How to Merge Office 365 Cloud Deployments -

When dealing with a merger or acquisition, chances are you'll need to bring together multiple software and IT infrastructures. Chief among them is Office 365, one of the most widely used SaaS platforms on the planet.

But how can MSPs combine two or more Office 365 deployments into a single system amid a merger? Binary Tree is looking to answer that question with Power365.

The new SaaS-based service has three tiers to help automate a tenant-to-tenant transition. They include:

Power365 Mail Migration - This first tier is set to have multiple-pass mailbox migration that will include public folders with all appropriate content and permissions.

Power365 Integration - The second level will include the Mail Migration and add directory synchronization for Cloud-based and on-premises objects. This allows for day-one unified address lists and calendar lookups between the included Office 365 accounts.

Power365 Integration Pro - The highest level includes everything in the second tier and adds a secure address rewrite capability. Integration Pro provides organizations with multiple Office 365 accounts to share a unified email domain on day-one.

If it works as advertised, Power365 can fill a very important need for companies. I have seen some companies utilize public folders as a CRM with layers upon layers of user permissions and folders. Even changing these permissions within one organization could become an all day task. I can't even imagine trying to migrate the whole system to another Office 365 tenant. With Power365, the company claims to make these kinds of migrations seamless by being able to copy the content and permissions from public folders and mailboxes.

Avoiding Downtime

Another issue with handling these types of migrations is downtime. Email migrations are especially difficult due to the always on and connected nature of email. You can't tell users to just stop using their email at a certain day and time. Messages will continue to flow into the mailbox whether the user is active or not. Users are also notorious for using email as a file storage system, with thousands of messages to migrate. The larger the mailbox, the longer it takes to migrate to the new account. Power365 claims to be able to handle the migrations in the background with zero downtime for the user. They will be able to use their new mailbox right away while the migration tasks are being performed in the background.

Binary Tree has been helping enterprise transitions since 1993, so it's safe to assume they're familiar with complex transformation projects associated with mergers and acquisitions. It appears that they may have created a great solution to assist MSP's in performing Office 365 integrations for their clients.