Category: News

9 years after…

This has been a long journey so far… And what a ride!

Today is the 9th anniversary of the “subject: exchange” blog. So many good things happened throughout the years, such has being nominated MVP from 2005 to 2008, the year I took the “red pill” (or blue) and joined Microsoft.

The first “Weekend reading” post happened a little while after the blog creation, it dates 04/29/2005.

I plan to keep blogging for many, many years, as long as it fulfills me and gives me fun. Thank you for being a reader.

MS Exchange CON 2013 Virtual Conference

Get your top MS Exchange questions answered!

  • Hear from a top analyst from Osterman Research with the latest survey research on MS Exchange top trends and challenges.
  • Watch how vendors are solving some of the biggest Exchange Management problems
  • Get answers to your top MS Exchange and MS Exchange 2013 questions with an Exchange MVP

All from the convenience of your office, on September 12, 2013!

Discover answers to questions like:

  • What are the key features of MS Exchange2013?
  • How can we secure and better control our MS Exchange environment?
  • What are 5 strategies to better manage MS Exchange for 2013 and beyond?

This unique, online conference is limited to 1,000 participants, so register now if you have not already done so.

Register Here: http://bit.ly/1742fGt

Belgian TechNet Roadshow content available

The content (PowerPoint presentations and session recordings) of the Belgian TechNet Roadshow that occurred in last December are now available to download (languages: EN, FR and NL).

AGENDA:

SPEAKER:

Ilse Van Criekinge has recently joined Microsoft as a Technology Advisor – Microsoft Unified Communications. Before that she worked as an ICT Trainer and Consultant for Global Knowledge. Being an MCT, Ilse has offered several companies guidance in their Exchange and MOM deployments, as well as auditing the disaster recovery capabilities in their mail environment. During the last couple of years she has ignited many IT Professionals with the power of Exchange and OCS, by delivering training and by co-founding a new user group Pro-Exchange in Belgium, focused on Microsoft Unified Communications. Ilse has held the Exchange MVP award for three years since April 2007. Ilse has co-authored an Exchange Exam Prep Guide, written Sapien’s Exchange Management Shell: TFM book.
She blogs her experiences in the Unified Communications field on http://blogs.technet.com/ilvancri

Download Exchange Server 2010 RTM

Home

As it was announced yesterday at Tech•Ed Europe 2009, Exchange Server 2010 is now available worldwide and can be downloaded from the Microsoft Volume Licensing site.

Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 helps IT Professionals achieve new levels of reliability with greater flexibility, enhanced user experiences, and increased protection for business communications.

  • Flexible and reliable – Exchange Server 2010 gives you the flexibility to tailor your deployment based on your company’s unique needs and a simplified way to keep e-mail continuously available for your users.
  • Anywhere access – Exchange Server 2010 helps your users get more done by giving them the freedom to securely access all their communications – e-mail, voice mail, instant messaging, and more – from virtually any platform, Web browser, or device.
  • Protection and compliance – Exchange Server 2010 delivers integrated information loss prevention, and compliance tools aimed at helping you simplify the process of protecting your company’s communications and meeting regulatory requirements.

You can also download a trial version from here or from here.

Related Links:

Tech·Ed Europe 2009

The registration for Microsoft Tech•Ed Europe 2009 is now open.

This year, the event will occur between 9 and 13 of November in Berlin and will gather, once again, Developers and IT Professionals under the same roof.

Tech·Ed Europe 2009 will be focused into a single week for both the developer and IT professional communities.
The change in format back to a combined event is based on feedback from both our developer and IT professional audiences who in this time of economic uncertainty prefer a single week activity.
For more than 16 years, Tech·Ed Europe has provided our customers the best technical education event in the industry and we look forward to continuing to deliver the great content, education and connection opportunities.

  • WHAT EVERYONE CAN LEARN MORE ABOUT

    • MICROSOFT WINDOWS 7 – Learn about Microsoft’s next-generation operating system
      Come and hear about the advancements Windows 7 brings to user productivity, security and PC management – all of which save businesses time and money.

    • MICROSOFT OFFICE and new ways to maximise business productivity
      This year’s Office System track will help you deploy, adopt and develop on business productivity applications. Learn about deploying Microsoft Office to your users, building pervasive Microsoft Office SharePoint solutions and managing your work with Microsoft Business Productivity Visio.

    WHAT IT PROFESSIONALS CAN LEARN MORE ABOUT

    • VIRTUALISATION that helps leverage existing investments
      Get an in-depth understanding of today’s low-cost virtualisation technologies and how they can help you make the most of your current software and hardware investments.

    • HOSTING for economies of scale
      Learn how to take advantage of Microsoft’s hosted services to scale your IT department’s communications and collaboration offering. You’ll also lower your hardware, management and power costs.

    • UNIFYING to reduce costs and help increase efficiencies
      Truly unified communications create a single communication infrastructure. That means you can reduce costs for PBX enhancements while improving productivity through unified inboxes along with rules that help workers manage interruptions.

