Without a webhosting service provider your website will not be live on the internet. These providers are a little like estate agents - you are paying them ‘ground rent’ for your little bit of real estate on the internet.
Google and users much prefer that your website loads quickly so make sure you go with someone who has fast servers.
There has been a new update released for OneDrive and SharePoint Online. It may leave many of you wondering why you still can't Sync with your team's sites. It also doesn't help that Microsoft took a few days to release a changelog explain the update. The update finalised and added the Next Generation Sync Client into the main OneDrive software.
The update itself was for the Next Generation Sync Client (NGSC) to be added into OneDrive and the OneDrive Sync services. It should have really gone unnoticed, being put in place on all devices automatically. You or your admin should not need to do anything, the NGSC update should have been put in along with any updates or bug fixes to your software the moment Microsoft authorise its release. An update to a changelog for the preview version mostly focuses on previous update versions and describes this version as a fix to "top issues related to sync reliability and application stability". You can find all the release notes here. However, its not that simple and you will have to take manual steps to force SharePoint Online to sync with OneDrive, and not OneDrive For Business as it will try to.
Note: The Next Generation Sync Client does not support Sync to the personal version of OneDrive (i.e. Live.com Hotmail/Outlook accounts), only business/school versions of OneDrive and SharePoint Online. To use your version of OneDrive with your team's site and to Sync with it you'll need to perform a manual fix. This means implementing a quick Regedit fix. So open Regedit by going to start and typing "Regedit". Follow through the file tree to "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\OneDrive". Then in that top level folder create a 32bit Dword value (right click, new) called "TeamSiteSyncPreview" with the value of "00000001". After restarting the browser, you will then have success with Syncing with your OneDrive team site.
Alternatively, if you want to see if you can find another way of getting around the issue, or if that didn't solve your issue then follow the instructions on this page. The instructions from Microsoft give a good way of setting up your OneDrive but nothing really specific on an issue that could have been caused by the latest update. It is still worth a shot as it may still solve an unrelated issue that could prevent file syncing. For Mac users, if the previous guide didn't help, you can follow this Mac specific guide.
We have created our own custom, one click installer to upgrade your OneDrive to the SharePoint Online sync capable version. If you are having trouble with OneDrive syncs or would like to use our program for speed and convenience then contact us through e-mail (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), or give us a call (number below).
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The new cloud regions in the UK become part of one the world’s largest online storage infrastructures, supported by more than 100 data centres globally. Several large organisations have already signed a new contract with Microsoft to use these new data centres including the Ministry of Defence.
Microsoft has recently opened several data centers in the UK. For the First time ever UK users of Azure and office 365 will be able to connect to their data without it having to pass through another country to get here. This new investment makes Microsoft the first global service to provide data from a cloud based from UK data centers. Many large organisations such as Glasgow City Council, Marks & Spencer, Confused.com, Natural Resources Wales, Pizza Hut Restaurants and Virgin Atlantic already use Microsoft's cloud servises and the Ministry of Defence is soon to join them.
The Ministry of Defence has stated that it has signed a contract to make use of the new UK based data servers because of both value for money and security of data. The MoD not only has around 230,000 workers, many of which will use Microsoft cloud products like Azure but also spends around £3 billion each year to improve its data infastructure. This should give you an idea on how much Microsoft has invested into the capacity and security of these servers.
“Microsoft’s secure and transparent cloud service in the UK fits perfectly with the MoD’s digital transformation agenda,” said Mike Stone, Chief Digital and Information Officer at the MoD. “This agreement, which is based on Microsoft’s world-class reliability and performance, will allow us to deliver cost-effective, modern and flexible information capabilities. It will ensure we are better-placed in our ever-changing, digital-first world”. Mike Stone also stated in a BBC interview that this is a welcome change as many elements of the MoD's servers and software hasn't been updated for several years.
"We were still on Windows XP, for instance, and all of the applications were from 2003 or prior to that," he said in a recent interview. "I took the view that the services we were providing were unfit for purpose. The idea is to provide a different capability that fully exploits the power of the cloud and mobility. We can now work on documents collaboratively and understand more about the ways we are working—we will be able to see how much time teams are spending in meetings, on email and on the phone.".
Before Microsoft had installed these local data centers our data was having to pass through several countries. The Neatherlands and Ireland had the largest amount of traffic within their Microsoft data centers due to it having to pass through them to get to UK users. Now UK users will be able to enjoy the global network of Microsoft products such as Azure and Office 365 with less latency and more capacity but with the bonus of added security due to local servers.
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Source Articles:
MoD inks UK Azure data centre deal with Microsoft
Microsoft becomes first global provider to deliver complete cloud from UK data centres
Bongo IT collaborate with a number of affiliates across different sectors including change/process managers and strategic business advisors, to deliver effective projects every time. The author of this article, Dr James A Robertson, works with Bongo IT leading the charge in understanding the business needs by working with the C-level stakeholders, in most cases the CEO. Understanding business needs and processes from the top level down helps bring about highly effective implementations of IT systems, improving productivity companywide.
