The BAE Silversky to Office 365 Migration Hinges on One Support Ticket

Of all the hosted Exchange platforms you will migrate customers off of, BAE Silversky is one of the friendlier ones. The migration is straightforward and the upload speeds are far quicker than a typical Exchange environment. The one thing that decides whether the job runs smoothly or stalls is a single permissions step: getting impersonation rights onto your admin account, which on Silversky usually means a support ticket. Get that right and the rest of the BitTitan run is routine.

This is a high-level overview of the migration steps using BitTitan. For the complete step-by-step guide with screenshots, follow this playbook PDF (opens in new tab). The guide is specific to BitTitan, but the same concepts apply with any tool.

Stand up the destination tenant#

• Provision a net-new tenant in Office 365. It is provisioned with the .onmicrosoft.com domain. Purchase it directly or under the CSP model through a distributor.
• Add and verify the domain. In the 365 Admin Center, go to Setup > Domains > Add Domains, then add the domain and verify with a TXT record.
• Add users and apply licenses one at a time, by bulk upload via PowerShell, by bulk upload via CSV, or through AD Connect setup (opens in new tab).

To bulk import users with passwords:

Import-Csv -Path 'FilePath' | foreach {New-MsolUser -UserPrincipalName $_.UserPrincipalName -FirstName $_.FirstName -LastName $_.LastName -DisplayName $_.DisplayName -Password $_.Password -ForceChangePassword $False}

The step that gates everything: source impersonation rights#

The admin account needs impersonation rights on the source mailboxes so a single account can access them all. There are two ways to get there.

Option 1: Manually, in the Provisor console. For smaller migrations, you can set this per user:

1. Log in to Provisor.
2. Double-click the user > Packages > highlight Exchange > Edit > click "Launch Mailbox Rights Management" > add the account and grant it Read and Full access.

Option 2: Through Silversky support. For larger migrations, email supportdb@silversky.com and have them apply mailbox rights across all mailboxes at once. A template that works:

Hey Team,
Partner:
Customer:
BAE Product: (ex. BAE Systems 2010 Exchange 25GB)
I am performing a migration for this customer. In checking the admin user for BAE, I see that they do not have sufficient permission to impersonate the users mailboxes (This avoids us having to get creds for each user). We just need to run this powershell script for the admin user for this account:
Can you please run this command for the account:
Get-Mailbox -ResultSize Unlimited | Add-MailboxPermission -AccessRights FullAccess -User
Please let me know if you have any additional questions.

Upgrade software on workstations. If applicable, install the latest Office 365 software on all user workstations.

Set up a BitTitan account#

• Create a login (opens in new tab) for a BitTitan username and password.
• Create a customer by entering the primary domain name and customer name.

Push the Outlook reconfiguration agent#

BitTitan includes a tool called Deployment Pro that reconfigures Outlook profiles after the migration. You can push it out through GPO or by email.

• Decide on GPO or email delivery. GPO instructions (opens in new tab) or email instructions (opens in new tab).
• Track users with the agent installed. Devices register and match a user's email address to a computer in a one-to-one relationship. Each computer reports a "heartbeat."

Prepare the migration endpoints#

• Set up source and destination endpoints in the BitTitan portal. Find the source endpoint under "Find My Service Provider" > "Silversky." The destination is Office 365. Provide admin credentials.
• Autodiscover users. Clean up the user list as needed and remediate UPN issues by clicking the pencil icon next to a user.
• Verify credentials. This tells you whether there are errors. The most typical errors are insufficient impersonation rights or wrong admin credentials. A successful check shows "Completed Verification."
• Subscribe users. Select all users, click the last icon on the top toolbar (three lines), and choose "Apply User Migration Bundle." It takes 3 to 5 minutes to propagate.

Prestage, then plan the MX cutover#

Unlike a GoDaddy migration, this is a true MX cutover. Move the bulk of the data first, then flip the record.

• Run a prestage pass bringing mail from the Exchange server to Office 365. This brings over the bulk of the data before the MX cutover. Set it prior to 60 days. Any user whose status changes to "Failed" is almost 100% due to a server timeout. Simply re-run those users.

• Define the MX cutover time to 365. Preferably during non-business hours. Go to 365 Admin Center > Setup > Domains to find the MX record you will need to change. The format follows: Domain-com.mail.protection.outlook.com. Take note of any third-party connectors for email filtering such as Symantec or Barracuda. Look up the steps for creating connectors in 365; these providers usually have step-by-step guides you can find easily.

Full pass and MX cutover#

• Run a full pass to bring over the remaining mail, calendars, contacts, notes, and rules. This should not take long as long as the prestage pass completed. Once the full pass completes, run up to 10 delta passes to collect residual mail.
• Switch the MX records. Point the records at 365. Do not green-light this step if there is still a lot of data to move over. Test inbound and outbound mail flow.

Post-migration cleanup#

• Confirm the DMA agent ran successfully. DMA status goes into "Completed" after successful authentication by the end user. Any user who fails authentication three times goes into an "error" status. Reschedule those users and make sure they have the correct 365 password.

• Hand out mobile reconfiguration guides. Mobile users can set up their mailbox on their phone with these guides: iPhone (opens in new tab) and Android (opens in new tab).