Azure AD Connect

Boost your security with Hybrid Azure AD Join: From Zero to Conditional Access in one afternoon

"Alex, I work at a non-profit and I would love to take advantage of the better security in Microsoft 365 Business (we have Business Premium now), but it sounds like it is for "cloud-only" customers? Is that right?? We are using Office 365 for Exchange, but we can't go cloud-only...
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Adding Hybrid Exchange in retrospect (post-migration)

Sometimes organizations that have already migrated email to Office 365 using a third party tool or a cutover method would like to "go hybrid" and install Azure AD Connect after the fact. Usually the driving factors here are password sync and Single Sign-On with the local domain.To their disappointment,...
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Enable the Archive Mailbox and modify the default retention policy (for cloud-only and hybrid users)

In any subscription that includes Exchange Online Archiving, such as Office 365 E3 or Microsoft 365 Business (as well as any subscription to which the Archiving add-on is applied), it is possible to enable an unlimited storage container for those hoarders out there, known as an archive mailbox. I'm looking...
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Migrate from Windows Server Essentials with Azure AD integration to Windows Server Standard and Azure AD Connect

I have a love-hate relationship with Windows Server Essentials. It's a great product with a lot of goodness baked in, but there are some real limits to it as well. On the one hand, Remote Web Access, Client PC backup, the Azure Recovery plugins, and so on, add a TON...
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How to migrate from Office 365 Essentials Dashboard Integration to Azure AD Connect

As we've previously discussed on this blog, Windows Server Essentials comes with the ability to integrate with Azure AD & Office 365, using the Essentials Dashboard plugin. It is important to know that this technology is very different from the more widely...
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Soft (SMTP) vs. Hard (immutableID) matching with Azure AD Connect

If you are setting up Directory Synchronization from scratch (there are no users in the cloud yet), then Azure AD Connect will be pretty straightforward--the on-premises objects (and passwords if you choose that option) will be synchronized to the cloud, and you can assign services to the user accounts from...
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