Suggestions for a revised "Storage Topography" for a client

[britechguy]

@Sky-Knight,

Thanks. This is consistent with input I've received via another channel as well. It makes sense to do the upfront work to defederate, it seems, when the time comes.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

@britechguy

The sole problem with Godaddy in this case is they prevent your access to the actual M365 admin panel, and the features that come with it. They sell "hosted email", and limit the functionality to M365 harshly to fit within that sales model, and they do so because they do not want the support costs associated with the additional features.

Even shorter... the Godaddy version of M365 is so curated it's not M365 anymore.

Agreed.
I cannot properly take care of my clients...without access to all of the various "admin" control panels in a 365 tenant. And GoDaddy wall gardens those from the admin logins....you can't get to them. (yeah there are a couple of shortcuts you can paste in to get to one of two of 'em..but...I need it all without playing games)

Years ago when most IT/MSPs would onboard a new client...that was already using GoDaddy, we'd either do the "full migration" to a new 365 tenant (a potentially lengthy process)....or...after finding some "guides" online, (such as the popular one from...I forget his name, but from TMinus365).... we'd do the steps you see in the below link.

Defederating GoDaddy 365 -

Learn how to move a Microsoft 365 tenant off of GoDaddy without ever having to call them or perform a migration. This article shows you how.

tminus365.com

HOWEVER....about two years ago (ish)...GoDaddy realized so many people need to do this, that their support will now do this for you at your request (rather...your clients request). So..when ready to start this project, one of the first steps will be to get with your client and line this up with GoDaddy support...and have them "defederate it" for you. The process of doing this will mean your client will go through password changes for every user (simple..just be ready). And you...will need to make sure that you get a "global admin account"...a username..and a password...no license....so that you can log in and manage the tenant. Your client will need to enter their CC info into the tenant for monthly billing of the licenses. And pick a time before next month...to replace the "godaddy" provided licenses, with direct licenses. I'd honestly just take this opportunity to line up the new Microsoft 365 Business licenses that you'll use...get them in the tenant...and then take your time changing each users license before the Godaddy ones expire.

You can leave the domain registrar/DNS CPanel at GoDaddy..and website if they have one. Ensure that you get those credentials. We'll need to doctor up the 365 related DNS records.

 

[Sky-Knight]

@YeOldeStonecat I've heard rumors about that change at Godaddy but have yet to have it actually work.

Also, the defederation process exists because Microsoft demanded it be available or they were pulling the plug, so if Godaddy support is actually doing this work COMPETENTLY now... that's news to me, but also not shocking. Microsoft takes a hit every time this story is told and for good reason.

If you or I pulled this crap we'd be out of the Partner program before we could say oops.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

@YeOldeStonecat I've heard rumors about that change at Godaddy but have yet to have it actually work.

It's worked for us. Longest part is just waiting on hold for some goober at Godaddy to take your call. Haven't had to do it in many months...but a year or so ago we did it several times last summer. I'm sure it's subject to change. But if 5 minutes of my time on a phone to GD support gets it done, I much prefer that versus the time it takes to do it the manual way.

 

[britechguy]

I'd honestly just take this opportunity to line up the new Microsoft 365 Business licenses that you'll use...get them in the tenant...and then take your time changing each users license before the Godaddy ones expire.

You can leave the domain registrar/DNS CPanel at GoDaddy..and website if they have one. Ensure that you get those credentials. We'll need to doctor up the 365 related DNS records.

One of the reasons I turn to Technibble is so that the kinds of information exchange that have taken place on this topic do take place, whether they end up helping me or not.

Virtually everything you've offered in that message clears up a lot of "the unknown unknowns" as far as how one would go about extricating oneself from Go Daddy for M365, while leaving in place DNS (which I do believe is who they're using for that, I've never asked specifically because it's not been a part of the tasks at hand). The fact that Go Daddy can now handle the defederation for the client is a huge heap off my mind, as that had been presented as the most complicated part of the process. And if the existing tenant can then "just sit there" and we add licenses to it that's great, as I'd imagine one would not do this with the newly "direct from MS" acquired licenses until after the tenant is released from Go Daddy's clutches.

This brings up another question for me, and that is would the email addresses that I believe (I'm getting that cleared up now) have been established via Go Daddy under this existing M365 service they have through Go Daddy:

just carry right along with the tenant? The last I was dealing with setting up email at the nuts and bolts level is years ago, I just haven't needed to, and I've not only forgotten much of what I did know, but also have no idea if this is now managed through the M365 tenant or not. Given that it's a plan for Exchange, I have to believe the email addresses are directly tied to it, but I do NOT want to make that assumption; it needs to be confirmed by those who know.

M365 is definitely, to me, at times way too "Swiss Army Knife" in the number of things it can contain, but where it may or may not contain 'em depending on exactly which plan you purchased. Those of you that "do this all the time" already understand all the ins and outs (or at least the ones for the types of plans you typically deal with) while I most certainly do not.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

@britechguy
Look at this link...here's what we have memorized.

