Directory Synchronization Tool Connects Your Active Directory to the Cloud

One of the most common questions our customers have about moving to the cloud with Office 365 is how Office 365 will sync with their Active Directories. During the migration to Office 365, this is handled with a directory synchronization process.

Directory synchronization is the synchronization of directory objects (users, groups, and contacts) from your on-premises Active Directory environment to the Office 365 directory infrastructure. The Microsoft Online Services Directory Synchronization Tool is used to perform this synchronization. You install the tool on a dedicated computer in your on-premises environment.

When you first run the Directory Synchronization Tool, it writes a copy of each user account and all mail-enabled contacts and groups to the directory created for your organization in Office 365. Directory synchronization can also provide Global Address List synchronization between the on-premises Exchange Server environment and Exchange Online.

When user accounts are synchronized with the Office 365 directory for the first time, they are marked as non-activated. They cannot send or receive email and they do not consume subscription licenses. When you are ready to assign Office 365 subscriptions to specific users, you must select and activate these users by assigning a valid license.

The Directory Synchronization Tool enables the following features and functionality:

Single sign-on.
Lync Online coexistence.
Exchange hybrid deployment including:
Fully shared global address list (GAL) between your on-premises Exchange environment and Exchange Online.
Global address list unification of different mail systems with simple email coexistence.
The ability to onboard users to and offboard users from Office 365 service offerings. This requires two-way sync (write-back) enabled in Active Directory synchronization and an Exchange hybrid server deployment on-premises.
The ability to move some user mailboxes to Office 365 while retaining other user mailboxes on-premises.
Safe senders and blocked senders on-premises are replicated and respected in Exchange Online.
Delegation/Send on behalf of (limited).
Synchronization of photos and thumbnails, conference rooms, and security groups (rights in SharePoint Online)
Filtering and scoping (available soon). For more information see the Help topic Configure Filtering for Directory Synchronization.

The Directory Synchronization Tool is available in 32 and 64-bit versions. For more questions about planning your migration to the cloud, contact our Cloud solutions specialists.