Microsoft Exchange 2010

Email hosting is a growing industry. While there are a number of different businesses that offer complete exchange hosting solutions, off site email hosting is seen as another step in redundancy. Best of all, email hosting costs just a fraction of traditional full hosting package bills. Email is seen as less data intensive as well as easier to manage due to less user troubleshooting being required.

Email hosts still need to be verified before they are used by any type of business. Most reputable email hosts will allow for a trial account to be created so that any fears can be put to rest. SMTP download speed, account settings, HTTP headers and test emails can be sent to ensure that the account will meet your needs. Email hosting can be a difficult business to succeed in. Excellent customer support is rare to find. Companies that provide it often do not have an excellent quality product. Finding a combination of both an excellent quality product and superb customer support is not impossible.

Email hosting is all about redundancy. Hosts need to have redundant systems in place to ensure that you continue to receive email even if your main server down. This could be due to a power outage or a hardware problem. Typically, another server in another data center will pick up the slack. However, hosts who want to save money and do not want to pay for the extra cost will try to skimp. Talk with your email host to ensure that at least double redundancy is in place for your email hosting solution.

SMTP lag time is a big problem among web hosts. Having your email download to your computer is important to some individuals. Depending upon whether or not it is important to your email hosting solution, you should check the SMTP download time on multiple machines. Most of the time you will not encounter a problem, should you notice one, contact the support at your email host.

Each email hosting account should cost no more than three dollars per month. This price allows a host to provide excellent quality support and a first class product. The email hosting company should not offer “unlimited” disk space or “no size restriction” attachments. They are simply not going to be able to back this up should they be faced with a situation of abuse. It is always better to deal with an email hosting company that sets definite limits rather than a company that oversells what it is able to provide. It shows that the company actually respects their customers as well as is honest about their product.

Email hosting can be one of the most difficult web products to select for your business. Email is so vital to so many different functions of a business. Whether it is communication with a client or receipt of an invoice, email powers almost everything. Check out the many specialized email hosting providers before making a final decision on who hosts your email.

So we have had Exchange 2010 for a little over a month and so far hasn’t given us too many problems. Migration was an experience I don’t want to repeat in a hurry but the EDA or Exchange Deployment Assistant greased the wheels a bit.

Here are some of our findings so far. Bearing in mind we have only had the system live a few weeks and we’re bound to have plenty yet to discover. So far our time with the platform has been positive.

• OWA interoperability – Outlook Web Access now plays nicely with others. Not only does it offer almost everything Outlook 2010 is supposed to, you can now also use it with other browsers. Microsoft have opened it up so it works well in Opera, Firefox and even Safari. A very good development in a platform, especially for an organization who uses multiple operating systems.
• No client necessary – While we’re waiting for Office 2010 for Outlook, we found we don’t actually need it yet. We will to enjoy the other features, but for now we can use it happily without it. Even down to the sounds for calendar alerts.
• Availability – With the death of local replication, the new Database Availability Grouping is a godsend. Multiple versions of databases on multiple machines allows our availability to hit 99.99%. It took a while to get right, but when we did there were sighs of relief all round.
• Self Service - The bane of our lives is slowly easing. The new Exchange Control Panel means the users can manage their own groups, addresses, holiday messages, rules, virus protection and much more. They can use it through a web page and manage many of the tasks that used to take up the majority of our time.
• Exchange Test Tool – So simple yet so effective. This is a network or internet tool that allows us to test different facets of a rollout before making them live. From it we can test SMTP messaging, ActiveSync and Outlook Anywhere. Useful.
• Improved views – Not only do we now have the conversation view, which allows for message threading for longer conversations but we no longer have the annoying previous and next buttons. Now we have scroll bars, which makes the whole message navigation thing a breeze. If we have long running support cases, this view makes it easy to see who said what, and when. That way we don’t repeat what someone has just said, or ask the user to try something twice. Happier user, happier us.

