Client story Facilities Management Company Overhauls Email Environment
By Insight UK / 22 Jan 2021 / Topics: Collaboration Microsoft 365
By Insight UK / 22 Jan 2021 / Topics: Collaboration Microsoft 365
Due to rapid organic growth, a Facilities Management company was running three separate email environments. The IT team was experiencing multiple problems trying to make the three environments work as one. As well as struggling to keep communication running smoothly, the business was worried about the security risk posed by outdated platforms and hardware. The environment was also experiencing regular outages, which was proving detrimental to the company. Insight overhauled the entire environment and helped the IT team successfully migrate all staff onto the cloud-based Exchange Online platform.
The client was running three email environments, two of which were no longer supported by Microsoft and running on outdated hardware – presenting a serious security risk.
Making the email environments work together was challenging. A user with an account in one environment would need to be added as a contact to the other two, and then included in the appropriate distribution lists. The large contact lists posed a security risk, and the forwarding system was very complex. These issues were causing frequent outages – often up to 12 hours at a time.
The client was keen to migrate all users to Exchange Online as quickly as possible, but remedial work needed to be done first.
Some users had three different identities and these needed to be merged before progress could be made. Due to the complex email forwarding rules, this needed to be done very carefully, to maintain the flow of information between users.
During the migration, Insight encountered an issue with a firewall, which was preventing web traffic being moved from the old mail server to the new Hybrid Exchange server. As the firewall supplier wasn’t able to resolve the issue, Insight engaged a third party, which installed virtual firewalls to handle the traffic and bypass the firewall appliance.
The end result was a smooth mail migration process, with end-users easily updated on progress.
A UK-wide Facilities Management company.
8,000 employees
Merge three separate email environments and migrate all staff onto Microsoft Exchange Online.
Consulting and Migration Services.
