Microsoft Exchange 2010

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?

Microsoft Exchange 2010 officially ships today, offering enterprises a bigger, better, faster messaging platform. In April, reviewer Joel Snyder tested the beta version of Exchange 2010.

Here, he checks out a boatload of the most interesting features and upgrades associated with the shipping product and gives a thumbs up or thumbs down on whether Microsoft delivers the goods.

1. Database Availability Groups (DAG)

Joel says: Thumbs up

Exchange continues to make high-availability simple by creating DAGs, multiple servers cooperating to make a set of Exchange mailboxes highly available through continuous replication and high-availability failover. It’s not a simple feature to roll out, but it’s a lot simpler than it used to be and doesn’t take a PhD in Exchange to use.

2. Local Continuous Replication is Gone.

Joel says: Thumbs down.

If you loved the idea of having two copies of the same Exchange database on the same server in case your cheapo (or expensive) disk crashed, stick with Exchange 2007. As part of the simplification and extension of high availability, local continuous replication bit the dust. Microsoft’s answer: Go get another server instead.

3. It’s Mac friendly.

Joel says: Thumbs up

Outlook Web App, the renamed-Outlook Web Access, now works well in non-Microsoft browsers and on non-Microsoft platforms. Safari users, for example, get a great experience with Web-based e-mail, calendaring, and contacts.

4. No client needed

Joel says: Thumbs up

If you don’t want to pay for Microsoft Office to get Outlook, or if folks are just as happy reading their e-mail through a Web browser, Exchange 2010 is all about that, even down to the sound cues for alerts. That’s right, Firefox can now sound like Outlook!

5. Still a few bugs to get ironed out.

Joel says: Thumbs down

It’s new, OK, and while Microsoft tells us that thousands of people are using Exchange 2010, some of the new dark corners have a bug or two left in them. Here’s one we stumbled across, where Outlook wouldn’t let someone read their own mail — even though Outlook Web App would. Maybe wait for SP1 before giving this to everyone.

6. Bigger, Better. Faster, More

Joel says: Thumbs up, mostly

Exchange 2007 wanted 64-bits, but it could at least be tested on a 32-bit system. No more. Exchange 2010 insists on 64-bits. This makes your life easier in one sense, since everything is 64-bit through and through. But that’s as long as you have 64-bit friendly hardware and plenty of memory.

In terms of performance, Microsoft has reduced the I/O load of Exchange (they throw around numbers between 70% and 90% compared with Exchange 2000), meaning that you can use slow SATA laptop drives on that whiz-bang new 64-bit server and still get excellent results. Reducing write bursts within Exchange also makes it more compatible with SATA drives.

7. Personal archiving

Joel says: Thumbs down…for now.

With Enterprise licensing, you can enable a personal archive for any user, which creates a twin mailbox in the same message store. Users can drag-and-drop mail there, or Exchange rules can move it there automatically based on policy. Intended as a replacement for those PST files that users seem to keep creating, and losing, the archive doesn’t make much sense as long as it has to be stored in the same mailbox database as the original mailbox — which it does in this release of Exchange. When that limitation is lifted and you can give users tons of slow, cheap storage for e-mail archiving, this’ll be a thumbs-up.

8. Self-service

Joel says:Thumbs up

Exchange 2010 offers self-service through the Web interface (Outlook will redirect you to the Web interface, a harbinger of things to come), where you can change group memberships, address information, vacation settings and automatic replies, in-box rules, antispam settings, and more. If you’ve chosen Exchange as your VoIP automated attendant, you can even design your personalized answering service. Fewer help desk calls and happier users. What more could you want?

9. E-Discovery made easier

Joel says: Thumbs up

A slew of features in Exchange 2010 aimed at building in e-Discovery features can save the expensive of third-party add-ons, especially in smaller companies. Multiple mailbox search with extensive Boolean criteria is a good start, as is Legal Hold — a way to be sure that information doesn’t disappear once you’ve been notified that the scent of litigation is in the air. Microsoft packed these in haphazardly, so you have to hunt around to find all the pieces, but at least they’re there.

