Roadmap Your Exchange 2010 Upgrade
Whether Office or Exchange 2010 your suggested roadmap from SoftwareONE is the same – look to Office 365 – be sure to read our latest whitepaper today.
Learn MoreExchange 2010’s official End of Support (EoS) will occur on October 13, 2020. Although this seems like a faraway event for some IT teams, the reality is that organizations need to start planning to upgrade or migrate to Exchange Online today.
Although it’s still possible to use Exchange 2010 after EoS, delaying your upgrade can hinder your entire organization. After October 13th, Microsoft will stop releasing new features for Exchange 2010, which will prevent your organization from working at their maximum potential. In addition to this, bug fixes will no longer be available – even if they cause the entire program to malfunction.
However, the biggest downside of delaying your upgrade is exposing your organization to a plethora of security risks, as Exchange 2010 will never receive another security update.
There are serious consequences for organizations that fail to upgrade before Exchange 2010 reaches its end of support. However, many organizations aren’t sure how to begin their migration process, or what their ideal Exchange solution looks like. Read on to examine the upgrade options available to help you prepare for Exchange 2010’s end of support.
When planning your roadmap, it’s best to start with your end goal in mind. IT teams should ponder whether they’d benefit the most from a cloud, on-premise, or hybrid deployment. The ideal answer can differ from organization to organization, so let’s take a closer look at the three key ways to upgrade:
Migrating to the cloud is often the simplest upgrade option for Exchange 2010, and has certain best practices suited for businesses of any size. Businesses with less than 150 mailboxes (also known as seats) can upgrade in a week or less using cutover migration. Or, organizations with tens of thousands of mailboxes can use full hybrid migration to transfer all capabilities in a matter of weeks.
Organizations can enjoy many benefits and features through their Office 365 and Microsoft 365 subscriptions. To name a few:
Best of all, Office 365 eliminates many small, maintenance-related concerns that were present in many Exchange 2010 deployments. Since Office 365 is hosted in the cloud, there’s no need to purchase and maintain dedicated hardware. Additionally, Office 365 will automatically ensure your entire organization is up-to-date on security and product updates – and you’ll always be running the most recent edition of Exchange Online through your subscription.
While it’s generally recommended to migrate to Exchange Online to achieve the best value and user experience, some organizations choose to keep their Exchange deployment on-premises. This is often done to stay compliant with industry regulations, but some organizations may have unique business requirements that only a fully on-premises deployment can provide.
There are a few notable improvements that Exchange 2016 users will experience:
This method is most common for organizations that want to migrate their mailboxes to the cloud, but would still like to maintain an on-premise requirement. With this process, organizations will keep a small Exchange environment in their on-premise data center, which will allow them to meet any on-premise requirements for applications or devices not compatible with Exchange Online as well as make changes to Exchange receipts on-premises.
There are two primary ways to conduct this migration, which depend on when your upgrade process is slated to finish:
Organizations that are facing the end of support for Exchange 2010 have a few upgrade options to choose from. For some organizations, the right choice will be crystal clear. For others, the decision may be more nuanced and require the guidance of Microsoft experts. No matter what path you choose following Exchange 2010’s end of support, be sure to build a comprehensive roadmap that will guide your organization every step of the way.
Whether Office or Exchange 2010 your suggested roadmap from SoftwareONE is the same – look to Office 365 – be sure to read our latest whitepaper today.
Learn MoreLeave a comment to let us know what you think about this topic!
Leave a comment