E-Guide

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Migrating to Office 365 requires planning, pilot-testing

Google Apps vs. Office 365 for business email systems

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n this expert e-guide, see a side-by-side comparison of Google Apps and Micro-soft Office 365. Additionally, learn the ins and outs of migrating email to Office 365,

including what to expect in terms of planning and testing.

I

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Migrating to Office 365 requires planning, pilot-testing

Google Apps vs. Office 365 for business email systems

CHOOSE AN ENTERPRISE CLOUD APP SUITE AND PULL OFF A SUCCESSFUL MIGRATION

MIGRATING TO OFFICE 365 REQUIRES PLANNING, PILOT-TESTING

Contributor Tom Nolle explains why companies migrating to Office 365 need to plan, pilot-test and verify at every step.

In most companies today, email is a critical business tool, but all too often, companies fail to take a strategic approach to managing it. At the same time, many companies value the central coordination and address management available with Microsoft Exchange but don’t want to run a mail server 24x7.

With  Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft has entered the hosted/cloud email hosting market, and it’s now among the company’s fastest-growing products. As with any such changes, though, it’s important to do the Office 365 migration right; email communication is too critical to put at risk. Companies need to plan their migrations carefully and pilot-test and verify at every step.

EXAMINING EMAIL STRATEGIES

The dominant business email strategies in place today include standard (In-ternet or in-house Apache) email hosting, Exchange hosting or running an

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Migrating to Office 365 requires planning, pilot-testing

Google Apps vs. Office 365 for business email systems

CHOOSE AN ENTERPRISE CLOUD APP SUITE AND PULL OFF A SUCCESSFUL MIGRATION

in-house Exchange server. The best approach for migration varies among those strategies; in some cases, it may mean migrating separate groups of email users in different ways with different tools.

For an Exchange user, the first consideration is  SharePoint  migration. Here the question is whether the company has customized SharePoint on its own or if its reseller has done it on their behalf. In cases where customization has been done for them, companies need to either fall back to a vanillaShare-Point Online or run their customization in Windows Azure, Microsoft’s cloud. Some custom tools (AviPoint, MetaVis, Quest and others) will migrate a cur-rent SharePoint structure, including (in most cases) metadata, to SharePoint Online.

Companies need to plan their Office 365 migrations carefully, and pilot-test and verify at every step.

For companies that obtained Exchange through resellers, the first step should be contacting the reseller to see whether it has specific tools to facili-tate migrating to Office 365. Microsoft has its own set of online resources and tools, but companies that have worked with resellers will find that those resell-ers know their set-ups and have special tools available to facilitate migration. In addition, Microsoft has encouraged its resellers to migrate from providing

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Migrating to Office 365 requires planning, pilot-testing

Google Apps vs. Office 365 for business email systems

CHOOSE AN ENTERPRISE CLOUD APP SUITE AND PULL OFF A SUCCESSFUL MIGRATION

Small Business Server to offering their own Office 365 toolkits.The second step is to establish the Active Directory linkage for Office 365

and other applications for use with  single sign-on  (SSO), if applicable. The challenge here is that Active Directory will still have to be maintained on prem-ises, which requires federating the sign-on with Office 365 and also supporting the other applications. Companies that aren’t using Active Directory now may not want to jump into it internally at the same time they’re contemplating mi-grating to Office 365. At the least, it means losing the cloud-only model that they may be seeking. Companies may wish to explore other popular single-sign-on models for Microsoft’s applications (Centrify, Okta, Ping) if they want SSO capability, especially if they’re moving to a cloud-only architecture.

In cases where organizations already have hosted Exchange from third-party providers, it’s best to check the host’s documentation to see how it sup-ports a migration between the hosted service and Exchange, and then treat the migration to Office 365 as an Exchange migration. The challenge organizations may face here is that the administrative processes available for an internal Ex-change migration may not all be available in the hosted version. Users report that their hosted Exchange providers generally don’t support their desire to mi-grate to Office 365, so don’t expect much help directly from providers. However,

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Migrating to Office 365 requires planning, pilot-testing

Google Apps vs. Office 365 for business email systems

CHOOSE AN ENTERPRISE CLOUD APP SUITE AND PULL OFF A SUCCESSFUL MIGRATION

many of the third-party tools listed earlier to facilitate SharePoint migration or SSO may be helpful.