Compare All Microsoft 365 Plans | Microsoft

Select the Microsoft 365 plan that’s right for your home or business.

www.microsoft.com

So with any of those 4 licenses....any/all of them can access Sharepoint/Teams files.

To answer your question, yes the user accounts in the "godaddy 365 tenant".....would remain in tact. Any/all email, the email address itself..any additional aliases to that email address...yes..they would remain in the tenant. And if you add "new 365 business licenses" to each user account, ANY level of 365 business licenses, and then you rip out/delete the godaddy provided licenses...the user accounts/email addresses keep on purring along. No loss of email, no skips of anything. Just..the defederation process usually kicks in a password change, simple enough.

And if the end user did have a 365 standard license (which in my experience GoDaddy provided most of the time for clients we took on)...any/all files they had in OneDrive, and Sharepoint...still comes along for the ride too, nothing lost.

 

[britechguy]

And if the end user did have a 365 standard license (which in my experience GoDaddy provided most of the time for clients we took on)...any/all files they had in OneDrive, and Sharepoint...still comes along for the ride too, nothing lost.

The only license information I can find in relation to GoDaddy is what I posted. Even if they have an M365 standard license, I know for fact that they are not using any OneDrive storage whatsoever. That's never entered the mix.

This client has been remarkable in that it's one of the few I've dealt with that was really, really serious about keeping things backed up, but all of that is on-site. I really want not only to get rid of that WinServer2003, but have both their primary data and even backups in cloud storage so that should something awful happen, like an office fire, that getting at that data again could take hours, rather than days, for what they needed most desperately. I'm sure we'll continue keeping a local backup setup since that's what they're used to, and even though they were not keeping full system image backups of their individual machines, I intend to add that into the mix as well. All of the new computers have SSDs as their primary drives, and I find that SSDs fail "out of the blue" and really prefer being able to pop in a replacement and restore from a full system image and have things done very quickly.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

And that's a good direction to go in. One of the many nice things about 365...is that, if you have all of your files kept "up in the 365 cloud"....you can burn your computer to a crisp, go get a new one, unbuckle it, sign into 365, and with a few clicks here, and a few clicks there, all of your stuff is back.
If you use a higher up plan, like 365 biz prem, it's even more automated...it will push install Office, it will push install Teams, it will push install some 3rd party software like Adobe Reader and others some clients need..which are avail in the Microsoft store now. It will auto configure OneDrive and the Sharepoint folder syncs.
So you can unbox a computer, unbuckle, sign in...walk away for 15 minutes or so, reboot...sign in a second time, walk away for another 15 minutes..and BOOM it's all done. Ready for use! Edge browser now keeps your bookmarks/faves..and saved passwords....in your 365 work account just like Chrome does if you sign in and "sync" Chrome.

So for your case of flood/fire catastrophe...this solves much that. What's left..Quickbooks? Just reinstall, restore company from whatever backup you have, and that's set. I think you have some form of CAD in this case...so reinstall that. But still, "...hours....not days"...like you said above.

 

[britechguy]

A quick circle back to this topic, as I am perplexed by a specific aspect of the outcome of the net use command.

When I employ it, the drives map precisely as expected, and I can use them just fine. But, and this is the part that perplexes me, the actual machine that they're resident on (and it's the WinServer2003 instance, named ZSERVER in this case) never shows up in the Network tree in File Explorer.

On the other machines that were set up using a personal Microsoft Account linked Win11 user ID, as soon as SMB1 was enabled ZSERVER shows up in the Network tree and you can just click on through to the drives. That doesn't happen on the other machine that used a work/school MS account and where net use is employed to map the drive.

1. Why is this?
2. Is there a command I can issue to get ZSERVER in to the Nework tree like I would expect it to be, and like it is on the other machines?

 

[britechguy]

Now a second circle back, with some early additions:

1. The client and I have mutually decided that a N&P and re-setup of his machine from scratch, and using the personal MS account as the linked account, is likely the best way to go since SMB1 networking just works perfectly on all machines where we've done that so far. So what follows below is really more of a curiosity and thought exercise.

2. I also now believe he's sold on M365 as the way forward for a number of the goals we wish to reach. You just can't "piece together" things as economically as MS offers them packaged, and I'm sure that's by intent.

Now, back to our program with what's happenin' now on the machine that was set up with the work/school account and where net use was required to connect to the server.

When I remoted in just now, strangely enough, Zserver is showing up in File Explorer under Network. I can assure you that it was not in the past. But wait . . .

If you are in the BobCAD program, and attempt to open a file via the standard Open dialog, not only is Zserver not shown under network, but the mapped drives are not visible under This PC, either. Both show in those respective positions in File Explorer.

If I open up TextMaker Free, you can see the mapped drives under This PC perfectly well, and access them, but Zserver is not showing up under Network in the open dialog there, either.

