Insight 365

Protecting your AD FS environment from password (spray) attacks (in an Office 365 context)

Recently, I attended the Thrive Conference in Ljubljana, Slovenia. During the IT Pro “Ask the Experts”-panel, an interesting question was raised: “How do I protect... Read More
New hybrid Organization Config Transfer-feature (OCT) announced

Yesterday, Microsoft announced the Organization Config Transfer feature (OCT) in the Hybrid Configuration Wizard. The feature is expected to start showing up starting late June... Read More
How to leverage (multiple) migration endpoints to speed up migrations to Exchange Online

Last week, at Microsoft's Tech Summit in Amsterdam, I gave a talk about running Exchange Hybrid connections over the long term. In that session, I... Read More
Microsoft releases new “Tenant Restriction” capability

A few days ago, Microsoft announced the General Availability of the "Tenant Restriction" capability. Although I have not been able to play with it so... Read More
“Conference season” is about to start!

Every year in September, right after the summer holidays, there is an unofficial start of a new "work season". For some this unofficial start moment comes... Read More
Exchange Virtual Directory HTML Report

Update 12/09/2016: script updated to version 1.8: Included support for Exchange 2016 CU2+ Made some minor changes to the code + output now shows a message... Read More
A closer look at the “Minimal Hybrid Configuration” option

Just a few weeks ago, Microsoft announced a new feature in its line-up of hybrid Exchange capabilities: the Minimal Hybrid Configuration option. With the introduction... Read More
Exchange Hybrid Deployments and cross-premises Full Access permissions

Nothing but excellent news in the hybrid Exchange realm these days! Microsoft recently updated the support statement for cross-premises permissions in a hybrid deployment. As of... Read More
Selective authentication for (sub-)domains in Office 365

Office 365 provides various authentication options, such as cloud-IDs, Password Hash Synchronization or federated identities. Leaving out the specifics on how each of these options... Read More
Azure AD Synchronization HTML Report

In 2013, Exchange Server MVP Mike Crowley wrote a script which would interactively report on the Office 365 Directory Synchronization tool. In 2014, Mike and I... Read More

30/01/201930/01/2019

Microsoft updates the (Intune) Outlook App Configuration Policy experience

Microsoft just released the long-anticipated update to Intune's App Configuration experience for the Outlook (mobile) app. First announced at Ignite, the update now makes it possible to configure (parts of) the Outlook mobile client through the GUI instead of having to specify the settings manually. At this time, the update only allows basic profile configuration... Read More

29/01/2019

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Update: Estimating the size of an Exchange (online) Archive

Hi all! A couple of years back, I created a (very basic) script to help estimating the size of an Exchange Archive by looking at the age of a message and comparing it to time... Read More

04/01/201904/01/2019

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Correlating events becomes easier as Microsoft adds ‘SessionID’ to the audit logs in EXO

Yesterday, Microsoft announced a new capability in Exchange Online which adds the 'SessionID'-field to the existing audit logs in Exchange Online. Audit logs are a useful feature to go through and look at what actions... Read More

20/12/201820/12/2018

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Protecting your AD FS environment from password (spray) attacks (in an Office 365 context)

Recently, I attended the Thrive Conference in Ljubljana, Slovenia. During the IT Pro “Ask the Experts”-panel, an interesting question was raised: “How do I protect an on-premises AD FS environment from password spray attacks?”. Why... Read More

06/09/2018

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Office 365 Outlook on the web (OWA): controlling “opt-in” for early versions and new experiences

Recently, Microsoft announced they are releasing the ability for users to "opt-in" for new OWA, or Outlook on the Web, experiences themselves by switching a toggle that will be made available to them in the... Read More

03/07/2018

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Re-awarded as Microsoft MVP for 2018-2019!

Perhaps I'm a bit late to the game, but I'm happy and honored to share with you that on July 1st, I've been re-awarded the Microsoft MVP award in the category "Office Servers and Services".... Read More

19/06/201819/06/2018

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New hybrid Organization Config Transfer-feature (OCT) announced

Yesterday, Microsoft announced the Organization Config Transfer feature (OCT) in the Hybrid Configuration Wizard. The feature is expected to start showing up starting late June 2018. In an ongoing effort to improve the Wizard, I... Read More

05/04/201819/06/2018

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How to leverage (multiple) migration endpoints to speed up migrations to Exchange Online

Last week, at Microsoft's Tech Summit in Amsterdam, I gave a talk about running Exchange Hybrid connections over the long term. In that session, I talked about securing a hybrid deployment and – somewhat related... Read More

16/03/201819/06/2018

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Messages more marked as spoofed (and moved to Junk e-mail) in Office 365? You’re not alone!

Update 21/03/2018: Microsoft have dialed back on how quickly messages are marked as spoofed and, thus, moved to the Junk E-Mail folder. However, the guidance is to still properly implement SPF/DKIM/DMARC to be future proof.... Read More

28/09/201719/06/2018

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Summary of announcements for Hybrid Exchange @ Ignite

Today, Microsoft has made some quite big (and important!) announcements around the work they are doing to improve the experience for Hybrid Exchange customers. These announcements were all "dropped" during session BRK3155 (How to thrive... Read More

02/02/201719/06/2018

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Microsoft releases new “Tenant Restriction” capability

A few days ago, Microsoft announced the General Availability of the "Tenant Restriction" capability. Although I have not been able to play with it so far, I wanted to take a few moments to reflect... Read More

23/09/201619/06/2018

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“Conference season” is about to start!

Every year in September, right after the summer holidays, there is an unofficial start of a new "work season". For some this unofficial start moment comes a bit earlier, for others a bit later. Some even... Read More

12/09/201619/06/2018

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Exchange Virtual Directory HTML Report

Update 12/09/2016: script updated to version 1.8: Included support for Exchange 2016 CU2+ Made some minor changes to the code + output now shows a message if successful/unable to write the html file. Previous updates in... Read More

04/08/201619/06/2018

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Speeding up retrieval of Send-As permissions

Many Exchange administrators are familiar with the Get-ADPermission cmdlet. In the contrary to the Get-MailboxPermission cmdlet, the Get-ADPermission cmdlet retrieves Active Directory permissions for an object, instead of permission in Exchange itself. For instance, the... Read More

18/07/201619/06/2018

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A closer look at the “Minimal Hybrid Configuration” option

Just a few weeks ago, Microsoft announced a new feature in its line-up of hybrid Exchange capabilities: the Minimal Hybrid Configuration option. With the introduction of this new capability, Microsoft seems to have responded to... Read More

07/04/201619/06/2018

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New challenges ahead!

“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work one day in your life. ~ Confucius” Work is an important part of our everyday life. Given that, on average, one probably has... Read More

22/02/201619/06/2018

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Exchange Hybrid Deployments and cross-premises Full Access permissions

Nothing but excellent news in the hybrid Exchange realm these days! Microsoft recently updated the support statement for cross-premises permissions in a hybrid deployment. As of now, Full Access delegate permissions are supported cross-premises. I know... Read More

25/01/201619/06/2018

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Force Azure AD Connect to connect to specific Domain Controllers only

Consider the following scenario: you are about to implement directory synchronization for Office 365. You have multiple Active Directory sites across several, geographically dispersed, locations all over the world. Unsurprisingly, some of these locations have... Read More

06/01/201619/06/2018

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Looking forward to 2016…

...also means looking back at 2015. :-) First of all, let me start by wishing all of you a happy (belated) New Year. I hope that 2016 is off to a good start! As you... Read More