{"id":11576,"date":"2017-09-27T13:00:33","date_gmt":"2017-09-27T17:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sherweb.com\/blog\/?p=11576"},"modified":"2020-08-24T09:50:24","modified_gmt":"2020-08-24T13:50:24","slug":"exchange-office-365-migration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sherweb.com\/blog\/microsoft-ecosystem\/office-365\/exchange-office-365-migration\/","title":{"rendered":"Exchange to Office or Microsoft 365 Migration: How to Use Minimal Hybrid Configuration in 6 Easy Steps"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you use Exchange Server 2007 in your organization and have decided to migrate to Office 365<\/a> or Microsoft 365<\/a>, the best option available to you is the Staged migration. On the other hand, if you have Exchange Server 2010 or a newer version and want to migrate to Office 365, you cannot initiate a Staged migration and will have to either do a Hybrid configuration or a Cutover migration.<\/p>\n

Now, if your organization has lots of mailboxes and you choose to go with a Cutover migration, all your users will be migrated to Office or Microsoft 365 at once. Unfortunately, this means you will have to reconfigure all of their Outlook profiles once the migration is complete, making this a poor choice if your clients need a selective or seamless migration for their users, as it does not provide any means of selectively migrating on-premise Exchange Server objects.<\/p>\n

If you want to overcome these limitations, you can certainly go with the Hybrid configuration. However, the Hybrid configuration has strict prerequisites for certificates and other configuration settings that are confusing and unnecessary. Fortunately, there\u2019s a better option.<\/p>\n

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Want to provide the<\/a><\/strong> u<\/a>ltimate<\/a> Office 365 migration experience to your clients? Download our Ultimate Office 365 Migration Guide for MSPs<\/a><\/strong><\/h3>\n

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How can we get this done easily?<\/h2>\n

The solution to all of these problems is the Minimal Hybrid Configuration (sometimes called Express migration). Introduced by Microsoft in 2016, Minimal Hybrid Configuration further improves and simplifies the migration process, allowing you to configure just a subset of hybrid features to enable mailbox migration from Exchange Server to Office or Microsoft 365 without the unnecessary administrative efforts required by a Full Hybrid deployment. The Minimal Hybrid Configuration option is best for clients who want to keep directory synchronization in place and move all their mailboxes to Exchange Online in a short amount of time, as it performs a one-time sync of all users and then migrates their mailboxes to Office 365 with minimal disruption.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s important to note that you can only use a Minimal Hybrid Configuration if you have never used a Full Hybrid deployment. If you previously configured a Full Hybrid Configuration, then the Hybrid Configuration Wizard will not present you with the Minimal Hybrid option.<\/p>\n

Before we outline the steps involved in the Minimal Hybrid Configuration, let\u2019s first note some features that are excluded from this configuration:<\/p>\n