Microsoft Exchange 2010

Microsoft unveiled Exchange Server 2010, which has been in beta testing since April, at its TechEd conference in Berlin today, and showed it working with Outlook 2010.  Exchange 2010 is the company’s latest server technology for on-premise software deployments, but it also incorporates many features aimed at web and online services. It has a new, integrated email archive designed to help companies increase compliance and respond quickly to legal and e-discovery concerns, and there are now previews of voice mails in Microsoft Outlook. It’s also very apparent that Microsoft officials are aware of the new kinds of competition that Exchange is facing.

It was clear from the product positioning that Microsoft is feeling the heat (GigaOm Pro, sub. req’d) from enterprise adoption of tools from Google, such as Gmail, many of which are free or available in low-cost versions for business use. Cisco — a long-time Microsoft partner — is also taking aim at Microsoft Exchange with a new enterprise email service, WebEx Email. Steve Elop, president of Microsoft’s business solutions division, made numerous mentions of cost savings that enterprises can purportedly reap with Exchange 2010, and there was much focus on the email archiving and legal compliance features to be found in both it and Outlook 2010. Among cost-saving citations, Elop noted that companies can now run Exchange Server on lower-cost storage platforms than SANs.

Indeed, Google CEO Eric Schmidt has been very vocal recently about that company’s “next billion-dollar opportunities” when it comes to delivering web-hosted applications and other tools that can serve as alternatives to Microsoft’s solutions — and its licensing fees. In fact, many of Schmidt’s recent comments are decidedly anti-Microsoft.

No doubt with Google’s focus on online-hosted applications in mind, many new features in Exchange and Outlook are designed to allow email inboxes and archives to migrate easily between on-premise deployments and online-hosted ones. For example, a demonstration at the Berlin event included taking an existing on-premise email inbox and transferring it to a web-hosted implementation. Exchange Server is available now for trial use, here (Microsoft Silverlight req’d.).

Microsoft officials also announced that the company is acquiring SourceGear’s Teamprise technology. Teamprise allows Java and Eclipse developers to create applications with Microsoft’s Visual Studio. We’ll be on the lookout for more announcements slated to arrive at TechEd this week and will update you as they come in. Stay tuned.

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!

Droid was looking like quite the contender with its QWERTY keyboard, 5MP camera, replaceable battery, turn-by-turn GPS and MicroSD slot. Droid and its 854×480 3.7-inch screen promised customers a viable alternative to AT&T’s swamped network and the Apple’s draconian app policies. Why did it have to spoil a good thing by punishing its Microsoft Exchange users with an additional $15 fee?

Oh, sure, Verizon is accustomed to sticking it to its Blackberry customers, who for years have been paying an extra $15 over the $30 base data plan for the privilege of using a Blackberry Enterprise Server. Businesses who use a BES are already paying for server licensing and per-seat fees, so an added tax on the provider side isn’t surprising. AT&T and T-mobile are also guilty of pinching an extra $15 from their Blackberry customers who use a BES. So it’s not surprising that Blackberry customers switching to Droid might not have paid much attention to the extra fee.

However, Droid, with its “iDon’t, Droid Does” advertising campaign, has the iPhone squarely in its crosshairs. The iPhone uses Microsoft’s ActiveSync technology to connect to Exchange, bypassing the need for an extra server like Research in Motion’s BES. This connectivity is inclusive with its $30 unlimited data plan. Droid also uses ActiveSync, so why does its data plan cost 50 percent more for the same functionality? Surely if Verizon is seeking to steal business customers from AT&T, it should make an attempt to be cost competitive.

Are there really extra overhead costs associated with pulling mail from a Microsoft server versus a Gmail server? Unlikely. It seems like just another ploy to nickel-and-dime customers who need to access to corporate mail servers.

Business owners are likely to pay attention to this discrepancy. Say you’re looking to equip a mobile sales force of a dozen or more with an e-mail capable phone. If you’re using Gmail, the iPhone and the Droid will cost you the same. If you rely on an Exchange server, the difference is thousands per year. Does Verizon think its customers won’t notice?

Michael Scalisi is an IT manager based in Alameda, California.

One of the most surprising aspects of Exchange Server 2010 is the lack of backward compatibility offered. While those of us in the Information Technology market can’t afford to look back, or stay stuck in the past, it is unrealistic to expect organizations to upgrade their whole infrastructure for one application, however important it might be.

Historically, just about everything Microsoft made was backward compatible to one degree or another. On average their software was at least useable with the two previous versions of the release. While the newer features and benefits weren’t realized until we were up to date, at least the platform and its inherent improvements were able to be utilized.

After saying all that, there is a little bit of backward compatibility built in, since the latest beta release there is now the ability to co-exist with Server 2003 and Exchange 2007 with Service Pack 2. When the first beta came out it was Server 2008 only, which annoyed a lot of the IT community and threatened to marginalize the product. That’s a lot to ask at any time, let alone during a recession where budgets are tight and taking risks in unheard of.

However, the Exchange 207 Service Pack 2 was released yesterday so will be able to be further tested with the final beta of Exchange 2010 for those who have the patience.

The in-place upgrade that is now available is either a blessing or a curse. While it’s much more convenient for small businesses or home users to upgrade software, for the larger organization this isn’t the case. Upgrading means downtime and the risk of incompatibility with existing applications. Often it is much safer, and easier to upgrade a machine anew and integrate it into the network all shiny and fresh. A well planned refresh of the infrastructure would allow an organization to take down part of its system and do fresh installs while the existing nodes chugged away as normal. Once the new servers were ready they would be connected together in isolation before being introduced back into the wild. Doing it this way would enable rigorous testing before go live and prevent any system errors or incompatibilities affecting live service.

