Changes to hot recipients throttling in Exchange Online →

March 31, 2021 Nathan OBryan

I expect we all know there are limits to what you can and cannot do with your Exchange Online mailbox. We all know there is a limit to how many emails you can send and receive, how much storage you can use, how much data you can move into or out of Exchange Online, and how big each individual email can be. However, I find that few Exchange Online administrators know exactly what those limits are, how they work, why they are there, or what you can do about them.

Microsoft is currently in the process of enforcing some of these limits that have not previously been enforced. I thought this would be a good time to go though the limits that are in place for your Exchange Online mailboxes, and what you can do if you find yourself in a situation where those limits are negatively impacting your organization.

Climbing the Auth Ladder in Azure AD: Rung 0

July 27, 2020 Nathan OBryan

On a recent Friday morning my friend and colleague Joe Stocker (@ITGuySoCal) posted a picture of a slide showing Office 365 identity best practices on Twitter. That tweet got me thinking about doing what turned into this blog post series, “Climbing the Auth Ladder in Azure AD”

New Features in Office 365 Message Encryption →

November 29, 2017 Nathan OBryan

I have long been interested in encryption. I started off my IT career in the United States Marine Corps where I had a Top-Secret security clearance and frequently worked with classified message traffic. During this time, I learned a lot about the rules of encryption and security. Most of what I learned, however, is that encryption is incredibly hard to do correctly.

Working with Azure Building Blocks

November 20, 2017 Nathan OBryan

In a previous series of blog posts, I started exploring Azure Resource Manager (ARM) as a tool for automating the deployments of resources within Azure. ARM is, as far as I can tell, a great tool. The problem with using ARM is its complicated to use. I can’t claim to have really mastered the art of deploying resources in Azure with ARM myself. Hopefully in the fairly near future I'll have an Azure project that will force me to figure out the more advanced features and functionality for ARM.

Skype for Business Hybrid Options →

April 12, 2017 Nathan OBryan

I have spent most of the last six years of my professional life configuring Exchange hybrid deployments for organizations looking to move their email into Office 365. Speaking from the perspective of someone who has set it up repeatedly, Exchange hybrid is straight forward. You take your on-premises Exchange organization’s and run the Hybrid Connectivity Wizard (HCW) to connect to Office 365. I suppose there is more to it than that, but this blog post is not the place to go into those details.

In this blog post, I want to talk about the hybrid options for Skype for Business. Hybrid for Skype for Business is a much newer offering from Microsoft, and in my opinion (as someone who has not set it up for hundreds of customers) much more complex.

What Does “Supported” Mean to Microsoft? →

March 27, 2017 Nathan OBryan

There are a few words Microsoft likes to use in several different situations. “Federated” is a great example of this. Federated can mean several different things in the Microsoft world, and it can sometimes be hard to tell what sort of “federation” you’re talking about.

“Supported” is another word Microsoft uses to mean different things in different situations, and what I’d like to talk about in this blog post.

The support cycle for Microsoft products has long been a point of contention for enterprise customers. Too long, too short, too many updates, not enough updates — I've heard every sort of complaint you can imagine, and I might even agree with many of them. Can you call Microsoft to get help with an “unsupported” configuration? Will you get patches for software that is no longer supported? Is Microsoft still developing new features for your software? Is it safe to run software after it is out of support?

Exploring Azure Stack →

March 17, 2017 Nathan OBryan

The cloud! We get it. Specialization has been the way of the world since the industrial revolution, and IT isn't immune from that trend.

The financial model makes sense for software companies and their customers. The support model makes sense for IT departments. Cloud makes sense for everyone…except when it doesn’t.

The problem with "all cloud all the time" is some things must remain on-premises. If you are a regular reader, you've figured out that I have a love-hate relationship with the cloud. There is a lot of upside to moving some workloads into cloud services. I’m also a firm believer that the cloud has considerable downsides.

