Microsoft 365 and cloud support for Winnipeg businesses

Administration, migrations and where your Microsoft 365 data is stored, with the Canadian data residency details.

What does Microsoft 365 support include?

Microsoft 365 support means administering your tenant (users, licences, email, security settings and shared files) and fixing problems staff run into. In practice that covers adding and removing users, resetting sign-ins, managing access to shared files, applying security settings and contacting Microsoft when something breaks.

Migrations, large configuration changes and cloud build-outs are normally scoped as projects, separate from day-to-day support. Settle which is which in your quote.

Where is Microsoft 365 data stored for a Canadian business?

Microsoft’s Product Terms commit that if a customer provisions its tenant in Canada, Microsoft stores the following at rest only within the Canada geography: Exchange Online mailbox content, SharePoint Online site content and files, files uploaded to OneDrive, and Microsoft Teams chat messages.[1] These commitments are included at no additional cost and last for the length of the customer’s agreement with Microsoft.[1]

For the Canada geography, Microsoft’s datacentre location list names two cities: Quebec City and Toronto.[2] Microsoft also notes that a request may sometimes be handled by a server in another region, in which case the data is not moved to a new at-rest location.[4]

What to do with this:

• Check your tenant’s default geography and the Data Location card in the Microsoft 365 admin centre.
• Ask any provider whether your tenant was created in Canada, and whether they would change it.
• Remember the commitment covers data at rest in the listed services. It does not cover everything your provider’s other tools might store, so ask where backup, ticketing and security tools keep data.[3]

The Cyber Centre suggests judging how outsourced providers handle your sensitive information, the legal jurisdictions where they store or use it, and the physical location of their administrators and data centres.[3]

Microsoft 365 migration: what to plan for

A migration to Microsoft 365 is a project with a start and an end. Points to settle before it starts:

1. What is moving: mailboxes, shared drives or an on-site file server, calendars, shared mailboxes and printers.
2. Which licences you need: confirm the plan for each role before ordering.
3. Which tenant region: confirm Canada before data is loaded.[1]
4. Sign-in security: the Cyber Centre says two-factor authentication should be required for important accounts including cloud administrators, and that cloud admin accounts should use different credentials from internal administrator accounts.[3]
5. Cutover plan: when email addresses switch, who tests, and how staff are told.
6. Backup: a Microsoft 365 backup is a separate decision from the migration itself.

Questions to ask a provider about Microsoft 365

• Who holds the global administrator account? Your business should.
• Is the migration scoped as a defined project, and what is excluded?
• Are licences in your own account, and can you see the vendor invoice?

The cost guide explains how projects and ongoing support are scoped in a tailored quote.