The full implementation of Office 365 represents a distinct change in the way of working for most organizations.
Of course you don’t want to, but many businesses make a total mess of their migration to Office 365. It should be simple, and if you’ve only got 20 users and a small volume of data it can be.
But most migrations we come across fail to deliver the promised benefits. Other independent research suggests that 72% of Office 365 migrations of over 200 users fail to deliver significant benefits whereas those “properly” migrated save significant cost and dramatically increase efficiency. With this background, here are the six top mistakes that will really screw up your Office 365 migration:
Whilst this is somewhat of a cliché its meaning rings true when it comes to large scale migrations and the changes they bring to your organisation. There are roughly 50 steps to follow to an Office 365 migration and activation, and they are not all easy. Some administrators will have a wider breadth of knowledge than others setting up – for example setting SPF records is new to a lot of people. Typically, younger administrators that have been with the same company for their entire career cycle may have only worked with a single version of Exchange and may have never performed a migration. So whilst the day-to-day, Business as Usual service is fine, managing a large scale and fundamental change can be extremely nerve-racking, especially as there is a lot of new terminology to get to grips with.
Our top tip is to use the Exchange Server Deployment Assistant, which can give you all the steps needed to perform your migration. Remember to do a test migration first if you are considering doing it yourself, however!
We have found that the adoption work for end users is sometimes pushed to one side, or not very well handled, as it’s not part of the day to day routine. It's ok to send out a pdf with the basics of how the system will work before migrating but really you need to engage with the end users site-wide to gauge sentiments and ensure that adoption isn't a "hair loss situation".
Depending on how many departments you have, and how many stakeholders are involved you may want to go whole hog and hold seminars for each group of people. These will not only help you educate the various groups and people involved but will allow you to gain valuable insights as to the users’ feelings and concerns about moving to the new system. It is extremely hard to hold a seminar by yourself though, you will need to have a colleague write questions and details down for you whilst you focus on presenting and answering questions.
When we helped hold adoption and technical seminars for a major London University (around 25,000 users) it was imperative for them to consider using the latest cloud technology for their students and staff to enhance the learning experience, but it was also vital to get a consensus amongst the different departments as to when/if they should move to the cloud. Don't be afraid to really simplify things down for your users too, you know how to do the simple "assumed" easy things like reset a password, they may not. As you may well be aware!
Probably the most annoying job in the world unless you are a librarian or have OCD. In the case of SMEs there is often an existing document library, but we have rarely seen one that is well organised, let alone one that is prepared with OneDrive for Business in mind. There are a few things you need to think about before starting to migrate any data to OneDrive for Business or SharePoint Online. What's that you say? OneDrive for Business? Yes in Office 365 organisational accounts you get a version of SharePoint called OneDrive for Business with 1TB of space. We tend to think of it as a personal storage space however; it is also a lot easier to share documents and folders with external users using OneDrive for Business as opposed to SharePoint. With OneDrive for Business you don't have to set up a user access structure as you do with sites in SharePoint. In SharePoint you need to understand three things relating to this:
Whilst this can be achieved in OneDrive for Business you can share a folder very easily to an email address (must have Office 365, or a Microsoft email like Hotmail) without having to worry too much about what else they might be able to access.
Back to the topic at hand. So, those things you need to know:
We prefer to organise all the data first, then run the checks, then use OneDrive for Business to sync the libraries we have created to the computer (the one with the files on), then move the data in to the relevant folders/synced libraries for automatic upload.
If you don’t decide on your migration type, Cutover or Staged, you will run in to trouble pretty quickly when it comes to mailbox migration. Microsoft provide this advice: “You can’t use a staged migration to migrate Exchange 2010 or Exchange 2013 mailboxes to Exchange Online. If you have fewer than 2,000 Exchange 2010 or Exchange 2013 mailboxes in your organization, you can use a cutover Exchange migration. To migrate more than 2,000 Exchange 2010 or Exchange 2013 mailboxes, you have to implement an Exchange hybrid deployment.” There are several ways to migrate the mailboxes:
One very useful feature of BitTitan is that it does Office 365 to Office 365 (organisation to organisation) migrations, the Microsoft built in tool doesn’t do this. Whilst moving organisational accounts is a rare occurrence it does happen, for example during business divestment.
You won’t be able to use any third party tools that require installation to the exchange server. You will have to give up a bit of control! One obvious example of this is your anti-spam software which you have studiously been tweaking for years. In the case of that software you will need to switch to Exchange Online Protection (EOP) and start tweaking again…probably time to screenshot those settings!
Some domain providers should be avoided like the plague. You need to be able to create SRV records so make sure your host is able to do that or you will end up with greatly reduced functionality to your Office 365 instance. If you were to use 1&1 for example they do not provide the functionality to set up SRV records which means that Skype for Business will not work…which is pretty darn important!
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For more in depth information please see our product page Office 365 Information
Bongo IT have helped organisations in Education, Retail, Charity/Not for Profit, Manufacturing, and SME's unlock the power of the cloud. From a business of 1 to 22,000 people we are the go to consultants.