Now Microsoft have enabled Exchange 2010 to play nicely with Server 2003 it should become more acceptable. Rather than having to upgrade the entire server farm, only those servers hosting Exchange 2010 will need to be upgraded. This will save thousands of dollars when it comes to deployment time, and a much quicker turnaround when it comes to installation. Upgrading twenty servers instead of two hundred is a much better prospect for even the most ardent Microsoft haters.

From what we have seen so far, and with the changes announced in the final beta, the positives of upgrading to Exchange 2010 outweigh the negatives. I don’t see anyone rushing out to deploy it as soon as it’s released, but it’s a lot more likely it will be deployed than it was a month ago.

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.

CLICK HERE TO VISIT THE OFFICIAL EXCHANGE 2010 SITE!

Microsoft Exchange 2010 is the new incarnation of the company’s messaging platform that is due out later this year. It is currently in public beta stage, being evaluated by technology professionals from around the world.

If you’re expecting a radical shift like in Windows 7, then you’re going to be disappointed. There is a lot of new stuff under the hood, but the design philosophy and mechanics are much the same as with Exchange 2007. Like with anything Microsoft, there are restrictions to this software. At the moment it is only going to be available in 64-bit form. This isn’t going to be a problem for the vast majority of deployments, as most enterprise level servers are 64-bit anyway. Exchange was only 64-bit too, but it was released as a test and evaluation form in 32-bit.

The biggest hurdle to many considering moving to Exchange 2010 is that there is no upgrade path. There can be no upgrade from Exchange 2007, the server has to be built from scratch. Although this can be overcome with any good archiving system, it does add an element of risk to the migration. This is a big install, which requires a lot of configuration. Add to that data migration of however many emails, and you are looking at a mammoth task. Feedback from the beta so far informs us that the install and configuration takes around a day per server, even without the data migration. There are numerous tweaks to server roles and general configuration to even begin the installation. Again, this isn’t going to deter enterprise customers, but the rest of the potential user base may think twice.

The other main restriction as that it is only rated to work on a Windows Server 2008 machine. Fortunately, it will run on a non 2008 domain, so it doesn’t require a complete infrastructure upgrade. Now this also limits the appeal of Exchange 2010, as the deployment suddenly increases in cost and complexity. This may initially limit the amount of deployments out there but is unlikely to deter the enterprise clients who want the new features and benefits of the system.

Talking of features and benefits, let’s go over some of them now. OWA or Outlook Web Access has been given a makeover and now accepts multiple browsers. I’m guessing this wasn’t a voluntary addition but it will make the user experience much more bearable, especially for Mac or Linux users. It now supports Firefox and Safari as standard, so good news there. The biggest improvement as far as I’m concerned is the scroll bar for OWA. You can now scroll through messages just like in any other webmail account, eliminating one of the single biggest gripes of the old version.

The next big user improvement is the “Mute” button. If a user is being copied in on mail conversations they have no interest in, the mute function will take them out of the loop. This reduces unwanted mail and runaway threads.

Voicemail preview is another enhancement added in Exchange 2010. This is a TTS (Text to Speech) application that transcribes voicemails into text on the screen. This allows for previewing of voicemails in a users inbox before taking them.

MailTips is a new feature aimed at preventing those email “Doh!” moments when an email was sent that really shouldn’t have been. It has filters and warnings to alert users that they are sending outside organizations, to people out of the office or to large distribution groups. Depending on the implementation, this could be a nanny feature that simply gets turned off when deployed.

External Calendar sharing is the last user feature I think worthy of note. Calendar sharing has been a feature of Exchange for a while now and is used extensively by busy people. Exchange 2010’s version allow users to share their calendar easily, and to people outside their organization. This opens up a whole new vista of collaboration with freelancers, contractors and clients alike.

Improvements abound on the administration side of the fence too, with many technical improvements in server management and features to keep things running smoothly. The management interface hasn’t changed much, so first reaction won’t be astonishment, but there is enough else going on to become eventually impressed.

Exchange 2010 now plays nicely with others, and allows a lot of freedom with regards deployment. It can be deployed locally, as a SaaS solution or a mixture of both. Features can be bolted on, taken off and generally configured with a lot more granularity than ever before. Although limited to 64-bit on Server 2008, the rest of the product is as much about freedom of use as technical improvements.

It is now much easier for server administrators to delegate functions to others. For example giving access to a security department to audit emails and ensure compliance, or human resources to update employee information. Users can even be allowed to create distribution lists and mail groups.

Speaking of auditing, there are several new features built in to the platform to allow staff to check for compliance, conduct searches and stop information leakage across the entire mail system. No more checking Exchange servers individually or by region. This can all be done from one place but span the entire infrastructure.

The new integrated email archiving feature is long awaited. Exchange has always had limited archiving functionality, especially by industry standards and requirements. The movement, indexing and archiving of PST files is now easier and smoother than ever. They can be moved to external archiving solutions manually or automatically to ensure that any archive or compliance is made as straightforward as possible.

Although still in beta, Exchange Server 2010 looks like a polished, competent evolution of the platform. Microsoft have learned some hard lessons over the years, and they now seem to be bearing fruit. The system offers enough new features and benefits for many companies to consider the upgrade, but complicates it enough to put many off. In these times of limited budgets and having to account for every penny, time will tell how successful it becomes.