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Exchange December 2016 Updates

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Exchange 2013 Big Logo

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 2016 MiniExchange Server 2016 Cumulative Update 4 | KB3177106 | UM Language Pack

Exchange 2013 Cumulative Update 9Exchange Server 2013 Cumulative Update 15 | KB3197044 | UM Language Pack

Exchange 2010 MiniExchange Server 2010 SP3 Update Rollup 16 | KB3184730

Exchange 2007 MiniExchange Server 2007 SP3 Update Rollup 22 | KB3184712

A quick word on Exchange 2007

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?)

Windows Server 2016 was breaking Exchange 2016

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.

If you attempt to run Microsoft Exchange 2016 CU3 on Windows Server 2016, you will experience errors in the IIS host process W3WP.exe. There is no workaround at this time. You should postpone deployment of Exchange 2016 CU3 on Windows Server 2016 until a supported fix is available.Windows Server Team

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

Favorite Exchange sessions at Microsoft Ignite – RunAs Radio #504

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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.

Gareth on Runas Radio #504 - Favorite Exchange Sessions From Microsoft Ignite

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(Originally posted at http://runasradio.com/Shows/Show/504)

[Read more…] about Favorite Exchange sessions at Microsoft Ignite – RunAs Radio #504

The Current Status – Episode 43 – Live from IT/Dev Connections

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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.

The Current Status Episode 43 at IT/Dev Connections
Photo courtesy of Paul Cunningham

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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 Connections

15 Microsoft Ignite sessions every Exchange admin should see (2016)

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Microsoft 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.

Understand the Microsoft Exchange Server 2016 Architecture Thumbnail
Understand the Microsoft Exchange Server 2016 Architecture
Ross Smith discusses the Exchange 2016 preferred architecture. Mike Cooper of GM discusses his implementation of Exchange 2016. Ross and Mike take questions from the audience.

  • Ross demonstrates a new feature where you can recover deleted or purged items to their original folder.
Deploy Microsoft Exchange Server 2016 Thumbnail
Deploy Microsoft Exchange Server 2016
Brian Day and Jeff Guillet discuss what’s changed in Exchange system requirements. Discussions included:

  • Exchange 2016 CU3 supports Windows Server 2016
  • Server 2008 R2 FFL/DFL will become the new minimum requirement in future Exchange 2016 releases.
  • .NET 4.6.2 currently only supported on Exchange 2016 CU3 on Server 2016. Will be made available in CU15/CU4 for older operating systems.
  • .NET 4.6.2 will be mandatory with CU16/CU5. The setup will block you if you don’t have 4.6.2 installed.
  • WMFS 5 is only supported on Windows Server 2016. It is not supported when you install it on older operating systems (use the version that comes with your OS).
Design your Exchange infrastructure right (or consider moving to Office 365) thumbnail
Design your Exchange infrastructure right (or consider moving to Office 365)
Robert Gillies, Boris Lokhvitsky, Adrian Moore discuss the business benefits of deploying the Exchange preferred architecture.

  • The importance of eradicating failure domains
  • SAN versus DAS
    • Since Exchange 2003 each version has dropped IOPS requirements.
    • Exchange 2016 uses 93% fewer IOPs than 2003
    • Exchange 2016 uses 30% fewer IOPs than 2013
    • Exchange databases average 10 IOPs
    • 7200 RPM SATA/NL-SAS average 70 IOPs
  • Thick versus Thin Provisioning
  • The importance of controller write cache
  • Bound versus Unbound Namespaces
  • Stretched DAGs
  • Virtual vs. Physical

[Read more…] about 15 Microsoft Ignite sessions every Exchange admin should see (2016)

Exchange September 2016 Updates

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Exchange 2013 Big Logo

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 2016 MiniExchange Server 2016 Cumulative Update 3 | KB3152589 | UM Language Pack

Exchange 2013 Cumulative Update 9Exchange Server 2013 Cumulative Update 14 | KB3177670 | UM Language Pack

Exchange 2010 MiniExchange Server 2010 SP3 Update Rollup 15 | KB3184728

Exchange 2007 MiniExchange Server 2007 SP3 Update Rollup 21 | KB3184711

So what’s new in these Cumulative Updates?

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%.

This is great news for a company that stretches their DAG (database availability group) across geographic sites as this will drop WAN utilization. This change also reduces database failover times by up to 33%. For more information check out this great video by Greg Taylor.

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

The UC Architects – Episode 59

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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.

