BigRock to Office 365 migration

BigRock is a leading domain registration and web hosting platform, providing services like Windows and Linux hosting, WordPress hosting, DIY website builders, SiteLock security, Cloud and VPS hosting, and email solutions. It is popular among small businesses and professionals. Their advanced and business hosting plans offer unlimited email accounts, with 5GB and 30GB mailbox storage, respectively. It’s important to note that BigRock’s email service is bundled with its hosting plans, not offered as a standalone product. Many BigRock users choose to retain their domain and hosting services but seek to migrate their email data to Office 365 to leverage its advanced email features. Additionally, users with Office 365 tenants hosted on BigRock often look to move their email services directly to Microsoft’s servers for improved functionality and management. The migration process, especially when handling large amounts of data, can be challenging without the right tools and support.

EdbMails IMAP migration tool, a Microsoft-partnered solution, provides a seamless and efficient way to migrate emails from BigRock to Office 365. It offers key features such as delta migration, which ensures only new or modified emails are migrated after the initial transfer, preventing duplication and saving time. The concurrent migration feature allows multiple mailboxes to be migrated simultaneously, significantly speeding up the process. Additionally, enhanced security with MFA protects the migration with an extra layer of security, ensuring secure access to your Office 365 account. EdbMails also ensures preserving data integrity, maintaining all email attributes like folder structure, attachments, metadata, and formatting, so no information is lost or altered during the migration. These features make EdbMails a reliable and powerful tool for businesses looking to seamlessly transition from BigRock to Office 365.

1. Reasons for BigRock to Office 365 migration

   Despite the fact that BigRock offers many features such as Global Address Book, IMAP Sync, Distribution Lists, SSL Certificate support, and many others, it still lags behind Office 365's dedicated and integrated email suite for the following reasons.

   1. BigRock is primarily focused on web hosting and domain registration, so its email interface is simple for many businesses compared to Microsoft 365.
   2. Office 365 has a much collaborative and dedicated email service with Public folder, Archive and Shared Mailbox facility making it ideal for teams and organizations.
   3. In addition, it includes SharePoint, OneDrive storage, Yammer and other apps integrated with the same license.
   4. Office 365 comes with 50GB mailbox storage as opposed to BigRock’s Advanced and Business plans.
   5. Office 365 is also integrated with Word, Excel, Outlook on desktop making it easily accessible from anywhere.

2. BigRock to Office 365 migration planning

   Before you actually start BigRock to Office 365 migration, you need to have a proper plan and ensure that you are prepared for the migration. Here is a quick checklist of items for your convenience.

   • Decide if you want to retain the same domain on BigRock or change to another hosting provider.
   • Decide if you want to migrate your data all at once or in stages.
   • Create a CSV file with a complete list of mailboxes to be migrated along with the user credentials.
   • Verify if the CSV file format and user credentials are correct.
   • Make a complete backup of all the mailboxes and export large attachments or files to your local drive.
   • Remove unused and unnecessary mailboxes on the source.
   • Inform the end users and stakeholders about the migration plan and the upcoming changes.
   • Select an appropriate Office 365 licensing plan and assign licenses to user mailboxes.
   • Perform a test migration to ensure everything works as expected.

3. Pre-migration activities for BigRock to Office 365 migration

   1. Create a list of users in a CSV file, which you want to migrate from BigRock.
   2. Find the name of your source email server from an email client
   3. Purchase a suitable Office 365 licensing plan. You can also sign up for a 30 day free trial and decide to go with a suitable one later. Compare Office 365 business plans and Compare Office 365 enterprise plans
   4. Create Office 365 mailboxes and assign licenses to them

        Add users and assign licenses to Office 365 users

        Assign Microsoft 365 licenses to user accounts

   5. If you plan to migrate your mailboxes to Office 365 Public folders, ensure that you create and configure the Public folder mailboxes on the target server.

       Create Office 365 Public folder and assign mailbox user

   6. Similarly, if you want to migrate mailboxes to Office 365 In-Place archive, enable them from the admin center.

       Steps to enable archive mailbox in Microsoft 365.

   7. If you have a custom email domain from the source which you want to retain and receive emails to, you must add and verify the domain on Office 365.

