Applies to: Exchange Server 2010 SP1

Topic Last Modified: 2012-07-23

Estimated time to complete: 15 minutes

Using Microsoft Office 365 for enterprises allows you extend your on-premises organization to the cloud, and it's a requirement for configuring a hybrid deployment. A hybrid deployment provides many advantages, including greater messaging flexibility, storage for large user mailboxes, reduced hardware costs, and convenient user management support.

Caution:
This topic is meant to be read as part of the Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 and Office 365 Hybrid Deployment checklist. Information or procedures in this topic may depend on prerequisites configured in topics earlier in the checklist. To view the checklist, see Checklist - Exchange 2003 and Office 365 Hybrid Deployment.

How do I do this?

You must subscribe to Office 365 for enterprises to create a service tenant that you can use to coexist with your on-premises Exchange organization. Office 365 for enterprises provides you with an Exchange organization in the cloud.

Learn more at: Sign up for Office 365

How do I know this worked?

After you create your cloud-based service tenant with Office 365 for enterprises, you'll get an e-mail from Microsoft that confirms the successful creation of the tenant. Logging on to your cloud-based service will confirm that creating the service organization was completed successfully.

Having problems? Ask for help in the Office 365 forums. To access the forums, you'll need to sign in using an account that's granted administrator access to your cloud-based service. Visit the forums at: Office 365 Forums