We won’t get to fully utilize the system until Outlook 2010 arrives, but what we have seen so far is positive. The Outlook Web Access is a good alternative for message management, and offers much more than the old version. The fact that we don’t have to use it with Internet Explorer is a definite bonus.

The impending launch of Microsoft Exchange 2010 got quite a few SaaS vendors worried when they first heard about it. The new built-in archiving features of the platform were one of the main reasons they were in business.

I don’t think it is the end of SaaS email archiving services, not by a long shot. Firstly the email archiving is basic, and requires the clients to use Outlook 2010, which isn’t out yet except in beta as part of the Office 2010 suite.

Secondly using Exchange 2010 involves a significant investment in hardware, software and support. Something which many organizations just can’t afford right now. Considering many vendors offer the equivalent benefits already for a much lower cost, take up of Exchange and Outlook 2010 is expected to be limited for a year or so. Or at least until the economies of the world pick up.

The Exchange archival model also depends on the storage capabilities of the company. Unless many companies drastically improve their storage solutions, mailboxes will be limited, or restricted and the archive facility will lay idle. While hard drives are relatively inexpensive, they are still an added expense.

Many organization don’t allow full-text indexing on their Exchange servers. We all know this puts quite an overhead on the Exchange server, and will only work efficiently on low scale or low use platforms. Larger scale organizations simply can’t afford the slowdown in performance full indexing involves. The multi-mailbox search in Exchange 2010 depends on full-text indexing to work, therefore is largely useless.

Email archiving is based on three requirements. Storage, discovery and compliance. Exchange 2010 only addresses two of these concerns and those only on a basic level. The storage needs a hardware solution to make it work. Exchange has done much to improve how it handles storage by allowing multiple copies of databases, mailboxes and data. E-discovery is only addressed on a basic level, and as we see indexing involves compromises. Also emails can only be copied to another mailbox, not extracted from the system and provided immediately.

Compliance isn’t even touched by the new platform, so many organizations, especially those regulated by the SEC will still need a third party solution.

Exchange a made great strides in increasing management, usability, scalability and seems to be trying to drive down the cost of ownership. There are compromises though, the initial installation will cost a lot, both in time, resources and money. A new infrastructure will most likely be needed, involving the hardware, software and network. Then training for the support staff, as the new platform has many new features, and ways of doing things.

So SaaS email archiving vendors don’t have too much to worry about just yet. It’s going to be a year or three before Exchange 2010 is rolled out across the globe.

In this world, it require some time for various things to get settled. What ever it is whether we talk about the new products or some software, people need to accustom themselves with this new change. And people will appreciate it only if it passes their criterion. By criterion, we mean to say that the effectiveness of the software and products is worth investing. You might find it amazing, but 5 years back, people were unaware of Face book, Twitter and other social book marking site. And now no one can resist without these exciting sites. So in accordance to this laid strategy, most of you might have a question in mind that will Microsoft exchange 2010 cope up with the present competitive era. Well yes, the results which have come so far are truly amazing. But can not jump to the result rapidly. We should wait and watch and then decide about it. No doubt Microsoft has understood the changing trend and in accordance to that they have launched this new software. Microsoft have learnt from their past weakness and tried to cover them in this software. And to some extent they have got success as well. Let’s see what the serious changes which Microsoft has brought out are.

Microsoft in their software has laid a great emphasis on the practical life of the people. They have tried to provide the people what they wanted. This Microsoft exchange is also a good example of that. You all can use it in your house, offices or in other platforms. Basically Microsoft exchange 2010 is a communication tool, but you all can do it in style using it. Communication is not limited to the mail receiving and sending but you all can start live voice conversation with your client when ever you wanted. The reliability of Microsoft exchange 2010 is also quite awesome. You all just cannot find a better alternative of this software. There is nothing which you will complaint of. Every thing has been laid down in the desired format and style, so you will surely appreciate it. More over, the complex task which you find in the previous version of exchange has been paid proper attention and to some extent they have been simplified as well. This software will make you more independent in your approach. You do not need to depend upon the Microsoft exchange support in order to rectify various tasks. Now you will decide when to take help and when to not. Microsoft exchange 2010 is immense software with innumerable thing for you to explore. This is just the beginning of it.