Getting individual users migrated is facilitated by exporting the email and other data in the form of a PST file (in Outlook) for re-importing in Office 365. This mechanism nearly always works, but it requires a clean cutover between the hosted version of Exchange and Office 365. It’s best to do that over a week-end or holiday period, when users can afford to be without email for several days while the new setup is being populated and validated.

MEETING OFFICE 365 MIGRATION HURDLES

The biggest challenge in migrating to Office 365 comes for companies that aren’t Exchange users at all. In those cases, there’s a two-step process. The first is setting up the Office 365 hosted Exchange environment with SharePoint and SSO/Active Directory as needed; the second is the mailbox migration. For the first step, it’s best to consult standard books and tutorials on Exchange for the setup, and take the time necessary to establish and test the Office 365 configu-ration with some dummy mailboxes and user accounts first.

Migrating the users from POP3 or IMAP clients to Office 365 can be a truly knotty problem. For Outlook users, the approach of creating a PST file for

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Migrating to Office 365 requires planning, pilot-testing

Google Apps vs. Office 365 for business email systems

CHOOSE AN ENTERPRISE CLOUD APP SUITE AND PULL OFF A SUCCESSFUL MIGRATION

transferring mail and address books is fairly straightforward. For those who don’t use Outlook, the problem is likely to lie in the difficulty of getting this information moved. Anyone who has used multiple email clients has probably already encountered the low level of compatibility between them, and mailbox conversion tools are available, their value differs depending on what features are used and what mail clients are involved. The best recommendation from users is to secure several Outlook licenses and migrate first to Outlook, check the results of the move, and then migrate from Outlook to Office 365 using the processes described above.

The most important point in migrating to Office 365 is to pilot-test, migrate and verify at every step of the process. No tool or procedure should ever be ap-plied on live data without having checked it first with a contained set of test ac-counts populated with representative email samples and address book entries.

Also remember that the final step is to validate the mail settings themselves and the shared resources (Active Directory or other SSO, SharePoint, folders and file structures, etc.) before moving on to working with live data. Migrat-ing users in groups (by department, for example) can also ease the burden of migration and get users who interact regularly all moved at one time. A little planning will go a long way in securing a successful migration, and many users

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Migrating to Office 365 requires planning, pilot-testing

Google Apps vs. Office 365 for business email systems

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say Office 365 is worth the effort.

GOOGLE APPS VS. OFFICE 365 FOR BUSINESS EMAIL SYSTEMS

With comparable cloud-based productivity suites, Google and Micro-soft compete for enterprise users. In the Google Apps vs. Office 365 for business debate, which side are you on?

It’s easy to have an opinion on Google Apps vs. Office 365 based on personal bias. As an Office 365 MVP, I would give it the gold star. But Office 365 and Google Apps are both solid cloud-based business productivity options.

Google Apps and Office 365 have similar focus points to each product -- see table below -- with good companies and brilliant development teams working hard for enterprise consumers.

Both options offer comparable product suites with regard to the problems that business users face. 

I could go feature by feature and explain the pros and cons of each, but most

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Migrating to Office 365 requires planning, pilot-testing

Google Apps vs. Office 365 for business email systems

CHOOSE AN ENTERPRISE CLOUD APP SUITE AND PULL OFF A SUCCESSFUL MIGRATION

would agree that Microsoft tends to go for the overkill tool that fits all needs, versus Google Apps that shoots for a minimalist approach; it is part of the com-pany cultures of each and indicates the target audience each caters to. There are many admins who prefer a simplistic option, one that gets the job done with very little extra to distract.

Problem/require-ment

Google apps

Office 365

Browser Chrome Internet Explorer (and Edge on Windows 10)Word processing Docs Word 2013/2016 / Word App OnlineSpreadsheets Sheets Excel 2013/2016 / Excel App OnlinePresentations Slides PowerPoint 2013/2016 / PowerPoint App On-

lineEmail Gmail Exchange Online with Outlook / Outlook Web

App (soon to be Outlook on the Web)Collaborative sites Sites SharePoint OnlineCloud storage Drive OneDrive for BusinessInstant messaging Talk Skype for BusinessVideo collaboration Hangouts Skype for BusinessSocial collaboration Google+ YammerNote taking Keep OneNote

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Migrating to Office 365 requires planning, pilot-testing

Google Apps vs. Office 365 for business email systems

CHOOSE AN ENTERPRISE CLOUD APP SUITE AND PULL OFF A SUCCESSFUL MIGRATION

The companies’ approaches to search are a good example of the minimalist versus maximalist method to development. Google’s website has a search bar that basically hasn’t changed since the beginning -- the minimalist approach. Bing’s website is colorful and has a lot going on. Some love it, others feel it’s distracting. 

