Apr 20, 2021 02:04 AM EDT By Patrick Jones, UniversityHerald Reporter

Several government contractors are migrating to Office 365 GCC High (Government Cloud Community High) because of the requirements implied in newly enforced regulations.

Here are few things to consider while carrying out Office 365 GCC High Migration:

1. Whitelisting 

Office 365 GCC High has more limitations when it is about linking to any other Desktop as a Service. This has been shaky for many clients when transferring mail into Exchange Online in GCC High. 

Microsoft will whitelist particular IPs but would not whitelist series of IPs, like the G-Suite. But, if you are working on a cloud-based system or a hosted system with a unique IP, you would possibly be capable to whitelist it.

2. Migration Tools

The utilization of an appropriate migration tool will assist to ease out any migration. If you are doing Tenant to Tenant Migration, or if you want to Migrate SharePoint from one tenant to another, on-premises to a GCC High tenant, or also a hybrid environment to a GCC High tenant - determining the correct tool is crucial. One of the most important advantages of working on a tool is to hold the end-user effect as little as possible.  

3. Feature Similarities

When transferring into a GCC High system, it is suggested to understand what is unavailable. Below are some of the products or features that are not available in GCC High: 

• Delve
• To-Do
• Bookings
• StaffHub
• Stream
• My Analytics
• Audio Conferencing (PSTN)
• Telephony
• Whiteboard

Teams 

Microsoft Teams is now available in GCC High with some limitations, the following features are unavailable in Teams:

• OneNote Tab
• PSTN Calls.
• AIP (Azure Information Protection)
• Email channel.
• Unified Presence for Skype and Teams
• Teams-Skype for Business Chat characteristics

While using AIP (Azure Information Protection) for encryption, you need to be conscious of the differences in sending encrypted emails to a commercial tenant from a GCC High tenant, or a third-party tenant. 

• GCC High to GCC High - Every aspect runs as per expectations.
• GCC High to Commercial - Restricted to open in the browser with an OTP.
• GCCH to third-Party - Restricted to open in the browser with an OTP.

4. Labelling

The phrase "Label" can be complicated when it is about Office 365 and Azure. A label can be described as any one of these things:  

• AIP Labeling - Azure Information Protection labels are located in the Azure Portal. These labels need the AIP client to be installed only for Windows 10.
• Unified Labelling - Unified Labelling is included in the labels you will get in the Security and Compliance Center. Ultimately, those will be the only labels suggested using. At this moment, unified labels are not completely functional as the unified label client is still in testing for Windows 10. Still, unified labels do run better alongside a MAC now as there is not an AIP client for the MAC.

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