It is always a better option to be safe than sorry. And in this tough economic era, people really don’t want to take any risks. That’s why many of you look for the trial version of Microsoft exchange 2010, in order to get themselves accustomed to all the features and concepts which this software includes. So you all can install the software, it is available at present. The installation process is simple and quite similar to the others software. You don’t need to do any thing new to get the task completed.

The basic requirement of this software is Windows Server 2008. Without the support of this Windows server, you may find some problem in the installation process of Microsoft exchange 2010. A good alternative to it is its Enterprise version. The basic reason behind it is that many of the Exchange 2010 features works only on these Windows system. So, there is not much option available to you in this respect.

Ok so after you successfully installed the software, now is the time to for you to install several pre requisites related to it. Such components including Web server, Web database, Web Net framework and so on. There is a whole lot of list for that. It will be better to install all the requisites for the proper functioning. However, a lot of components have been reduced in the Microsoft exchange 2010. You might have heard about Fail over clustering, you do not need to install it. Like this many other complex things have also been eliminated.

All these tasks will be performed by you only. You just need to select the options which you want in the Microsoft exchange 2010 and then all will be done. There is a feature in which you can dynamically install the mail lists along with the installation of the software’s requisites. So, this will save your lots of precious time. You need to click on various things before the actual install button appears. So, just have a little patience. If you will do all the thing with a cool mind, then your mind will not feel the tiredness. But once you get over with the installation process, it is time for you to start some serious work. Though it might take some time, but think of the benefits which you are going to experience afterwards.  It is really tempting to think about it.

Microsoft Exchange is one of the most widely used Microsoft Services, which have created a deep impact on the whole world. In today’s era, a large number of people depend upon Microsoft exchange to get their task fulfilled. The most exciting point about it is that you can use it out without having a physical email setup or server (what ever you may feel like calling it). And with the launch of Microsoft Exchange 2010, its demand has seriously increased. Now the question arises is that what is so special about this Microsoft Exchange version that it is so in demand, don’t we worry, we will make you available the answer to this question right here.

What to explore in Microsoft Exchange 2010:

•    A new inbox setup which has a feature named voice mail preview, which allows you an opportunity to have a chat session with your client right there.
•    New rules have been setup for the answering of the calls, which have made this setup some what easy for you. You can now decide that which call you need to attend and which to avoid.
•    You will be provided certain mail tips, by following which you can avoid making common mistakes in your emails.
•    It is more reliable than its other versions due to its high availability in any surrounding, back up facilities and the recovery of various data and other files. This is what most people wished for. Isn’t it?
•    It is really cost effective software to enjoy all the exciting features.
•    There is a huge inbox storage capacity provided to you. In fact, there has been a reduction of more than 50 percent of the mail storage costs.
•    Comprehensive safe software to be used. All your files, data and other documents will be entirely secured from any kind of misuse. You can be rest assured about that.
•    Ease in performing various administrative tasks is also a focal point of this software. You will be offered more freedom for performing different tasks. All the tasks have been simplified so it will save lots of your time.
•    You will get the text preview or more precisely we should say the alert in your PC or notebook regarding the delivery of a message. You can either reply him back by mail or can even conversate with him. It will not require much of your time to start the conversation.
•    Apart from all these, there are various technological benefits as well, which you will find beneficial when you start using it. So keep that in mind.

Erik Eckel takes a look at the business improvements made in Mac’s Snow Leopard release. Better compatibility with Microsoft Exchange make it not only enterprise-ready, but enterprise-friendly.

Apple’s Snow Leopard release, known as Mac OS X 10.6, is impressive. Snow Leopard’s business improvements are simply outstanding. Newfound compatibility with Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 makes the operating system more than enterprise ready, it makes Snow Leopard enterprise friendly.

