Microsoft Exchange 2013 End of Life Declared – Things to Do Next
Recently Microsoft Exchange 2013 end of life declared, which means that Microsoft will no longer provide technical support, security updates, and bug fixes, to Exchange 2013 users. This can leave organizations using Exchange 2013 at a higher risk for security vulnerabilities and performance issues.
End-of-life support is a natural part of its lifecycle, and it is important for organizations to plan for this event to ensure a smooth transition to a more preferred platform. There can be 2 routes that a user can take in this situation. One of them is to move their data to a newer version of the Exchange Server or they could migrate their mailbox from On-Premise to Office 365 Platform i.e. Office 365.
The problem with moving to another version of Exchange like Exchange Server 2019 is that eventually, it will also reach its end-of-life support in the near future. This means that you have to perform the migration process again for the same. Hence moving your data to the Exchange online is more beneficial in the long run.
Why is it Necessary to Migrate to Office 365 After Exchange 2013 End of Life Date Announced?
One of the biggest advantages of moving your data to Office 365 comes from the fact that it is a cloud platform. This ensures that this service would be supported for a long time and would not be discontinued after a few years like Exchange Server.
It is also important from a security point of view. If you run the Exchange server after its end of life then you might be vulnerable to different types of cyberattacks. Since all the maintenance and other factors are taken care of by Microsoft itself, they promise an uptime of 99.9% for all Office 365 services. This enables you to access your data anywhere in the world without downtime.
Office 365 is also easily scalable if compared to an Exchange Server. This is because you can simply go up or down to an Office 365 plan depending on your needs and easily get the storage and other resources you need. But whereas on an Exchange Server, you will have to get the required hardware and the software and configure it yourself.
What Should be the Next Moves After the Announcement of Microsoft Exchange 2013 End of Life Support?
In order to tackle this situation, users of Exchange 2013 should migrate their data to Office 365. There are few manual and automated ways available for this transition. Let’s discuss them step by step.
Cutover Migration
This method can be used to transfer your entire environment together to Office 365. The only drawback with this method is that the maximum number of mailboxes you can migrate at once is 2000. This method can be used with Exchange versions 2003 and higher. Even though the official maximum supported number of mailboxes it can migrate is 2000 it is recommended not to migrate more than 150 users at a time since it increases the chances of failure a lot.
IMAP Migration
If you are in a need where you only want to migrate your email data to Office 365 then you can use this method. But you can only migrate 5,00,000 items using this method. These items have to be less than 35MB in size. Before the migration, the IT admin also needs to make a CSV file that has the list of the users you want to migrate.
Professional Solution to Solve Microsoft Exchange 2013 Reaching End Of Life Support
From the above, you can clearly see that using the manual method has its limitations. Hence using a professional tool to solve this issue is much better. The SysTools’ Exchange to Office 365 Migration Software is one of the best tools that you can use. It offers users many advanced features that make the migration process more accessible. Let’s discuss its working.
Working Steps of the Professional Tool
Step 1. Download and open the tool on your system.
Step 2. From the setup, the section selects the source as Exchange and Destination as Office 365.
Step 3. Under the workload, the section select the data that you want to migrate like emails, contacts, calendars, etc.
Step 4. After this go to the source section and choose the Exchange server version and then enter the Exchange admin accounts credentials like admin email and application id and click on the validate button.
Step 5. From the destination, tab enters the admin account and the application id of the same and click on the validate button.
Step 6. Now go to the user’s tab. From here if you want to automatically get the details of the user then click on the fetch users option.
Step 7. You can also manually import the details of the user by downloading the template, entering the user data into the CSV file, and then importing it back into the tool.
Step 8. Once all the users are imported and listed on the screen we have to map the source account to the destination. It can be done one by one or in batches using a CSV file with the same data.
Step 9. Once everything is done correctly click on the validation button and press the start migration button.
Conclusion
In this article, we talked about ways through which users can tackle Microsoft Exchange 2013 end of life announcement. One of the best alternatives you can use instead of Exchange is to move your data to Office 365. Unlike the manual methods for moving the data professional tools provides a smooth and easy method for the same. Hence for an easy and seamless experience, we recommend using the professional tool recommended above.