Key Responsibilities:

1. Discovery & Assessment

• Conduct a health check of Exchange Online and Defender for Office.
• Identify mailboxes still hosted in Exchange and categorize users, shared, resources, and archive mailboxes.
• Inventory current mail flow topology including send/receive connectors, smart hosts, and transport rules.
• Review hybrid configuration and Exchange Online connector status.
• Identify dependencies such as third-party appliances, journaling, SMTP relay, scanners.
• Assess journaling, archiving, and backup integrations.
• Evaluate DNS records and TLS certificate usage.
• Validate SPF, DKIM, and DMARC configurations for all domains.

2. Planning & Design

• Define a cloud-first SMTP routing strategy with Proofpoint as primary ingress/egress and Exchange on-prem as secondary.
• Review and update mail flow diagrams and documentation.
• Plan DNS record changes and connector reconfigurations.
• Recommend optimizations for Defender for Office configuration as a secondary hygiene solution.
• Validate licensing and support implications for Exchange SE / Hybrid configurations.

3. Security & Compliance

• – Review and evaluate Proofpoint policies and rules including spam/phish, URL defense, and safe attachments.
• – Validate existing Defender for Office 365 policies including spam/phish, safe links, and safe attachments.
• – Confirm mail journaling and archiving compliance needs post-routing change.
• Review Conditional Access and authentication flows for SMTP clients including Outlook, POP/IMAP, and mobile.

4. Implementation

• • Phase 1: UAT Implementation
  • Configure M365 Exchange Online and Defender for Office as per design in UAT environment.
  • Assist with configuring MX, Proofpoint, Exchange connectors for routing through Exchange Online.
  • Modify transport rules and policies for cloud-first flow.
  • Update SPF/DKIM/DMARC records for UAT domains.
  • Conduct end-to-end mail flow scenario testing (internal, external, hybrid, local relay).
  • Monitor message trace, delivery reports, and quarantine behavior.
  • Validate fallback scenarios and failover routing.
• Phase 2: Production Implementation
  • Configure M365 Exchange Online and Defender for Office in production environment.
  • Reconfigure MX, Proofpoint, connectors for production mail routing.
  • Modify transport rules and policies for cloud-first flow.
  • Update SPF/DKIM/DMARC records for production domains.
  • Conduct end-to-end mail flow scenario testing.
  • Monitor message trace, delivery reports, and quarantine behavior.
  • Validate fallback scenarios and failover routing.

      5. Knowledge Transfer & Documentation 

• Provide updated mail flow architecture diagrams.
• Deliver configuration documentation and change logs.
• Conduct knowledge transfer sessions with stakeholders.