SuperTekBoy

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Exchange 2016 public preview released

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Exchange 2016 Big LogoToday was an exciting day! Microsoft released the public preview for Exchange 2016.

Our first exposure to Exchange 2016 was at Microsoft Ignite back in May. Since then its been fairly tight-lipped. For more information on what we learnt regarding Exchange 2016 I recommend my write-up ‘What Ignite taught us about Exchange 2016‘.

If you haven’t seen them I highly recommend checking out all Exchange sessions from Microsoft Ignite. The Exchange Team collated them in a blog post here. If there are any two Exchange sessions you should watch then it is these two; Ross Smith’s Exchange Server Preferred Architecture and Brian Day’s Deploying Exchange 2016.

The official release announcement for Exchange 2016 can be found on the Exchange Team’s blog. To download the bits follow this link. [Read more…] about Exchange 2016 public preview released

Exchange June 2015 Updates

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Exchange 2013 Big Logo

The Exchange Team announced Cumulative Update 9 earlier this month.

As always, test these updates in a lab first!

It doesn’t have to be anything elaborate. In fact, I used to do a lot of testing from a Windows 8.1 laptop where I had Hyper-V installed. My laptop ran 3 VMs–Exchange 2010, 2013 and a DC. Hyper-V comes included with Windows 8. Its comparable to VMware Workstation in functionality.

Enough about labs! What are these updates and where can I get them?

The updates are as follows:

Exchange 2013 Cumulative Update 9 Exchange Server 2013 Cumulative Update 9

Exchange 2013 Mini UM Language Packs for Cumulative Update 9

Exchange 2010 Mini Exchange Server 2010 SP3 Update Rollup 10

Exchange 2007 Mini Exchange Server 2007 SP3 Update Rollup 17

So what’s new?

This update is a culmination of bug fixes and feature tweaks. Cumulative Update 9 also included changes to the behavior of saving Sent Items when using Shared Mailboxes; more info on that here. [Read more…] about Exchange June 2015 Updates

What Ignite taught us about Exchange 2016

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Microsoft IgniteIf you are feeling a little overwhelmed by the 688 Ignite sessions on Channel 9, then check out this great article from the Exchange Team.

The Exchange Team collates all the Exchange, Office 365 and Outlook content into several easy to navigate lists. In the first list you will find 20 videos on Exchange Server. The majority of the content is focused on Exchange Server 2016.

Here is what we learnt about our favorite product.

For a summary of the Microsoft Ignite Keynote be sure to check out this article.

Keeping it together

The biggest announcement is that you can no longer split the Client Access and Mailbox roles. While multi-role was a recommendation in Exchange 2013, this is now mandatory in Exchange 2016. Check the screenshot below from Brian Day’s session. You will notice the absence of Client Access which has been rolled into the Mailbox role.

Exchange 2016 Server Role Selection setup screen

You’ll also notice Edge Transport is listed as an option. Ross Smith announced that Edge will ship with Server 2016 RTM.

For more information on the architectural changes, check out this post from the Exchange Team Blog.

MAPI over HTTP

We saw the introduction of MAPI over HTTP in Exchange 2013 Service Pack 1. MAPI over HTTP provides several advances over RPC, including faster reconnection times for clients and greater visibility into errors. While disabled by default in 2013, the new protocol will come enabled as default in 2016.

To quote Ross Smith

It removed the dependency of RPC as an intermediary. It was a huge win for us. RPC, as great as it is, is not owned by the Exchange development team. Any time we felt we wanted to enhance the RPC protocol…we couldn’t do it. We own MAPI. We can make any investment in the MAPI protocol we want.Ross Smith IV

Further improvements have been made in 2016 for the new protocol. In 2013, MAPI over HTTP was turned on or off at the organization level. In 2016, this protocol is enabled on a per user basis. This is great for a coexistence scenario.

Exchange 2016 MAPI over HTTP

When Outlook discovers the availability of MAPI over HTTP the change will occur the next time Outlook is restarted. The Outlook client will continue to use RPC until the it is closed. This is great for the end user. By continuing to use RPC means user won’t receive any disruptive dialog boxes regarding admin changes.

Before deploying 2016, it is important you have the MAPI virtual directories configured on your load balancers. It is also important that MAPI virtual directory URLs are configured appropriately.