Gareth Gudger Recording The UC Architects Podcast Episode 59

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(Originally posted at http://www.theucarchitects.com/1612)

What is The UC Architects podcast?

To quote their Facebook page;

The world’s leading Microsoft Exchange, Skype for Business and Office 365 podcast hosted by Steve Goodman, Pat Richard + world leading MVPs, MCMs, and bloggers.The UC Architects

Podcast RSS FeedsSubscribe 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.

[Read more…] about The UC Architects – Episode 59

Exchange June 2016 Updates

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Exchange 2013 Big Logo

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 2016 MiniExchange Server 2016 Cumulative Update 2 | UM Language Pack Download

Exchange 2013 Cumulative Update 9Exchange Server 2013 Cumulative Update 13 | UM Language Pack Download

Exchange 2010 MiniExchange Server 2010 SP3 Update Rollup 14

Exchange 2007 MiniExchange Server 2007 SP3 Update Rollup 20

Update: Special thanks to Keith Kroslow who pointed out that Exchange 2010 and 2007 did get an update. Their updates fix a potential elevation issue for Oracle products installed on an Exchange server. Check out KB 3151097 for 2010 and KB 3151086 for 2007.

So what’s new?

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

[Read more…] about Exchange June 2016 Updates

Exchange March 2016 Updates

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Exchange 2013 Big Logo

Earlier this month was a big day for Exchange updates. Not only did we get Cumulative Update 12 for Exchange 2013, but we also got our first update for Exchange 2016. Yay!

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 2013 MiniExchange Server 2016 Cumulative Update 1 | UM Language Pack Download

Exchange 2013 Cumulative Update 9Exchange Server 2013 Cumulative Update 12 | UM Language Pack Download

Exchange 2010 MiniExchange Server 2010 SP3 Update Rollup 13

Exchange 2007 MiniExchange Server 2007 SP3 Update Rollup 19

So what’s new?

This update is a culmination of bug fixes and feature tweaks. Most notably the OWA S/MIME control ditches its SHA-1 signing certificate in favor of the more secure and robust SHA-2. This signing change makes it to all supported versions of Exchange. For 2007, which is in extended support, this is the only thing Rollup 19 addresses. Exchange 2010, also in extended support, similarly sees this update and just one other minor tweak–which is the introduction of a link to the new Hybrid Configuration Wizard.

Despite the inclusion of this link in EMC, the new Hybrid Configuration Wizard was able to run against prior roll-ups of Exchange 2010. This update simply adds a link for ease of access. Be sure to check out this blog post from the Exchange Team for more info on the new HCW for Exchange 2010.

Another cool update, that flew under the radar, is that the web.config file for Outlook on the Web will now be preserved during a cumulative update. This is neat because it will preserve any customization admins may have made to that file. Sadly this change only applies to Exchange 2016 deployments but let us keep our fingers crossed this will be ported back to Exchange 2013.

One surprising plot twist was the retraction of Mailbox Anchoring in the Exchange Management Shell. This had been implemented in the previous 2013 update and was set to ship with 2016 CU1. Exchange CU12 sees this change reverted and 2016 never sees it at all.

Mailbox Anchoring was the concept of making sure that an admin was always getting the same experience when connecting to the Exchange Management Shell. This was especially important in an environment where Exchange 2013 and 2016 are load balanced in the same pool.

In essence, when you opened Exchange Management Shell mailbox anchoring would always proxy you to the server that hosted your admin mailbox. If your admin account didn’t have a mailbox, or, it was unavailable, then it would proxy you to a server hosting the arbitration mailbox. If neither were available then the Exchange Management Shell would fail to connect. At this point, your only option was to connect through local PowerShell and add the Exchange snap-in.

Microsoft has reverted this change in response to community feedback.

As mentioned in a previous post .NET 4.6.1 continues to remain unsupported. The Exchange Team has indicated that support will be added in a future cumulative update. For now, keep that update away from your Exchange servers. As of writing 4.5.2 remains the highest supported version for Exchange 2013 & 2016.

Other items of note include:

  • Exchange 2016 receives 17 new languages in Outlook on the Web.
  • Exchange 2016 ditches self-extracting packages in favor of ISOs for delivery.
  • Workaround for .Net update KB3097966 causing significant slowdowns in Exchange installations is documented here.
  • Lag Replay Manager is enabled by default in 2016 CU1 (but can be disabled).

[Read more…] about Exchange March 2016 Updates