Give a short introduction about yourself?
Make it impressive – I’m “YourName” having X years of experience in Messaging and Collaboration Support. Currently working in so and so company for the last Y years and handling On-Premise Exchange and Office 365 Environment for Z number of users. We are currently migrating mailbox to office 365 and almost half of the mailbox migrated to Office 365. Or, We have migrated all the mailboxes to Office 365 and having 2 Exchange Servers to handle the email relay from Applications, Printers and scanners.
I was part of the Office 365 migration project and involved in on the planning and execution (No worries, we will explain the things that you need to know later even if you have less experience on Migration). I have learned many things during my Office 365 migration project and having good troubleshooting skills related for Office 365. I’m very much interested working on Messaging and Collaborations Services like Entra ID, Entra Connect, Exchange Online, SharePoint, OneDrive, Teams and Power Platforms services in M365 and had a passion to explore new things related with messaging and collaboration service. I’m good at PowerShell Scripting and Automation using Power Automate Flows for the requirement shared by the customer.
Give a short explanation about the infrastructure that you are supporting?
I’m supporting a Single Forest Single Domain with Hybrid Exchange environment for X number of users with AD connect, Passwordless Authentication and M365 E3 & E5 licenses assigned for the Users. In addition, we are using Intune for Mobility Device Management and Endpoint Security requirements. Currently we are working on projects like enhancing the security posture of our environment by configuring advanced conditional access policies by validating the policy in Test environment and once the validation completed the same will be implement in Production environment. In parallel, we are enabling services like PowerBI and other Office 365 services for required users.
What are the day to day activities that you do as an Office 365 Admin?
We start the day with Mandatory checks that we derived from the so far occurred issues and ensures health check is clean and users are able to access all the Microsoft 365 services without any issues. In addition, Service Health check and monitoring the message center alerts are the main task that we do on daily basis. We have 24/7 operations support who takes care of reported issues. I will be assigned with tickets to work on M365 service related issue, and we follow strict SLA to ensure the tickets are closed on time. We are using Service Now and Jira for work management and I’ll work on the Tasks assigned to me in Jira. We have daily call to discuss to understand the major issues, road blocks etc. and we escalate the challenges with customer on weekly governance call and follow their suggestions.
How you started the Office 365 Migration?
Our IT leaders approved On-Premise Exchange to Office 365 migration and different teams were involved in the planning Identity, Network Team and Corporate Security was involved to do the security assessment.
- We have engaged Microsoft for the initial assessment as it was involved on the license contract and initially We did a network performance analysis from different location to see if any bandwidth increase to be done using psping, tracert tools. Internet Proxy exceptions were configured on all client machines to route the office 365 related traffic via firewall.
- The security controls defined by corporate security are validated and the available options were implement.
- We started the planning, like domain name in Office 365, planning on Directory Synchronisation and authentication method etc were decided.
- New Tenant setup with Microsoft 365 subscription (Microsoft 365 E3 & E5 + few (F3 + EMS E5) for frontline workers ) were setup and then Entra connect, and the authentication method Passwordless authentication were configured, hybrid configuration with full hybrid configured.
- We did a pilot move, performed a complete use case validations and show case the results to leadership team and Corporate Security Team.
- After their approval, we started to migrate the mailboxes to Office 365 using the native Migration options available in Office 365.
What are the tools that you used to do the network assessment for Office 365?
Ping Test, Ps Ping, Tracert to Office 365 urls. We used these tools to check the network latency and to ensure the office 365 nearest datacenter IP address are resolving to our requests.
What are the security controls that are implemented in your environment?
Inform the interviewer that it is big list. For example, the office 365 services will be fully functional from Azure AD Managed computers and on the personal devices, users will have read only access.
- Multifactor authentication
- Device marked as compliant
- Using a Microsoft Entra hybrid joined device
- Using an approved client app
- App protection policy applied
- Password change for Sign-in Risk
- Terms of Use accepted
We achieved this via Azure conditional access policies.
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What do you know about Office 365?
Office 365 is a cloud-based service from Microsoft that offers access to Office applications like word excel and other productivity tools like Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, One Drive for Business online and Microsoft Teams. Office 365 includes plans for use at home and business. Services available or enabled to you based on the subscription plan that you are choosing from Microsoft.
What is the difference between Office 365 and Microsoft 365?
Microsoft 365 is the new name for Office 365. M365 is the comprehensive subscription that includes all the features of Office 365, plus additional benefits includes Windows 10/11, Enterprise Mobility + Security, and advanced security and device management features.
What are the subscription available for purchase from Office 365?
For home, we have three products as Office 365 home, Office 365 Personal and Office Home & Student 2016 for PC
For Business, Microsoft has three products as Office 365 Business, Office 365 Business Premium and Office 365 Business Essentials
For Enterprise, Microsoft has four products as Office 365 Pro Plus, Office 365 Enterprise E1, Office 365 Enterprise E3 and Office 365 Enterprise E5.
Apart from the above many add on services like Azure AD Premium P2, EMS E5, Azure Information Protection Plan are available which can be purchased as a stand-alone service based on the business requirement.
What are the services included in Enterprise E3 Plan?
Most of the companies normally prefer Office 365 Enterprise E3 or Microsoft 365 E3 Plan because that has the required services that can operate an enterprise Organizations. Below services are included in Office 365 Enterprise E3 Plan
You can run the below command to check the service status.
(Get-MsolAccountSku | where {$_.AccountSkuId -eq ‘TenantName:ENTERPRISEPACK’}).ServiceStatus
What are the additional services available in Office 365 Enterprise E5 Plan?
Office 365 Enterprise E5 Plans includes all the servers available in Enterprise E3 Plans plus
Customer Lockbox, Advanced Data Governance and Security, Office 365 Cloud App Security, Power Bi Pro, Audio Video Conferencing and Fast Track deployment support.
What is Enterprise Mobility and Security Service in office 365?
Enterprise Mobility and Security (EMS) provides a security solution for the challenges in mobile first cloud first situation. EMS not only protect the organization identity it also identifies security breaches before they cause damage.
Microsoft Office 365 2 plans with Enterprise Mobility plus Security
- Enterprise Mobile + Security E3 includes Azure Active Directory Premium P1, Microsoft Intune, Azure Information Protection Premium P1, and Microsoft Advanced Threat Analytics.
- Enterprise Mobile + Security E5 includes Azure Active Directory Premium P2, Azure Information Protection Premium P2 and Microsoft Cloud App Security.
Explain the Enterprise Mobility Security services?
Below are the Enterprise Mobility and Security E3 Services
Azure Active Directory Premium P1 – AAD Premium P1 provides a secure single sign on to cloud and on-premise apps. MFA, Conditional access and advanced security reporting.
Microsoft Intune: Intune provides mobile device and app management to protect corporate apps and data on any device.
Azure Information Protection Premium P1: AIP Premium P1 provide encryption for all files and emails across cloud and on premises storage location. Cloud based files tracking can be achieved.
Microsoft Advanced Threat Analytics: ATA provides protection from advanced targeted attacks by using user behavioral analytics
Below are the Enterprise Mobility and Security E5 Services
Azure Active Directory Premium P2: AAD Premium P2 provides AAD Premium P1 features + Identity and Access Management with advanced protection for users and privileged identities.
Azure information Protection Premium P2: AIP Premium P2 provides AIP Premium P1 features + intelligent classification and encryption for files and emails shared inside and outside organization.
Microsoft Cloud App Security: CAS provides enterprise grade visibility, control and protection for your cloud applications.