New Exchange Online migration options →

December 28, 2016 Nathan OBryan

Microsoft is constantly updating and improving services; it’s a hallmark of Office 365. The constant Office 365 updates are great for me, providing new content and tips to share with you on a regular basis.

The Microsoft Exchange team recently made significant improvements in moving on-premises email from Exchange to Exchange Online. Here’s a breakdown of the new Exchange migration options for Office 365.

New Features in Office Pro Plus →

November 29, 2016 Nathan OBryan

This is a blog post I never thought I'd write, and just a short time ago, I couldn’t have imagined it would be something that you'd want to spend 10 minutes reading. Turns out “the cloud” really does keep us on our toes.

Recently I’ve seen some new features in Office Pro Plus, and they are pretty cool. I’m just as surprised as anyone to be interested in PowerPoint and Word updates, but stranger things have happened I guess. In this blog post, I will go into detail on recent Office Pro Plus updates. I’ll talk about some new features I discovered and how they're improving the Office product.

Introducing Microsoft Teams →

November 8, 2016 Nathan OBryan

On November 2, Microsoft introduced “Microsoft Teams,” a new collaboration suite within Office 365. Office 365 already has several different “collaboration” tools available, so what’s new about Teams and why do you need another way to collaborate?

In this blog post, I’m going to break down what I know about Teams so far by addressing common questions and what the future holds for Teams and other collaboration tools in and out of Office 365.

New and Advanced Features for Azure Active Directory Connect →

October 26, 2016 Nathan OBryan

Identity management is a huge part of any organization's migration into “the cloud.” Sure, you can move your email, your IM and presence, your document libraries, maybe even your voice and video services into Office 365. But unless your organization is very small, identity management will still take place in your own on-premises Active Directory.

Since the introduction of Office 365, and even before that with the ironically named “BPOS,” Microsoft has had several different solutions for cloud identity management. These solutions have ranged from bad to confusing. The solutions that have been easy to use have lacked good functionality, and the solutions with enterprise functionality have been difficult and costly to deploy.

Manage Office 365 Groups with PowerShell →

October 19, 2016 Nathan OBryan

There are a few very compelling reasons to move to Office 365, and in my opinion, Office 365 Groups are at or near the top of that list. Office 365 Groups combine resources from across Office 365 in ways that are not possible on-premises to give end users interesting new functionality.

Originally, Microsoft envisioned Office 365 Groups as resources that did not need much, if anything, in the way of administrative control. The idea was that end users should be able to control their collaborative experience without pesky admins getting in their way. This, of course, is a ridiculous concept that Microsoft has since corrected. Now Office 365 administrators have the controls necessary to ensure Groups are being used in accordance with organizational data usage policies within their Office 365 tenants.

AD FS in Windows Server 2016 →

October 12, 2016 Nathan OBryan

With the impending release of Windows Server 2016, we will soon have a new version of AD FS available to use with our various cloud deployments. I thought this would be a good time to start looking at the new features and functionality of Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS) in the new version of Windows Server.

In this post, I’m going to introduce three new features to AD FS in Windows Server 2016: The upgrade process, improved auditing, and the AD FS rapid restore tool. In a future blog post (after Windows Server 2016 is released), I’ll dive into the specifics of setting up and using each of these features.

Using Multi-Factor Authentication for Office 365 →

September 27, 2016 Nathan OBryan

Multi-factor authentication has been available, at least for users with administrator roles assigned, in Office 365 since June 2013. The problem is that there is a confusing warren of options and configurations that greatly affect the MFA experience an Office 365 user will, or will not, see. In this blog post, I will explain what configurations you need and what MFA experience you will get based on those configurations.

Office 365 Hold Your Own Key →

September 7, 2016 Nathan OBryan

Encryption is hard. There is really no way around that fact.

One of the great benefits of Office 365, or any cloud product, is that these complex solutions are deployed and maintained for you by those who are best qualified to make them work. The downside to having someone else deploy and run your IT solutions is the lack of control you have over your information. You don’t really know who has access to your information when you’re moving it to the cloud.