MONEY VS. ASSIMILATION

Although Microsoft and Google have similar one-to-one type productivity tools, from a business perspective, there are two main areas to focus on: cost and integration.

Office 365 has the ability to tie into your existing Active Directory (AD), and there is a way to synchronize directories with the Azure AD that you use for Office 365 management. Google Apps doesn’t offer these integration options. With many enterprise environments, in a mid- to large-size business, relying on AD for identity management, you can see how this would be a negative for Google Apps.

Since many organizations have an on-premises environment -- typically-running Exchange -- a company looking to move to Google Apps has to consider it an all-or-nothing move. Google Apps doesn’t have a hybrid option, unlike

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Migrating to Office 365 requires planning, pilot-testing

Google Apps vs. Office 365 for business email systems

CHOOSE AN ENTERPRISE CLOUD APP SUITE AND PULL OFF A SUCCESSFUL MIGRATION

Office 365 in which users can test the waters of cloud-based email -- onboard and offboard mailboxes. That’s not as intimidating as making a full cut to Google Apps; however, smaller businesses might not have much difficulty making a move of that sort. 

Over time, this may not matter, as more organizations begin to trust the cloud and move their entire IT infrastructure up. But for now, I see this as a win for Microsoft. Microsoft hosting full infrastructure options through Azure is another.

If I wanted to be completely fair, I would exclude Office 365 desktop appli-cations from the comparison, such as the Office productivity suite. However, Google has developed an online suite of word processing and spreadsheet apps that require Internet connectivity for use, whereas the Office suite can be installed locally on systems. So I believe that gives Microsoft an edge on the application side. Google has enabled offline editing functionality to compete with the locally installed application approach.

There is no single reason why end users use Google Apps as a shadow IT tool. It might be that they use Google Drive for document sharing, or have a Gmail account they use for unofficial email or collaboration business. They might use Dropbox or any other unapproved tool to avoid red tape and asking

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Migrating to Office 365 requires planning, pilot-testing

Google Apps vs. Office 365 for business email systems

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permission to get work done. It’s really a personal choice.From a pricing perspective, Google Apps has a much easier set of options

and a better price point. Google Apps is $5 per user per month, and apps with unlimited storage and Vault, for e-discovery covering email, chats, docs and files, is $10 per user per month. 

Office 365 on the other hand has a variety of Small Business -- up to 300 users -- and Enterprise plans with a bevy of different price points, optionsand features that range from $5 to $20 per user per month. Comparing the top line options between Google Apps, $10, and Business and Enterprise, $12.50 or $20, shows that Office 365 is more expensive, which matters to organizations that have a tight budget, such as schools and government offices.

After weighing Google Apps vs. Office 365, I say Office 365 is the better choice in a  business environment. I’m not of a minimalist mindset when it comes to enterprise-grade productivity tools, even if running in the cloud. I see more commitment from Microsoft on its Office 365 suite in terms ofcollabora-tion and communication. There is a greater reach for iPad and Android options for apps and the Office suite. Microsoft is committed to ensure people of all tech backgrounds -- Apple and Android worshippers -- can still access their Micro-soft tools. Microsoft isn’t ignoring the proliferation of non-Microsoft devices.

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Migrating to Office 365 requires planning, pilot-testing

Google Apps vs. Office 365 for business email systems

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Although Office 365 has a higher price tag, you get what you pay for, in my opinion. I appreciate that some organizations want to be different under the banner of saving money, but when you compare Google Apps vs. Office 365 for business, I cannot see Google Apps putting up much of a struggle against the rise of Office 365 -- it will remain the outlier option until eventually Office 365 wins users over.

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Migrating to Office 365 requires planning, pilot-testing

Google Apps vs. Office 365 for business email systems

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