Big-IP and ADFS Part 3 - “ADFS, APM, and the Office 365 Thick Clients”

Hi Greg,

 

 

Firstly thanks for these articles, they've been a great resource in my recent Exchange/APM work.

 

 

I've implemented F5 APM federated Office 365 for students in our university, and we're so happy with how it's working that we're keen to investigate the hybridisation of our on premises exchange org (used exclusively for staff) with a new office 365 tenancy, again using F5 for the federation/ saml aspects of the architecture. In my previous deployment I'm not using ANY ADFS servers, APM on it's own works for all clients (aside from Lync, which isn't currently supported by the Office 365 iApp). So far I've been focussing on getting to grips with the ADFS method of exchange hybrid implementation (4 ADFS servers? Overkill much?) and I think I can see where F5 is going to be able to take over those roles. All my reading is leaving me a little confusd though, and I feel that I need some assurance.. Can I completely remove the need for ADFS servers in a Exchange 2010/office 365 hybrid deployment? Or is there still going to be a requirement for internal ADFS servers for WS-Fed for some reason? It would be great to hear about that particular topology, and if it's possible? Cheers - Gavin Connell-Otten - Victoria University, NZ