Previously, MAPI over HTTP was only available to users running Outlook 2013 SP1. In April Microsoft extended this support to Outlook 2010. But what does this mean for 2007 users? [Read more…] about What Ignite taught us about Exchange 2016

Microsoft Ignite : Did your 2016 just get busier?

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If you weren’t aware Microsoft is hosting its Ignite conference this week in Chicago (May 4th-8th).

Microsoft Ignite is the convergence of several Microsoft conferences into one mammoth event. And, it makes sense. With so much cross-product integration there was a growing amount of duplicate content. To quote the Microsoft Blog;

It will bring together the best of previously individual events – the Management Summit, the Exchange, SharePoint, Lync, Project, and TechEd conferences – and then take it to the next levelThe Official Microsoft Blog

So how popular is Ignite? Joe Belfiore (@joebelfiore) revealed during the Cortana Power BI demo that over 23,000 people were in attendance. Unfortunately, I couldn’t make this conference. But luckily Microsoft has not forgotten us. You can watch the on-demand recording of the keynote here. Furthermore, Channel 9 is live streaming several of the sessions at http://channel9.msdn.com/. Their featured session guide is on the front page.

UPDATE: Channel 9 has all the Ignite recordings available here. There are 688 recorded sessions!!

Your 2016 may have just gotten a little busier

If you saw the keynote then you know there was a slew of product announcements made. Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella (), announced several new product releases. Many of which are already available for preview, or, will be second half 2015.

Products included:

  • Windows Server 10
  • Exchange 2016
  • System Center 2016
  • SQL Server 2016
  • Windows 10
  • Office 2016

Also highlighted were:

  • Azure for your Datacenter
  • Skype for Business Broadcast
  • Windows Update for Business
  • Cortana improvements
  • Continuum for Windows Phone
  • Hello feature
  • Skype for HoloLens
  • Microsoft Advanced Threat Analytics
  • Operations Management Suite
  • Device Guard
  • Azure Rights Management and Data Loss Prevention

One message from Satya’s presentation was very clear. [Read more…] about Microsoft Ignite : Did your 2016 just get busier?

Exchange March 2015 Updates

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Exchange 2013 Big LogoThe Exchange Team announced Cumulative Update 8 earlier this month.

As always, test these updates in a lab first!

It doesn’t have to be anything elaborate. In fact, I used to do a lot of testing from a Windows 8.1 laptop where I had Hyper-V installed. My laptop ran 3 VMs–Exchange 2010, 2013 and a DC. Hyper-V comes included with Windows 8. Its comparable to VMware Workstation in functionality.

Enough about labs! What are these updates and where can I get them?

The updates are as follows: [Read more…] about Exchange March 2015 Updates

Free Layer-7 Load Balancer from Kemp Technologies

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The Kemp Load Balancers are a fantastic series of products.

Just this month, Kemp announced that it is offering a free virtual load balancer.

Always free

This is a perpetually free license!

This is not a watered-down version of the paid product. Nor is it a watered-down version of the hardware appliance. This is a fully featured Layer-7 load balancer. The main drawback – it is throttled to 20Mbps throughput.

Free Kemp Layer-7 Virtual Load Balancer

While this may seem restrictive, this is more than enough for any lab, proof of concept, or, for small production environment.

Why is Kemp doing this? Here is a quote from their website.

“The availability of a proven free load balancer from a well-established company will enable many start-ups and QA/Dev teams to focus on the task at hand. They will no longer have to worry about addressing the trade-off between cost, quality and upgradeability associated with some open source and application-embedded load balancing solutions.”

On Twitter @KempTech stated “We did it for our fans.” [Read more…] about Free Layer-7 Load Balancer from Kemp Technologies

Exchange December 2014 Updates

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The Exchange Team announced yesterday it has released updates for all editions of Exchange currently under support.

As always, test these updates in a lab first!

It doesn’t have to be anything elaborate. In fact, I do a lot of testing from my own Windows 8.1 laptop where I have Hyper-V installed. Hyper-V comes included with Windows 8. Its comparable to VMware Workstation in functionality (and I run 3 Exchange Servers from it)

Enough about labs! What are these updates and where can I get them?

The updates are as follows: [Read more…] about Exchange December 2014 Updates