Emails are one of the most widely used way of communication in today’s world and are used by organizations of all kinds. A lot of companies in various sectors including IT and software use on-premises servers to manage their emails.
These servers stay within the company and require continuous maintenance and heavy investment. Moreover, if something goes wrong with them, the organization can face heavy downtime and related disruptions. These challenges required a solution.
Microsoft Exchange Online was introduced to focus on solving these challenges. This service follows the concept of centralizing all the information including mail, contacts, etc. with the help of the cloud.
Learning Exchange Online can be tough as it has a lot of features that need to be understood deeply. Additionally, choosing the desired place to take up the training can be a daunting task. Thankfully, this blog has got it covered.
This blog concentrates on what Microsoft Exchange Online is, how it works, how to undergo the Microsoft Exchange Online training and how CloudLabs can help in it.
What is Microsoft Exchange Online?
Microsoft Exchange Online is a hosted messaging service that allows users to access email, calendar, contacts, and other tasks from their devices. The device can be anything with an internet connection such as smartphones, tablets or computers.
This hosted service is the cloud version of the on-premises Microsoft Exchange Server and is built using the same technologies. It offers features such as large storage, encrypted mail, smartphone access control and security.
How to undergo Microsoft Exchange Online Training?
There are a few steps by which learners can take part in Exchange Online training by Microsoft.
Pick a relevant course
Multiple courses are present for the learners to take this training, but they have to select the most appropriate course that aligns with their career objectives.
1. Microsoft 365: Messaging Administrator Associate
This course will make the learner a Microsoft 365 Messaging Administrator and the tasks will be to deploy, configure, manage, troubleshoot, and monitor recipients, compliance, threat protection, and mail flow in hybrid and cloud enterprise environments.
It is necessary for the learner to possess MS-203 certification in order to attain this certification.
Sills measured in this course:
- Manage organizational settings and resources
- Plan and manage the mail transport architecture
- Plan and implement a hybrid configuration and migration
- Secure the messaging environment
a. MS-203: Microsoft 365 Messaging
This course is for the messaging administrators who are responsible for managing message hygiene, permissions, messaging infrastructure, hybrid configuration, migration, transport, mailboxes, and client access. For this course, a messaging administrator is required to have the working knowledge of licensing, authentication types, and integration with Microsoft 365 applications.
Below mentioned are the skills measured in this course:
- Manage organizational settings and resources (30-35%)
- Plan and manage the mail transport architecture (20-25%)
- Plan and implement a hybrid configuration and migration (15-20%)
- Secure the messaging environment (25-30%)
2. MS-220: Troubleshooting Microsoft Exchange Online
This course is for the support engineers who have a solid grasp on the understanding of identifying, troubleshooting and resolving issues with Microsoft Exchange Online environments.
Some of the skills that are measured in this course are the troubleshooting of:
- Mail flow issues (20–25%)
- Compliance and retention issues (25–30%)
- Mail client issues (20–25%)
- Exchange Online configuration issues (15–20%)
- Hybrid and migration issues (10–15%)
Out of a few course options available for this training, this blog will focus on MS-100 course which is titled as MS-100: Microsoft 365 Identity and Services.
Know about the course
There can be slight variations in the information that the course provides, so the learners should be familiar with what exactly the course has to offer.
- They should make sure to read the “about” section carefully.
- They should look for the learning objectives and the skills that they will learn after taking the course.
For example, the MS-100 course is mainly for Microsoft 365 enterprise administrators who take part in evaluating, planning, migrating, deploying, and managing Microsoft 365 services and perform Microsoft 365 tenant management tasks for an enterprise, including its identities, security, compliance, Power Platform, and supporting technologies.
Skills to be gained
These are the following skills that the course focuses on: –
- Design and implement Microsoft 365 services
- Manage user identity and roles
- Manage access and authentication
- Plan Office 365 workloads and applications
How CloudLabs can help you take this course?
CloudLabs is a virtual lab platform that offers impactful learning to the users by providing hands-on experience. It has a seamless and user-friendly interface that is scalable and can be accessed from anywhere provided a reliable internet connection.
CloudLabs provides labs for all the courses, including the ones related to Microsoft Exchange Online. Learners can use our platform to practice hands-on learning based on real-world scenarios that will help them get exam-ready as well as industry-ready.
CloudLabs platform assists the leaner in the training by providing: –
- Ready to use hands-on lab environments – For building hands-on skills
- Tenants with Licenses – For interruption free learning
Hands-on labs
Hands-on learning is one of the most effective ways to learn a new skill. The users retain more knowledge by working in a real-world scenario than by just reading about a particular technology on paper. They will face new challenges and will have to find a solution which will increase their problem-solving skills.