Recent reports list Microsoft Exchange market share as high as 65 percent. That’s a lot of organizations tapping Exchange for critical messaging, calendaring, and contacts functionality, and it’s why Apple’s superior client-side applications should be such big news. The simplicity, usability, and reliability of Mac Mail 4, iCal 4, and Address Book 5, combined with newfound Exchange compatibility, make a compelling partnership.

Using Snow Leopard, accessing and synchronizing a user’s email, tasks, calendar items, and contacts have never been easier. Mac OS X 10.6 makes the formerly challenging process, which sometimes stressed even the most veteran of Windows administrators, simple.

Some of the credit goes to Microsoft. The Exchange Web Services (EWS) protocol serves as the critical link in enabling secure synchronization between Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 systems and Snow Leopard-powered Macs.

Maximize Snow Leopard/Exchange deployments by keeping these three tips in mind.

#1 EWS is the key

Mac Mail requires Windows administrators install Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1 Update Rollup 4. Windows administrators must also enable Outlook Web Access on the Exchange server.

Mac support technicians and users will now find Mac Mail capable of leveraging Exchange Server 2007’s Autodiscovery feature. Connecting to Mac Mail now requires only that the technician or user know the Exchange server address, the username, and the user account’s password.

EWS taps standard ports for email. TCP port 80 is used for standard messaging, while port 443 is tapped for secure transport.

#2 iCal and Address Book synchronization is automatic

Once a user’s account is associated with Mac Mail, administrators and technicians need do little else. In Snow Leopard, Mac Mail automatically configures connections to a user’s Contacts and Calendar information on the Exchange server. This information is presented within the Mac’s Address Book and iCal applications, respectively.

Secure synchronization with the Exchange server is supported, too. Because Snow Leopard leverages EWS, calendar and contacts information can be synchronized using SSL on port 443.

#3 Tasks live within Mac Mail and iCal

Mac Mail 4 includes its own integrated To Do application. Found within Mac Mail’s standard left-hand navigation menu, To Do synchronizes with the user’s Tasks found on the Exchange server. Further, To Do items can be associated within the Mac iCal application simply by right-clicking a To Do item and clicking Reveal in iCal. Information from the entire task can be reviewed, priorities can be changed, dates and notes updated, and more.

Simplified enterprise administration

In short, Snow Leopard’s new Exchange support makes it very easy for Mac-based users to tap organizations’ existing messaging infrastructure. Better yet, thanks to EWS, complex VPNs need not be constructed or maintained to enable secure synchronization of Exchange-based information.

Despite the significant expense, there are compelling reasons for some businesses to migrate to Exchange 2010, and we shall discuss five of them here.

While the recession may have bottomed out, and the talk of “green shoots” increasing, confidence is still low and money still tight. You couldn’t imagine a worse time for a company to launch a new platform, even if it is Microsoft and even if that platform is the long-awaited Exchange 2010.

Businesses are facing unprecedented pressure to cut costs and save money. Why then are some considering spending time, money and effort on improving a system that already works quite well? Here are five reasons why.

Voicemail

Exchange 2010 has a feature called Voicemail Preview which allows users to view a transcription of the voicemail within Outlook. Voicemail has always been something of a clunky technology. Noise or interference at either end of the conversation can render it useless. Unless a voicemail system is rigorously maintained, it has a tendency to lose, overwrite or not even record messages. It is also too easy to accidentally delete them. The ability to have a transcript of the message allow users to use it much more freely, cut and paste it, forward it on to other parties and have a permanent record of the transaction.

Information Security

We all worry about data loss, either by accident or on purpose. Exchange 2010 comes with an enhanced Information Rights Management feature that can automatically identify predefined keywords in all emails. This allows a much stricter approach to users being able to share internal information and can reduce data leakage significantly. There are plenty of third party applications that can do this, but having it built in to the system is a bonus.

Data Sharing

One the other side of the coin from information security is the ability to share information with partners and other approved organizations. Information such as calendars, tasks, distribution lists and other data with external partners as if they were part of the same organization. This adds a valuable feature for project oriented companies that use a lot of external talent, but needs to co-ordinate them all.

