MS AD 2012 compatibility with Office 365

Question

Is MS AD 2012 fully compatible with Office 365/Exchange online, and are there / what are the short falls of not upgrading to AD 2016/2019 when using Office 365.

Yes, am aware that AD 2012 is eol Oct 2023, but in the interim, is it best to upgrade before migrating to 365 or run with AD 2012 for now and upgrade AD before the Oct 2023 date.

Answer 1

Hi @Deen Uthman ,

About MS AD 2012,do you mean that Windows Server 2012/2012 R2 will reach end of support on October 10, 2023?
According to my search , after this date, it will no longer receive security updates, non-security updates, bug fixes, or technical support.

For the end of support of AD operating systems, the main impact is still on-premises Exchange.
Is your organization in a hybrid deployment? Hybrid deployments have their advantages, but they also incur high costs in managing complexity.

Due to the different complexities of different organizations, you can refer to the following links to choose the way that works best for you if you are in a hybrid environment: How and when to decommission your on-premises Exchange servers in a hybrid deployment | Microsoft Learn

Of course, if you're using a purely on-premises Exchange environment, upgrading your operating system is definitely your best bet.

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Answer 2

Azure Active Directory is not designed to be the cloud version of Active Directory. It is not a domain controller or a directory in the cloud that will provide the same capabilities with AD. It provides many more capabilities differently.

That’s why there is no “migration” path from Active Directory to Azure Active Directory. So you can synchronize your on-premises directories (Active Directory or other) to Azure Active Directory but not migrate your computer accounts, group policies, OU, etc.