For the MS-100 course, CloudLabs gives access to its state-of-the-art hands-on labs.
Below are the labs and their respective exercises for this course: –
|
Lab |
Exercise |
Title |
| Lab 1 | Exercise 1 | Initialize your Microsoft 365 Tenant |
| Exercise 2 | Manage Users and Groups | |
| Exercise 3 | Add a Custom Domain | |
| Lab 2 | Exercise 1 | Manage Administration Delegation |
| Exercise 2 | Monitor and Troubleshoot Microsoft 365 | |
| Exercise 3 | Manage Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise installation | |
| Lab 3 | Exercise 1 | Review Key Features of Exchange Online |
| Exercise 2 | Review Key Features of SharePoint Online | |
| Exercise 3 | Create a Ticketing System in SharePoint | |
| Exercise 4 | Review Key Features of Microsoft Teams | |
| Exercise 5 | Review the Power Platform Admin Center | |
| Exercise 6 | Create a Power App from a SharePoint data source | |
| Exercise 7 | Create a Power App from scratch | |
| Exercise 8 | Create a flow using Power Automate | |
| Exercise 9 | Create a DLP Policy using Power Automate | |
| Exercise 10 | Build a Power BI report and dashboard | |
| Lab 4 | Exercise 1 | Prepare for Identity Synchronization |
| Exercise 2 | Implement Identity Synchronization | |
| Exercise 3 | Implement Password Management |
The lab environment is divided into two parts.
- On the left side of the lab environment, there is a virtual lab where users can practice hands-on learning.
- On the right side, there is a bunch of information containing the details of the environment and a lab guide, which mentions the steps of the procedure required to complete the lab exercise successfully.
The duration of the lab environments for MS-100 course is 5 days.
Tenants and Licenses
A tenant is a container or a set of services having subscriptions and licenses. It is used in an organization that works with various Microsoft 365 resources.
A dedicated tenant is required to use the services, but it does not have a cost of its own. The cost comes from the amount of subscriptions and licenses the users use. However, the students don’t need to keep this information in mind as CloudLabs takes care of it.
CloudLabs provides Microsoft 365 tenants with the required licenses for each student so that the learners would not have to buy them separately. With the help of this feature, manual configuration of the labs gets eliminated and students have access to ready-to-use lab environments.
This will let them concentrate on using the lab environment and learning the necessary skills that they need to excel in their career.
What licenses does CloudLabs provides?
For this course, there are two kinds of licenses provided by CloudLabs: –
- Office 365 E5
Office 365 is a collection of services that covers the most widely used apps of Microsoft such as Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, etc. Out of the licenses available in this bundle, E5 is the license having the greatest number of features including security.
- Microsoft 365 E5
Microsoft 365 is another bundle of services which includes Office 365 along with Windows 10 Enterprise, and advanced security. Like Office 365, the license with the most features is E5 having voice and data analysis tools.
In MS-100 course, there are 9 pre-created users with Office 365 E5 licenses assigned to each student in a single lab environment. The attendee will use these users throughout the course of the lab by adding them to groups/organizations etc.
The above points showed the whole procedure regarding how learners can pursue their Exchange Online training.
More Features of CloudLabs
CloudLabs has a lot more impressive features that can help learners to successfully complete Microsoft Exchange Online training and make it more impactful.
The features are listed below: –
1. Skill Validation
This feature allows trainees to check their progress and validate their skills with the help of lab guides provided in the lab environment. In short, it lets them validate themselves. Trainees will get to know if they have performed the set of procedures in the right way or not.
2. 24/7 support
CloudLabs support team is always available to solve any issue related to the lab environment. Users don’t need to troubleshoot or configure the lab environment by themselves. Our support team will do it for them, so that they can concentrate on the tasks that they are supposed to do. Whether there is a technical problem or a non-technical problem, CloudLabs team is always ready to provide instant support.
3. Predictable pricing
CloudLabs offers predictable cost by having a per student fee while providing best in class training experience.
4. Lab deployment within minutes
With the help of CloudLabs, a lab can be configured and deployed within minutes and can be scaled up or down depending on the requirements. Learners don’t have to wait for hours to work in their respective environments.
Conclusion
Microsoft Exchange Online eliminates on-premises hardware and makes tasks easier by using cloud technology to maintain an organization’s emails. It is reliable, accessible from anywhere, has integration with MS Outlook, and possesses advanced security.
Head over to CloudLabs’ courses to undergo training on Microsoft Exchange Online, and leverage CloudLabs platform to get the much-needed hands-on training.