       Steps to add a custom domain to Office 365 and steps to add DNS records to connect your domain.

   8. Configure Office 365 to send and receive large messages.

       Follow the steps to increase the message size on Office 365 to 150MB. See message size limits on Office 365 for more information.

4. Steps to migrate from BigRock to Office 365 with EdbMails

   • Step 1: Download and Install EdbMails software

     • Begin the migration by downloading and installing the EdbMails application on your Windows computer.
     • Once installed, launch the application and select either 'Login' if you have an account, or 'Start Your Free Trial' to begin the process.

         See a detailed list of EdbMails system requirements for IMAP migration.

       

     • Select the migration method as ‘IMAP migration’ in the main window

       

   • Step 2: Connect to source BigRock server

     • Get your BigRock account's IMAP connection details before you migrate, which is located in the BigRock Control Panel under DNS settings. After you've obtained them, fill out the details with the information shown.
       • HostName/IP Address: mail.yourdomainname.com (Example: abc.bigrock.in)
       • Port: 993 with SSL/TLS enabled (If you have SSL for your IMAP connection)
       • Email address and password associated with your account.

       

     • For migrating multiple mailboxes, choose the 'Multiple (bulk) Users/Accounts Migration' option. Start by downloading the sample CSV file from EdbMails and complete the necessary fields, including mailbox name, password, host name, and port. Once the CSV file is populated, upload it into the application and verify the list of mailboxes to proceed with the migration process.

       

        See steps to connect to single and multiple users in EdbMails IMAP migration

   • Step 3: Select source BigRock server mailboxes

     • Select the mailboxes and folders to migrate.
     • Click ‘IMAP to Office 365’ to set up the connection with the target server.

        See tips to optimize IMAP migration to Exchange online

       

   • Step 4: Connect to target Office 365 server

     • Choose the preferred method for secure OAuth-based modern authentication. The default option, 'Auto Registration,' necessitates Global Admin privileges for setup. Alternatively, the 'Manual Registration' method allows flexibility, as it can be performed using either a Global Admin account or any user account with full access rights.

       

     • Next, select the most suitable migration option and proceed by logging into the Microsoft sign-in page to authenticate your account.

       

     • EdbMails automatically loads mailboxes from your BigRock server. Additionally, it supports the use of CSV files to efficiently load mailboxes into Office 365.

       

   • Step 5: BigRock to Office 365 mailboxes mapping

     • Select the mapping option that most effectively suits your specific needs.

       

     • EdbMails streamlines migration by automatically creating mailboxes in Office 365, effortlessly setting up target mailboxes and mapping source IMAP server mailboxes and folders. This functionality is crucial for ensuring precise management of large-scale mailbox migrations.

       

     • Click the ‘Folder and Item Filter’ button to set a filter for your migration. For instance, you can choose to migrate data only within a specific date range by applying a date filter. Additionally, you can exclude both standard and custom folders from the migration.

       

   • Step 6: Start BigRock to Office 365 migration

     • Start and monitor the migration operation after you complete the mailbox mapping. Finally, verify the count of migrated emails, folders and mailbox items with EdbMails text-based migration report. You can also pause and resume the migration.

       

5. BigRock to Office 365 post-migration tasks

   • Step 1: Update the MX records to point to Office 365

     If you have not done this step previously, change the DNS records known as MX records to enable email and receive messages on the target Office 365 server. In addition, configure the Autodiscover record to allow Outlook to connect to the migrated mailboxes.

   • Step 2: Create a new Outlook profile for users in the new domain

     Configure the Outlook profile for each user in your domain if Outlook has problems connecting to Office 365 mailboxes.

6. BigRock to Office 365 migration troubleshooting

     For common migration issues, check the knowledge base articles. For more information on EdbMails IMAP migration, visit the frequently asked questions (FAQs) section or contact our technical support team.

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Additional resources:

• Barracuda to Office 365 migration
• AWS Workmail to Office 365 migration
• 123 Reg to Office 365 migration
• Bluehost to Office 365 migration
• Dovecot to Office 365 migration
• hMailServer to Office 365 migration