Reliability

The new Database Availability Group feature (DAG) allows database replication across an entire infrastructure both remote and local. This allows for multiple failovers without loss of service. While this adds complications to the migration and maintenance, it is ideal for high availability environments who depend on email.

Storage

Email has always been a storage heavy entity. With Exchange 2010 the storage requirements are much lower, up to 70% in fact. SAN expenditure is significant for many large organizations, and the introduction of this new system should save on storage costs. Direct-attached storage (DAS) technology can also be used in place of SAN to lower costs even more.

So while the thought of migrating to Exchange 2010 is still a daunting prospect there is still a case for doing it. These five benefits make may the difference for an organization and make the whole process worthwhile.

Microsoft  yesterday launched, in Tanzania,  a new suite of software products including  Windows 7 which is the company’s popular windows desktop operating system.

The introduction of Windows 7 and other products will enable any user to be able to use any language of his or her  own choice.

Microsoft Education and Citizenship Programme Manager Mark Matunga,  stated that the application of such local languages will be implemented in 18 to 24 months time when all the translation and localization work is completed.

“Today, we are launching our company’s new suite of software products Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 and Microsoft Exchange Server 2010. It is an opportunity for Microsoft customers and partners to gain first hand experience of the new products and connect with people already using the new technology,” Matunga said

Matunga added that Microsoft has developed language interface packs that translates English-language into local languages.

According to him, the process of translation is done in collaboration with National Swahili Council  (Bakita), University of Dar es Salaam and other Swahili professionals from Kenya and Uganda.

Concerning the Windows Server 2008 R2 and Microsoft Exchange Server 2010, Microsoft East and Southern Africa General Manager Louis Otieno, said: “the biggest challenge that many businesses in Tanzania have is the ability to get the most out of their new and existing technology investments and getting as much performance as possible without having to spend huge amounts of money to do so,”

Otieno also said that Windows 7 represents years of in-depth listening to customers and partners around the globe and is the most well-researched, planned windows released.

With the launch of Exchange 2010 supposedly only days or weeks away, it’s perhaps time to ask the question, who is going to use it?

It doesn’t take a genius to work out that now the work is done on Exchange 2010 and it has the sign off, that it will be released soon. Especially as the Microsoft Exchange Connections coming up in November 9-12th in Las Vegas. A betting man wouldn’t put money on it not happening…

From the feedback seen so far Exchange 2010 is an excellent improvement on the previous versions. It offers much in the way of security, compliance and reliability. But it does come with the inevitable Microsoft complications. Bearing in mind the complexity and expense of migrating to Exchange 2010, it begs the question, who is going to do it?

The economy has yet to recover and confidence has yet to be instilled. Money is still tight and purse strings locked firmly shut. So who is going to spend a considerable amount of time and money on an infrastructure they probably already have?

Organizations who already have a version of Exchange are going to need new operating systems, in Server 2008, probably new hardware to run it. Considerable new IT infrastructure to support the new Exchange features and a team to install, configure, then manage it.

Likely adopters are going to be those companies who have a bit of money in the IT budget and who are on versions of Exchange 2003 and below. They are most likely to be prepared for renewal or the software, hardware and training needs that Exchange 2010 demands.

Not only are there significant hardware and software demands for a roll out of this platform, there are bound to be problems with integrating it with third party software and solutions. Those organizations with firewalls and anti-virus are going to be extra careful about integrating the new system. Also those custom applications that interface with exchange may need to be rewritten in order to work.

We in IT tend to give Microsoft some grief about how difficult their programs are to integrate into existing infrastructures. It can be a bit unfair though as I’m sure they don’t set out to cause trouble. They want to make things better, but by doing so they break a few rules and existing protocols.

Time will tell whether the move to Exchange 2010 will be a rising tide or a trickling stream. I would guess it would be somewhere in the middle, but only once the economy and overall prospects have picked up and those purse strings loosened a bit. After all, if the current version is working okay, why upgrade right now?