office 365 instruction to individuals and groups.

Progent's Amazon Web Services (AWS) planning and integration consultants can provide affordable remote consulting to assist companies to access Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud services including Amazon EC2 for virtual server hosting, Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) for expandable low-latency storage, and Amazon Glacier for low-cost archival storage. Progent can help you with every phase of Amazon AWS integration including needs analysis, preparedness evaluation, system design, testing, configuration, administration, performance tuning, licensing management, disaster recovery solutions, and security strategies. Progent offers advanced expertise with firewall configuration and VPN technology and can show you how to deploy all-cloud or hybrid environments that efficiently incorporate Amazon AWS services. Progent can provide as-needed expertise or Progent can deliver project management outsourcing or co-sourcing to help you migrate smoothly to the Amazon AWS cloud platform.

Amazon Marketplace Web Service (Amazon MWS) is a library of APIs that allows Amazon sellers to improve the efficiency of their business processes by automating crucial sales functions including listings, orders, payments, fulfillment, and finances. By leveraging Amazon's extensive online selling environment and automating their sales, merchants can expand their market, lower their operating costs, improve reaction time to customers, and increase their profits. Progent's Amazon Marketplace Web Service (Amazon MWS) developers can work with your development staff and provide programming, workflow integration, project management support, and mentoring to help you cut development time and expedite your ROI.

Progent's Google Cloud Platform planning and integration experts offer affordable online and on-premises support to help businesses to migrate any portion of their critical IT infrastructure to Google Cloud Platform (GCP). This can save time and equipment costs and enable the use of Google's cutting edge machine learning technology. Progent can help you with every aspect of Google Cloud Platform integration including requirements analysis, preparedness evaluation, architectural design, testing, deployment, centralized administration, performance tuning, software license management, backup/restore mechanisms, and security and compliance.