This is the most bizarre situation I've ever encountered when it comes to mapped drives. They're supposed to be managed by Windows, and all the various programs "look to Windows" in order to access them, but what can be seen is varying by what is trying to open something. That's never happened to me before in all my years in this business. Mapped drives are either there, and available everywhere that you could navigate to a location via browsing to get something, or they're not. But not in this case.

Any theories about what's afoot here? Even though it will become a non-issue (or I sure hope it will) if I N&P and start at OOBE again, I'd still love to know what in the hell is going on!

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

If you go to settings...accounts...work/school....can you post a screenshot of what shows up there on the computer(s) that are logging in with the work/school account? Are these computers logging in using the email address of the user? Or...are they still "local users"....but then 365 is activated by their 365 work/school account?

My instinct in doing this project, would be to set it up "properly' if moving forward with moving the files to 365. And that would mean, joining AzureAD with them and having them log in with their 365 work account. SMB1 never has to come into play here (and should not be there moving forward either). Nor would browsing the local network be coming into play.

Gradually...gracefully...moving files from on prem server into 365 land. I'm doing this right now with a client...once data is all up in 365, I then reconfigure the workstations to joined AzureAD and log in that way.

 

[britechguy]

If you go to settings...accounts...work/school....can you post a screenshot of what shows up there on the computer(s) that are logging in with the work/school account?

I'll have to snag this next week, probably. I can say that since this is the owner's own office machine, on that machine I am not using any "secondary local" account to log him in. We're going straight in with the one and only account that was ever used on this box.

The problem with the AzureAD side of things is right now it's with GoDaddy and timing means that defederation of that tenant would have to have happened first, were this to be graceful, and it hasn't. We just started discussing this today in terms of moving toward M365. But I would also certainly hope that I do not need to N&P the other machines, which are working just fine and everyone's happy with, to get them joined up with the M365 world that will be created for the business as a whole. It's constantly being said that local accounts can be logged in to M365 that, for lack of a better way of putting it, is "of another sphere" and by that I mean it's not someone's M365 Personal or Family account, without needing to do anything to them. On the other two non-owner machines I have set up local accounts and those are what the end-users of those machines use to log in. The business owner's account exists on those machines, too, but, as I noted earlier, when we were setting these up earlier the same email address was in use for both work/personal and, at that time, I went the "personal" route for those.

I would think that it's possible for anyone, including me, to log in to a given M365 tenant and use the services associated with it if I have the correct credentials regardless of where I might be or what computer I might be using. Maybe I'm entirely wrong, but I think of the M365 ecosystem as roughly equivalent to the Google ecosystem in that once you're logged in with any given Google Account, you have access to the mail, drive, calendar, voice, etc., etc., etc., for that account. And you can log in to that account from virtually anywhere. If M365 doesn't allow me to "join" anyone to an existing tenant that I wish to add, then I need to learn what has to be done. I've had offers from several members for private conversations on M365 and it looks like the time is coming, very, very soon, to start having those.

 

[britechguy]

My instinct in doing this project, would be to set it up "properly' if moving forward with moving the files to 365. And that would mean, joining AzureAD with them and having them log in with their 365 work account. SMB1 never has to come into play here (and should not be there moving forward either). Nor would browsing the local network be coming into play.

Just to be clear, I realize that, when the desired endpoint is reached, that there will be no SMB1 and WinServer2003 involved, which is the point. But unless there is a way for me to "flash cut" them over from their current configuration to M365, I still need to have them all able to do their work with SMB1/WinServer2003 as the storage of choice until then.

And that's really what I'm trying to do. Make it possible for them to work, at the moment, with the infrastructure they're familiar with and have immediate access to.

The next step would be data migration into M365. The step after that would be "cutting the cord" to the WinServer and "repointing" to M365 for what used to be there.

I realize that the local network would be entirely supplanted as far as their data storage and access on a day-to-day basis. M365 would replace it, which is the end goal.

I think the part that's not clear is how I would "join AzureAD" with the existing machines, and I'm sure I can get the guidance needed to learn how one does that correctly and that it shouldn't involve an N&P on those machines.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

And what you're hoping to do is perfectly good much of the time, matter of fact I'm doing a similar thing now.
Here's my basic steps....
*Leave workstations configured as they are.....same user profiles..
*But I install the Microsoft 365 stuff...latest Office, configure OneDrive, and configure Teams/Sharepoint.....
*Configure the Teams document library sites....(basically the equiv of the top level folders of the existing shares on the old server).
*Each night...I upload at least one of those big root folder shares..into its new home in Teams. End users can still access what is left of the server, as well as access main folders that have been moved up to 365 land.
*Once server is done being offloaded....the quick job of "flipping workstations" to the new way to log into 365. Whatever you moved into Teams document libraries...is immediately avail to them. And OneDrive sync makes their Docs/Desk/Pics/etc instant too.

...lots of little details 'tween the steps of course, just blabbing out the 10,000 foot view.