Practical Help for Exchange & Office 365
On March 4th I had the great pleasure of being a guest on the Three65 podcast. I joined host Mark Vale to discuss the latest from Exchange and Exchange Online.
(Originally posted at https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/MVP-Office-Servers-and-Services/Three65-Exchange-Exchange-Updates-with-Gareth-Gudger)
It was a big month for Exchange updates. Not only did we get Cumulative Update 15 for Exchange 2013, but we also got Cumulative Update 4 for Exchange 2016.
As always, test these updates in a lab first! I recommend checking out this 7-part guide on configuring Exchange in your lab. It doesn’t take much to get one going.
The updates are as follows:
Exchange Server 2016 Cumulative Update 4 | KB3177106 | UM Language Pack
Exchange Server 2013 Cumulative Update 15 | KB3197044 | UM Language Pack
Exchange Server 2010 SP3 Update Rollup 16 | KB3184730
Exchange Server 2007 SP3 Update Rollup 22 | KB3184712
It’s time to update. Exchange 2007 will go end of life on April 11th, 2017. That’s a little over 4 months. If you are counting the days from this blog post that is exactly 100 days before Microsoft drops all support for Exchange 2007. On April 12th you will receive no more patches and no more telephone support.
If the lack of security updates from Microsoft isn’t convincing enough, check this article for a list of cool things Exchange 2013 can do. (P.S. Like the fact Exchange 2013 uses fewer IOPS per mailbox than 2007…say what?)
Cumulative Update 3 for Exchange 2016 officially added support for deployment on Windows Server 2016. Unfortunately, it was quickly realized that a bug existed that would crash the IIS Application Pools after a reboot of a freshly installed DAG member. The Server Team’s official response can be found here.
This issue has since been resolved in an update provided by the Windows Server team. The update can be downloaded here (KB3206632).
It is worth noting that Exchange 2016 CU4 will not install on Windows Server 2016 unless this update is present. [Read more…] about Exchange December 2016 Updates
On October 4th I had the great pleasure of being a guest on the RunAs Radio podcast. I joined host Richard Campbell to discuss what we learned about the future of Exchange from Ignite 2016.
(Originally posted at http://runasradio.com/Shows/Show/504)
During my recent visit to IT/Dev Connections, I had the great pleasure of being a guest on The Current Status – Episode 43. I joined hosts Phoummala Schmitt and Theresa Miller and special guests Michael Van Horenbeeck and Paul Cunningham.
In this episode, we discuss what we learned from Microsoft Ignite and IT/Dev Connections with regard to the future of Exchange and Office 365.
(Originally posted at https://soundcloud.com/thecurrentstatus/episode-43-exchange-uncut)
[Read more…] about The Current Status – Episode 43 – Live from IT/Dev ConnectionsMicrosoft hosted its annual Ignite conference in Atlanta this September. Ignite was massive at 1412 sessions. That is a lot of sessions! Many are posted at the Ignite channel on YouTube or through the Microsoft Ignite On Demand portal. Here are the top 15 sessions I think every Exchange admin should watch.
[Read more…] about 15 Microsoft Ignite sessions every Exchange admin should see (2016)
Today was a big day for Exchange updates. Not only did we get Cumulative Update 14 for Exchange 2013, but we also got our third update for Exchange 2016.
As always, test these updates in a lab first! I recommend checking out this 7-part guide on configuring Exchange in your lab. It doesn’t take much to get one going.
The updates are as follows:
Exchange Server 2016 Cumulative Update 3 | KB3152589 | UM Language Pack
Exchange Server 2013 Cumulative Update 14 | KB3177670 | UM Language Pack
Exchange Server 2010 SP3 Update Rollup 15 | KB3184728
Exchange Server 2007 SP3 Update Rollup 21 | KB3184711
Quite a lot actually. Namely Exchange 2016 can now be deployed on Windows Server 2016. Keep in mind that you must deploy Cumulative Update 3 to Windows Server 2016. Older Cumulative Updates will not work. Exchange 2013 is not supported on Windows Server 2016. It is unlikely support will ever be added.
Exchange will also work with Server 2016 domain controllers. However, this will require raising the domain and forest functional levels to a minimum of Server 2008 R2.
Another amazing addition to Cumulative Update 3 is the ability for search indexes to read from their local database copies. In prior versions, search indexes would reach across the network to read from the active database copy. With search indexes using their local copies network utilization can drop by a staggering 40%.
Windows Server 2016 ships with .NET Framework 4.6.2. That said Exchange Server 2016 CU3 on Windows Server 2016 will be the only supported scenario for .NET Framework 4.6.2. The Exchange Team plans to support .NET 4.6.2 for older releases in the December update. Until then keep .NET 4.6.2 blocked from your 2012 servers.
The Exchange Team has also changed how servers are placed into server-wide offline mode during upgrades. In previous versions, when applying a cumulative update, Exchange 2013 and 2016 would be placed into offline mode during pre-requisite analysis. If a server were to fail analysis it could remain offline despite no changes being made. Starting with the September releases server-wide offline is not set until after analysis completes and the installation is ready to make changes. [Read more…] about Exchange September 2016 Updates
On August 7th I had the great pleasure of being a guest on The UC Architects podcast. I joined hosts Steve Goodman and Dave Stork to discuss the latest on Unified Communications.
(Originally posted at http://www.theucarchitects.com/1612)
To quote their Facebook page;
Subscribe to The UC Architects at iTunes, or, via The UC Architects Windows Phone app. You can also stream all podcasts directly from their website. In addition, you can download Episode 59 as an MP3.
Be sure to follow The UC Architects on Twitter and Facebook.
Earlier this month was a big day for Exchange updates. Not only did we get Cumulative Update 13 for Exchange 2013, but we also got our second update for Exchange 2016.
As always, test these updates in a lab first! I recommend checking out this 7-part guide on configuring Exchange in your lab. It doesn’t take much to get one going.
The updates are as follows:
Exchange Server 2016 Cumulative Update 2 | UM Language Pack Download
Exchange Server 2013 Cumulative Update 13 | UM Language Pack Download
Exchange Server 2010 SP3 Update Rollup 14
Exchange Server 2007 SP3 Update Rollup 20
This update is a culmination of bug fixes and feature tweaks. Most notably we now see official support for .NET 4.6.1. The lack of support became a particular issue when Windows Updates began recommending this update back in February. Thankfully all stability issues have since been resolved. Microsoft recommends updating to CU2 and CU13 before installing .NET 4.6.1.
In the last update, we saw the end of SHA-1 certificates for S/MIME. This update follows suit by dropping SHA-1 from Exchange’s self-signed certificates. To get this added security you will need to regenerate your existing self-signed certificates. SHA-2 will be deployed by default for newly installed Exchange servers.
Another important update is the resolution of potential data loss when migrating public folders. You can read more about it in KB 3161916.
We also see added support for BitLocker during AutoReseed operations. Up to this point, you had to manually encrypt a hot spare either before or after an AutoReseed operation. With this update, we can now have Disk Reclaimer automatically encrypt the drive during AutoReseed operations. You will need to enable this functionality on your DAG.
C:\> Set-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup <Name> -AutoDagBitLockerEnabled $true