10. Your dictation machine

Joel says: Thumbs up

Not everyone will hook up their voice mail to Exchange Unified Messaging (this feature doesn’t work if you just forward your voice mail into Exchange), but if you do, then Exchange 2010 will try voice recognition on your voice mail and put the text in the e-mail message with the voice recording. Now, hitting delete can take even less time.

11. Exchange test tool

Joel says: Thumbs up

Microsoft now has a Web site that can test various aspects of your Exchange server from the Internet. Everything from basic incoming SMTP to ActiveSync and Outlook Anywhere (RPC over HTTP) are testable. Not strictly a part of Exchange 2010, but a welcome contribution to the world of e-mail administrators who need a better test than you get from Gmail.

12. Look Ma, no “Next” button

Joel says: Thumbs up

Exchange Web now shows all of your messages in a single window, with scroll bars (if necessary), instead of with troublesome “next” and “previous” screen buttons. Also in this version: threaded messages, which Microsoft calls Conversation View. A long-missing competitive feature, Exchange clients now can thread all messages in a conversation into a single view, helping to eliminate the all-too-common syndrome of answering a message that someone else has already answered.

13. There’s a button for that

Joel says: Thumbs down

Maybe Exchange 2010 shouldn’t be tarred with the Outlook brush, but…apparently menus and shortcuts are now so passe that every possible function anyone could do, even those you don’t do very often, is now laid out in the pane at the top of Outlook’s window. Sure, you can turn it all off, or spend a couple of hours customizing it, but how about a more sensible set of defaults that doesn’t overwhelm us with choice anxiety the first time we launch?

14. Yep, we delivered that

Joel says: Thumbs down

Microsoft calls it “Message Tracking,” and holds such promise. Unfortunately, the information you see in the tracking is so basic and so primitive that this does little to help anyone — and may confuse the issue more than it clarifies it. Come on, Microsoft. You can do better than this!

Microsoft announced that the new Exchange Server 2010 will ship by the end of the year. It released the final beta recently along with Forefront for Exchange Server 2010 which is a security add-on for the server software.

The design philosophy of the new Exchange is that of a hybrid. It is designed to work equally well as a hosted email service as it is a corporate one. The flexibility and scalability touted in previous press releases certainly hint at a much more robust and flexible approach to the software.

Microsoft has tested the application thoroughly using its own infrastructure, and the Live@Edu programme. This programme was a free offering to students which offered a co-hosted Exchange setup free of charge with ten gigabytes of storage per user and an online storage facility called SkyDrive which enables students to add files to cloud based network folders.

The software giant also used its own corporate network to host the new Exchange 2010 infrastructure. In a statement they said that it was the perfect way to iron out any last minute issues while serving thousands of mailboxes concurrently.

Michael Atalla, the Exchange Group Product Manager announced the release on the team blog this week. He also highlighted some new features such as the interoperability with Exchange 2007 with Service Pack 2, and the ability to co-exist with Server 2003 servers. Initially Exchange 2010 was only going to work on Server 2008 machines, but it may be the case now that is can work with the older OS. There was also added support for 64-bit Server 2008, upgrades from the Exchange 2010 Release Candidate to the Release To Manufacturing version, which is also good news for early adopters. It means now that the RC version can be updated to the RTM rather than being uninstalled and installed anew.

This release is another example of the sea change at Microsoft over the past couple of years. They seem to be listening to users, interacting and consulting with them and even taking some of the feedback on board. We now seem to be getting software that we want, rather than what they want us to have. Windows 7 is another example of a product that has gone though lengthy feedback testing and beta’s before being released to manufacturing.

Microsoft is also attempting to improve the email discovery and compliance aspect of its email platform. Feedback from tester so far indicates that this isn’t ready yet, and probably won’t be at the time of release. It will probably be along in a year in the first Service Pack for Exchange 2010.

While the compliance aspect isn’t fully finished, the improved interface and administrative tools are. They have been received positively so far from Exchange experts around the world as it makes it much easier to maintain the infrastructure and individual users, all from one interface. This cuts down significantly the amount of administration it will take to keep the nodes functioning.

Exchange 2010 is expected to ship at the end of this year.