Office 365 Overview

SLPS IT currently operates a large, highly available, on-premises Exchange  messaging system, which hosts over 5,000 mailboxes. Maintaining a large messaging system on-premises requires a lot of resources including staff, data storage, and servers. I requested the exploration of hosted messaging systems as an alternative for our current premises-based Exchange system in order to provide a highly-reliable environment as well as to provide cost savings.  After analysis of a number of alternatives, the accepted recommendation was to utilize Microsoft’s Office 365 hosted Exchange solution for education, while maintaining an on-premises-based version of Exchange in what is referred to as a “hybrid” configuration. Our final enviroment will be a cloud solution.

SLPS IT department is now in the process of migrating staff currently utilizing Microsoft Exchange/Outlook for e-mail and calendaring to Microsoft Office 365.  Cost savings, additional storage capability for individual mailboxes, better business continuity design, and additional functionality are some of the major reasons this is a positive direction. In addition, hosting our email solution with Microsoft will provide additional benefits as the major competitors offering this service continue to increase the level of service and the features provided.

This migration has a goal of completion by the end of the Summer 2014 school year.