Active Directory Rights Management Services (AD RMS) is a system that allows users to apply Information Rights Management (IRM) protection to content, such as email messages and Office documents. Once content is rights protected it can only be used by specific individuals in specific circumstances, depending on the template that is applied to the content.
Read MoreWith the release of Exchange 2013 Microsoft has adopted a new update process. It’s been almost two and a half years that this update process has been in place, and there is still a considerable lack of understanding in the community about the process. There is so little understanding that I’ve seen conversations between several different groups of really smart Exchange experts this week that included tons of misinformation and misunderstanding. In this post I am going to try to clear up all the questions and lay it all out for you.
Read MoreIn the first two articles (Part 1, Part 2) in this series, I gave a very basic explanation of how a couple of different types of encryption work and introduced the first two type of encryption in Exchange Online. In part three of this series I am going to talk about Office 365 Message Encryption.
Read MoreIf you’re reading this, I’m going to go out on a limb and assume you’re familiar with the internet. You know it can get pretty darn harry out there. Any information you put out there can be taken from your control at any time. You don’t have to be a bad guy to want to keep you information private. Whatever your reasons, your interest in keeping your data to yourself may be a factor inhibiting you from moving to Exchange Online. In this article I am going to explain the different type of encryption you can use in Exchange Online, and how best to employ each of them.
Read MoreIn Mid-2014 Microsoft introduced a new encryption technology to Office 365 that they code named “Fort Knox”. Fort Knox is a blob encryption technology that is applied to SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business, and as I am primarily an Exchange guy I was not really aware of Fort Knox until recently. After taking a look at this technology, I think it is a pretty nifty bit of security that Office 365 customers, and potential Office 365 customers, should know about.
Read MoreAnyone who has ever done an Exchange Online hybrid deployment can tell you that process can be frustrating. Before the Hybrid Configuration Wizard the process was long and complicated with too many steps and too many places to make a small mistake. With the advent of the HCW the process became much more of a “black box” where the guy doing the deployment really didn’t know what configuration changes were being made, so misconfigurations became very hard to troubleshoot. Add on top of all that the fact that you, and the person doing the deployment really have no control or visibility into the Microsoft side of thing, and a hybrid deployment quickly turns into a difficult task.
Read MoreWhen I migrate customers to Exchange Online I always recommend they maintain an Exchange hybrid server. There are several reasons for this recommendation; it’s much easier to manage SMTP addresses with an Exchange server on-premises, and it’s much easier to get your mailboxes back out of Office 365 if you maintain a hybrid server. To me, one of the great advantages of Office 365 is that I have never felt Microsoft was trying to “trap” customers in the service. They have always made it fairly easy to move mailboxes in and out of Office 365.
Read MoreOn the morning of January 1, 2015 I received notification that I have been awarded my first MVP. Seems to me to be a pretty decent way to kick off a new year.
Microsoft’s MVP program is an award to recognize “exceptional, independent community leaders who share their passion, technical expertise, and real-world knowledge of Microsoft products with others”. I am honored to join their ranks.
Read MoreOne great feature of Office 365 that many may not be aware of is the partner admin center. This gives Office 365 deployment partners who meet specific requirements the ability to have a connection into their customers Office 365 tenant with the customers permission. I have the ability to send a customer a link that will allow them to grant me access into their Office 365 tenant using my own Office 365 credentials, making it much easier for me to do deployment and support work for them.
Read MoreMicrosoft has done a great job of ensuring that hybrid Exchange Online/Office 365 tenants have almost all of the features and functionality of on-premises Exchange Server deployments, without the need for running and maintaining their own servers. However, there is still one major gap companies consistently run into as they move to a hybrid Exchange Online/Office 365 environment: distribution list (DL) management.
Read MoreDeploying ADFS for use with Office 365 is intended to give users a single sign-on experience. As anyone who has deployed Office 365 will tell you, you don’t really get true single sign-on. Depending on the type of client you are using, your “single sign-on” experience can vary pretty widely. The Lync and CRM online clients do give users single sign-on, but Outlook does not. Sitting in the middle you have the experience of logging into the Office 365 Portal.
Read MoreToday I am happy to announce the first meeting on the Portland Office 365 Users Group has been scheduled. On January 29th at 10:00 am we will hold our first meeting at the Microsoft office in downtown Portland.
Read MoreGroups is a new collaboration feature within Exchange Online that is now live on at least some tenants. I have “First Release” turned on for my Office 365 tenant, and I now have Groups available so I figure that means I am free to talk about what this new feature is and what it does.
Read MoreWhen syncing your users to your Office 365 tenant via DirSync there are a number of reason that their login ID and primary SMTP address can end up being set to @tenant.onmicrosoft.com. Maybe you started DirSync before the domain was accepted in Office 365, or maybe your users UPNs are set to something other than the domain name you want to use as their primary SMTP address. Whatever the reason, once users are synced and end up with the wrong login ID, it can be a pain to change them especially for a large number of users. One way to fix that problem is with the following PowerShell command run after you connect to Azure AD via the Azure AD module.
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