The latest ransomware victims: The City of West Haven Connecticut and Onslow Water and Sewer Authority. The best defenses are multiple layers of protection, following best practices and end users training. Even with the best defenses having an air-gapped back-up is key to effectively recovering from an attack. Security experts say that since then end […]
Office 365 Mailbox Size Increase to 100GB
Big news today from Microsoft. The default mailbox size for Exchange Online E3 and E5 users is increasing from 50GB to 100GB . The default mailbox size for Exchange Online E3 and E5 users is increasing from 50GB to 100GB. If a mailbox has been assigned a non-default quota (for any of the 3 quota values) […]
Why Migrate to Office 365? Are You Late?
It’s almost 2017 and it’s almost certain that you have heard about Office 365? What exactly are the top reasons why your company should move to Office 365? Well, we could likely write an entire book on the many positive reasons but let’s stick with 3 for the sake of time – and we actually […]
Azure AD Domain Services in Public Preview
The future is coming folks and Microsoft is making it easier than ever. On October 14, 2015 the Azure team launched in Public Preview the Azure AD Domain Services. Basically, this allows any current Active Directory topology to be easily extended to the Azure cloud. Why is this exciting? Well, it’s an entirely new concept […]
ADFS, DirSync, Azure AD Connect? What’s the Best Way to Connect On-Premise AD to Office 365?
So maybe you are planning an Office 365 deployment, knee deep already or you want to connect your already deployed Office 365 tenant to your on-premises Active Directory environment. What’s the answer for password and directory synchronization? DirSync used to be the defacto standard for easy quick Office 365 and Active Directory Sync without the hassle of […]
Install Office 365 Professional Plus on Remote Desktop Server (RDS)
Since the second half of 2014 Microsoft released support of Office 365 ProPlus in an RDS/TS environment. This installation technique uses the ODT tool to perform a Shared Activation. Shared Computer Activation is enabled during the installation of Office 365 ProPlus using the Office Deployment Tool. Once enabled, Office installs without being activated. When a user signs […]
High Availability and Uptime for Cloud Services – Why a Financially Backed SLA is a must!
Many companies are moving their services to the “cloud” and with this move comes the need to understand a critical term that separates the proverbial men from the boys! This term is high-availability (HA) which simply means any system or component that is continuously operational for a desirably long length of time. HA is often paired with […]
It’s a Peering Issue!
Many are unfamiliar with how the internet works. In sum, the internet is simply a massive network of billions of devices connected together over TCP/IP. Connecting these networks requires peering agreements between different Internet Service Providers (ISP). These peering agreements are arrangements by which ISPs agree to carry traffic. These peering arrangements have always been the […]
Convert EOP On-Premise to Office 365 Hosted Mailboxes
Many organization utilize Exchange Online Protection (EOP) for their on-premises Exchange mail scrubbing and filtration. The question becomes, what to do when you want to transition your EOP from on-premise and convert to cloud only mailboxes. The answer might surprise you. 1. Pointed MX back at on premises server. Waited 2 hours. 2. Disabled Standalone […]
Cloud-Hosted Lync Enterprise Voice Coming in 2014?
We are just days away from the 2014 Microsoft Lync Conference. Lync Conference is the premier worldwide gathering of the entire Lync community, coming together to learn, share and connect. With speakers drawn from the world’s top Lync and UC experts, including engineers from Microsoft, consultants from the MVP, and Partner communities, Lync Conference 2014 […]