Inspired by
@Joe Aldeguer I am going down the rabbit-hole of creating a 365 Lab Environment - starting from scratch. I thought I'd document my steps thus far - as I'm a long way from getting it going. And we'll see if anyone else has gone down this path before can provide advice. While starting this discussion in two Collaborate Communities - I'll probably move much of the discussion to the Security Community - but please join if you're interested!
First step I took was to purchase a cheap .info domain on GoDaddy. Use part of your usual corporate domain name and add "lab" and "01" to the name. The 365 Trial is only good for a few months - initial 30 days and then extensions. And then you're done. Then you start all over again with "02."
Next - sign up for the 365 Trial. I used this link:
MicrosoftEven if you are a Business Standard or Premium customer Joe recommends going for the highest level so you have multiple license options.
Here's where I likely made my first mistake. My corporate credit card had been changed and I was over-eager to get this started, so I put in my personal one as a placeholder. But since my billing address was not my company address, I got a "we are reviewing your application for a trial." This might have happened anyway - but I don't think it's hit Joe before.
So, right now I have 0 licenses and one admin account with the onmicrosoft.com domain in it.
But I was able to get it to see the new domain in GoDaddy. In the meantime, I have my new AMEX card and have updated the billing info - and hopefully that will help.
Anyone else interested in doing this?
What are the benefits? Well - I've never done this before, it's usually an MSP that sets up this stuff. And then you get to try out all kinds of features and benefits - without bringing down your entire org by pushing out the wrong policy. And then you get to do it all over again when the trial expires.
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Adam Kuhn
Director, IT
202-772-3002
akuhn@fia.org------------------------------