GoDaddy Office365 to Microsoft Office365 Migration- Part 12

Office365CrossTenantMigration - Get ready for the cut over

The next step is to get ready for a cut over. On a high level, cut over involves the below activities.

1. Disabling access for all users on existing tenant, including external users

2. Remove all users from all collabration spaces, including external users

3. Perform the final data sync for SharePoint as well as Email

4. Remove the SMTP domain name from all recipients

5. Remove the domain activedirectory.in from GoDaddy tenant

6. Add the domain activedirectory.in to the target Microsoft Tenant

7. Update DNS records

8. Update the UPN/Primary SMTP address of all users

9. Wait for DNS replication to resume inbound mail flow

10. Update the old legacyexchangeDN as x500 address for each user on target tenant

11. Handover the credentials for users to start connecting with the new tenant

12. Add the external users back to Team/Team Channels so that they will receive a new invitation to join the new teams hosted on target tenant

As a preparetion to cut over activities, We should do the below activities

1. Access to DNS service provider to update the DNS records

2. Reduce the TTL value of potential records which may get changed. In this specific case of GoDaddy O365 to Microsoft O365 cross tenant migration, MX and many other records remains unchanged as the MX record is pointed as a cname generated based on the domain name. For example, MX record for activedirectory.in domain will be "activedirectory-in.mail.protection.outlook.com" and will remain the same even if you move the domain from one tenant to another.

3. User Communication - Its important to keep the users aware about the upcoming migration and how should they connect to the new tenant once cut over is done.

4. External User Communication - Its also important to let the external users know about this migration as the teams URLs or SharePoint online URLs will get changed.

5. How to communicate new password to the end users as we cannot use email at this stage

6. Enable channels for getting a support from Microsoft or DNS service provider in the event of any unforeseen delay or issues during the cut over window

Ideally, Detaching the domain from GoDaddy and adding it back to the target tenant will be completed in 30 minutes. However, it all depends on lot many external factors and give sufficient room while making the cut over plan.

Cut over Schedule

The best time to start the cut over activities is on Friday late night after 11pm local time. If users from multiple timezone are involved, consider the users who are crossing 11pm local time at last.

A sample cut over schedule will be as below.

11 PM Friday - Start Cutover

11.30 PM Friday - Remove users from Teams/Teams Channels

00.00 AM Saturday - Reset the password

00.30 AM Saturday - Perform final sync with respective tools

08.00 AM Saturday - Remove SMTP Address from all recipients

10.00 AM Saturday - Remove SMTP domain from GoDaddy

12.00 PM Saturday - Add SMTP domain to Microsoft Tenant

1.00 PM Saturday - Update UPN/SMTP of target users with original domain name

2.00 PM Saturday - Validate internal/external mail flow

3.00 PM Saturday - Handover the credentials

The plan and schedule will vary based on each environment and hence you should prepare a similar one considering all different aspects of your migration.