Exchange News

Today 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 learned 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.

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 Server 2013 Cumulative Update 9

UM Language Packs for Cumulative Update 9

Exchange Server 2010 SP3 Update Rollup 10

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.

If 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 learned about our favorite product.

Tip: 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.

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

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.

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 it is closed. This is great for the end-user. By continuing to use RPC means the user won’t receive any disruptive dialog boxes regarding admin changes.

Tip: 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?

The 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. It’s 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 Server 2013 Cumulative Update 8

UM Language Packs for Cumulative Update 8

Exchange Server 2010 SP3 Update Rollup 9

Exchange Server 2007 SP3 Update Rollup 16

So what’s new?

This update is a culmination of bug fixes and feature tweaks. This update also includes Daylight Saving Time changes. Microsoft reports there are no security patches included in this update.

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. It’s 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:

 Exchange Server 2013 Cumulative Update 7

 UM Language Packs for Cumulative Update 7

 Exchange Server 2010 SP3 Update Rollup 8 (withdrawn due to a bug)

 Exchange Server 2007 SP3 Update Rollup 15

So what’s new?

All these updates are a culmination of bug fixes, security patches, and minor feature tweaks. But the security patches it does include are big.

It includes fixes for MS14-075. This security bulletin identifies that an attacker could conceivably gain elevation of privileges in the Outlook Web App. Not good!

Standalone fixes for MS14-075 have also been released for Exchange 2013 SP1 and 2013 CU6.