{"id":10346,"date":"2019-01-09T13:40:41","date_gmt":"2019-01-09T21:40:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/insidetrack\/blog\/?p=10346"},"modified":"2023-06-12T15:55:07","modified_gmt":"2023-06-12T22:55:07","slug":"deploying-and-updating-microsoft-office-365-proplus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/insidetrack\/blog\/deploying-and-updating-microsoft-office-365-proplus\/","title":{"rendered":"Deploying and updating Microsoft Office 365 ProPlus"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This content has been archived, and while it was correct at time of publication, it may no longer be accurate or reflect the current situation at Microsoft.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

For an easy deployment, Microsoft used System Center Configuration Manager to automate the upgrade to Office 365 ProPlus. We also used update channels in Office 365 to specify our cadence for delivering Office updates to users.<\/p>\n

Microsoft is a large enterprise, and deploying a new version of Microsoft Office to our global user base and managing monthly updates can be a complex process. In Microsoft Digital, we serve more than 150,000 on-site and remote users with varying needs for how frequently new features are installed on their devices. Also, a few of our users need to keep previous versions of Office running, and some users have multiple devices with different versions on each one. We need to be sure to upgrade the right devices for the right users. In the past, this complexity created a lot of administrative overhead. However, when we upgraded our users to Microsoft Office 365 ProPlus, both deployment and update management became much easier.<\/p>\n

Gaining control over Office upgrades and updates<\/h2>\n

To simplify the upgrade process, we used Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (Configuration Manager) for our initial deployment. We configured it to automatically exclude certain systems and deliver upgrade packages in phases, so that different groups of users received the upgrade at different times. This preserved network bandwidth and also gave us the chance to apply lessons learned from early deployments to later ones.<\/p>\n

Not only was the deployment easier, but managing updates has also become easier thanks to our\u00a0Content Delivery Network<\/a>\u00a0(CDN). Most of our users are running Office 365 ProPlus and are receiving monthly feature updates. Although this update tempo works well for most users, some of them have business reasons to receive updates less frequently. Now, using update channels\u2014which are now available for Office 365 clients\u2014we can specify how often users receive new features. By default, users now receive feature updates on our Semi-annual Channel every six months. Having some of our users on this slower release cadence gives us more time to validate the release and application compatibility before users receive the update. Other users who want feature updates as soon as possible are configured to receive them from the Monthly Channel, so they receive updates monthly. Regardless of channel, all users receive monthly security updates.<\/p>\n

Our CDN has also given us more control over update delivery. Users automatically receive updates from the CDN over Internet connections according to their update-channel schedule. For our on-campus users, we have an additional option: using Configuration Manager to deliver updates over our internal network (not currently in use). Configuration Manager is now integrated with our Microsoft Update service and can automatically deliver updates to our internal users. This reduces traffic through the firewall and gives us a consistent way to discover, view, deploy, and track available software updates\u2014similar to how we manage other apps in our organization.<\/p>\n

The following figure shows three different ways that we can deliver updates to our users with Office 365 ProPlus:<\/p>\n