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There is a direct Migration Wizard under the Exchange Admin Centre. &nbsp;You need to make sure Outlook Anywhere is working and that you have a valid 3rd party SSL Cert installed on your server or the migration won't work.<br />
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It's relatively easy to migrate, and free!<br />
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Once in the Exchange Admin Center in the 365 Portal, under Recipients, go to Migration and follow the Wizard (Click on the + symbol and select Migrate to Exchange Online), fill in the relevant details and if all is good, it should complete happily. &nbsp;Start the Migration Batch.<br />
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You can use <a href="https://testconnectivity.microsoft.com" rel="ugc nofollow">https://testconnectivity.microsoft.com</a>&nbsp;to verify if all will work smoothly using the Outlook Connectivity test.<br />
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Once the sync is under way, plan to complete the switch over a weekend by changing the DNS records to point the MX records to 365, then block inbound port 25 to the server to prevent further emails arriving on the server and leave the Sync / Migration Batch running for at least 24 hours after blocking the port to catch everything. &nbsp;Also advise users to stop sending emails over that weekend or they may get lost.<br />
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Once 24 hours is up, you should be able to stop the Sync / Migration Batch, then deleted the Migration Batch.<br />
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Then disable mailboxes on your server (don't delete them as it will delete the AD users too) and then delete the autodiscover virtual directory on the server using Exchange Management Shell:<br />
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get-autodiscovervirtualdir<wbr />ectory | remove-autodiscovervirtual<wbr />directory<br />
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Then on the Monday (or on the Sunday if you feel so inclined), create a new profile in Outlook (don't delete the existing one for safety's sake) and setup the new 365 mailbox and let the mail suck down.<br />
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That should get you migrated.<br />
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There is a guide available too for this which you can follow here:<br />
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<a href="https://support.office.com/en-gb/article/Cutover-migration-to-Office-365-9496e93c-1e59-41a8-9bb3-6e8df0cd81b4?ui=en-US&rs=en-GB&ad=GB" rel="ugc">https://support.office.com/en-gb/article/Cutover-migration-to-Office-365-9496e93c-1e59-41a8-9bb3-6e8df0cd81b4?ui=en-US&rs=en-GB&ad=GB</a><br />
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Alan
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so we will always still need a server on site running AD?
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Yes - if you want to keep computers as part of a domain for file-level permissions to documents etc, then AD is a great way to manage and also very handy for computer management using Group Policies, but if you plan to ditch the server in favour of a NAS for example, then you can kill the AD server and rely on NAS file / folder permissions, migrating the user profiles on the computers to a Workgroup.<br />
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All depends on what direction you are taking the users, but you will lose some good features if you ditch AD.
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the migration wizard is for migrating the users from on prem to cloud<br />
but i mean the steps needed to get the 2 servers seeing each other<br />
do i not need to install hybrid wizards etc
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Depends what you are planning.<br />
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What are you hoping to do?<br />
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With 12 users, I would just move everything to 365 as it will be easier to manage. &nbsp;If you plan to sync AD and 365 passwords so that you have a single sign-on for both, you'll need AD locally and an AD server somewhere in the Cloud for redundancy because if your local AD server goes down, without a cloud-based server, no-one will be able to login to 365. &nbsp;This route is more complicated and costly and for 12 users, questionably worthwhile.<br />
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Alan
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so the directory sync isnt included by default?<br />
or the Azure AD?<br />
do i just add in my domain<br />
add the dns records<br />
and migrate email
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By default - no. &nbsp;If you want password sync for 12 users, it's a lot of extra work for very little gain.<br />
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Personally, I'd just perform a cutover migration (as per my initial post) and then migrate everything off your server. &nbsp;You can set strong passwords on 365 and then set them to never need changing, set Outlook to remember the passwords and then you'll never need to know the password again.<br />
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Worst case, you reset a password down the line, update Outlook and any mobiles and then forget about it until they can't remember it again, then repeat the process. &nbsp;For 12 users, this is the simplest, easiest approach. &nbsp;If you had hundreds / thousands of users, then I'd seriously consider AD sync.<br />
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Alan
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so to migrate the mailboxes no link is needed<br />
it does it all over the internet<br />
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do i just add my domain inside domains in 365
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<div class="content wysiwyg-content">
i have a very old 2008 standard server FE<br />
i have just signed up to O365 with email<br />
What is the best method to migrate my 12 mailboxes?<br />
Should i setup as hybrid and some sort of directory sync<br />
We will keep the server to it dies then maybe just replace it with a cheap server or desktop<br />
or is there other options like AD in the cloud etc
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i have a very old 2008 standard server FE
i have just signed up to O365 with email
What is the best method to migrate my 12 mailboxes?
Should i setup as hybrid and some sort of directory sync
We will keep the server to it dies then maybe just replace it with a cheap server or desktop
or is there other options like AD in the cloud etc

moving on prem exchange mailboxes to 365 from windows server standard FE

Exchange is the server side of a collaborative application product that is part of the Microsoft Server infrastructure. Exchange's major features include email, calendaring, contacts and tasks, support for mobile and web-based access to information, and support for data storage.

Exchange

Active Directory (AD) is a Microsoft brand for identity-related capabilities. In the on-premises world, Windows Server AD provides a set of identity capabilities and services, and is hugely popular (88% of Fortune 1000 and 95% of enterprises use AD). This topic includes all things Active Directory including DNS, Group Policy, DFS, troubleshooting, ADFS, and all other topics under the Microsoft AD and identity umbrella.

Active Directory

Office 365 is a group of software plus services subscriptions that provides productivity software and related services to its subscribers. Office 365 allows the use of Microsoft Office apps on Windows and OS X, provides storage space on Microsoft's cloud storage service OneDrive, and grants 60 Skype minutes per month. Office 365 includes e-mail and social networking services through hosted versions of Exchange Server, Skype for Business Server, SharePoint and Office Online, integration with Yammer, as well as access to the Office software. All of Office 365's components can be managed and configured through an online portal; users can be added manually, imported from a CSV file, or Office 365 can be set up for single sign-on with a local Active Directory using Active Directory Federation Services.