Thought experiment-Describe Microsoft 365 apps and services

In this thought experiment, demonstrate your skills and knowledge of the topics covered in this chapter. You can find answers to this thought experiment in the next section.

Alice is planning a software deployment for her company’s new branch office in Chicago and is comparing the advantages and disadvantages of Microsoft 365 and Office 2019. The branch office is expected to ramp up to a maximum of 120 new users within a year, and Alice is trying both to anticipate users΄ needs and stay within her initial outlay budget, which is relatively limited.

Alice wants to create as stable a working user environment as possible, to minimize technical support and training issues. She is concerned about the possibility of monthly feature updates in Microsoft 365, which might generate too many support issues and require additional training for both users and support personnel. She knows that Office 2019 does not receive feature updates.

The branch office is connected to the Internet through a local Internet service provider. The company’s main office has on-premises Exchange and SharePoint servers accessible through the Internet. Alice is wondering whether it would be more efficient for the users to access their mail and document libraries on the main office servers or for her to use the cloud-based Exchange Online and SharePoint services. A third option would be for her to install on-premises Exchange and SharePoint servers at the branch office. She is also concerned about Exchange and SharePoint administration because she would prefer that her onsite staff manage the new user onboarding and maintenance processes.

Alice is also concerned about identity management for the branch office users and the Active Directory authentication traffic they will generate. The New York office has Active Directory Domain Services domain controllers installed, but Alice has not as yet planned to install domain controllers in the branch office. She is aware that Azure Active Directory can provide cloud-based identity management, but she is concerned that the branch office users might sometimes require access to resources stored on New York servers.

After carefully considering all these factors, Alice chose Microsoft 365 and its cloud services for the branch office deployment. List five reasons why her selection is justified.

Thought experiment answers

Alice can address all her concerns by deploying Microsoft 365 and using cloud-based Exchange Online and SharePoint services for the following reasons:

• Microsoft 365 can be configured to receive feature updates only twice a year, reducing the potential training and support issues compared to monthly updates.
• Because it is subscription-based, Microsoft 365 has a much smaller initial cost outlay than Office 2019, which must be paid for in full during the initial deployment.
• Microsoft 365΄s cloud-based services provide users access to Exchange and SharePoint through a nearby Microsoft Global Network endpoint. Requiring users to access Exchange and SharePoint servers in New York would likely generate additional network latency and reduce user efficiency.
• Exchange Online and SharePoint are administered through web-based tools that can be accessed directly by the branch office support staff. Onboarding new users on the New York servers would require remote access or participation of the New York staff to complete the onboarding processes.
• Azure Active Directory would enable the branch office support staff to manage the user accounts themselves and lessen the network latency that authenticating through the New York domain controllers would cause. Azure AD can also be configured to synchronize with the New York domain controllers, enabling branch office users to receive authenticated access to resources on New York servers.