    • DEPLOYMENT – maximise your existing IT infrastructure and do more with what you’ve got
      In economic times like these, it’s important to get maximum value out of your existing IT infrastructure. What you learn at Tech·Ed Europe 2009 can help you ensure that your infrastructure works as efficiently and productively as possible.

    • Microsoft Exchange Server Training

    Microsoft Exchange Server – Training Portal

    Microsoft launched recently the Exchange Server Training Portal, a site with great learning resources for both Exchange Server 2010 and Exchange Server 2007.

    As Scott points out, don’t miss the special offer: Clinic 6899: Exploring Features of Exchange Server 2010.

    Microsoft Learning Snacks

     

     

     

    Another great site is Microsoft Learning Snacks:

    “Learning Snacks are short, interactive presentations about popular topics created by Microsoft Learning experts. Each Snack is delivered by using innovative Microsoft Silverlight technology and includes various media, such as animations and recorded demos. At the end of each free presentation, you can view more Snacks, learn more about the topic, or visit a related Web site.”

    Right now, there are 2 Exchange Server 2010 snacks available:

    • High Availability and Storage in Exchange Server 2010: For most organizations, flexible and cost-effective communication tools are important factors for meeting goals such as high availability and enhanced database recovery. Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 helps organizations achieve these goals with a simplified, unified framework that helps them lower their costs and enhance business productivity. This Learning Snack explains how mailbox availability is achieved in Exchange server 2010 and how the new and improved database recovery and storage features help organizations manage their Exchange environment better.
    • Unified Messaging in Exchange Server 2010: Today, one of the topmost priorities for most organizations is to enable users to communicate and connect with others anytime quickly and easily. To meet this need and at the same time reduce costs, many organizations are now adopting Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 to take advantage of the enhanced unified messaging feature. Unified messaging provides users with flexible and powerful new ways of accessing information and increasing productivity. This Learning Snack explains how unified messaging works and also describes its architecture. In addition, it describes the voice mail integration feature of Exchange Server 2010.

    Exchange 2010 sessions from TechNet & TechEd

    The You Had Me At EHLO blog have a nice list of upcoming Exchange 2010 TechNet sessions:

    TechNet Webcast: Exchange 2010 High Availability (Level 300)
    Monday, June 01, 2009 9:00 AM Pacific Time
    Event Overview:     Welcome to the future!  The future of Exchange high availability, that is.  In this webcast, we reveal the changes and improvements to the built-in high availability platform in Exchange Server 2010.  Exchange 2010 includes a unified framework for high availability and disaster recovery that is quick to deploy and easy to manage. Learn about all of the new features in Exchange 2010 that make it the most resilient, highly available version of Exchange ever.
    Presenter: Scott Schnoll, Principal Technical Writer, Microsoft Corporation

    TechNet Webcast: Exchange 2010 Overview (Level 200)
    Wednesday, June 03, 2009 9:00 AM Pacific Time
    Event Overview: This webcast will introduce you to Exchange Server 2010, reviewing the major areas of investment for this release and highlighting marquee
    features.
    Presenter: Angi Livermore, Tech Solution Prof – Core UC, Microsoft Corporation

    TechNet Webcast: Exchange 2010 Management Tools (Level 300)
    Monday, June 08, 2009 1:00 PM Pacific Time
    Event Overview: Exchange 2010 includes new capabilities that make the operation of your Exchange environment more efficient. Learn how we’ve made the Exchange Management Console more powerful, extended the reach of PowerShell, and made it easier to delegate management tasks.
    Presenter: Evan Dodds, US-Exchange Shared PM, Microsoft Corporation

    TechNet Webcast: Exchange 2010 Archiving and Retention (Level 300)
    Wednesday, June 10, 2009 9:00 AM Pacific Time
    Event Overview: This webcast will introduce new ways to address archiving and retention with Exchange Server 2010.
    Presenter: Harold Wong, Senior IT Pro Evangelist, Microsoft Corporation

    TechNet Webcast: Exchange 2010 Outlook Web Access (Level 200)
    Monday, June 15, 2009 9:00 AM Pacific Time
    Event Overview: Exchange 2010 brings new features and functionality to Outlook Web Access. See product demonstrations of the latest capabilities and understand how browser-based communication and collaboration gets better than ever in Exchange 2010.
    Presenter: Gary Danoys, Tech Solution Prof – Core UC, Microsoft Corporation

    TechNet Webcast: Exchange 2010 Architecture (Level 300)
    Wednesday, June 17, 2009 9:00 AM Pacific Time
    Event Overview: This webcast describes the overall architecture of Exchange 2010 and key considerations for the scalability and performance of each server role. This webcast will provide the background and framework for the other Exchange 2010 webcasts, serving as a bridge between the overview session and drill-downs in each product area. This session is a recommended pre-requisite for the Exchange 2010 deployment and migration webcast.
    Presenter: Ross Smith, ITOE Senior IP Tech Architect, Exchange, Microsoft Corporation

    TechNet Webcast: Federation in Exchange 2010 (Level 300)
    Monday, June 22, 2009 9:00 AM Pacific Time
    Event Overview: Federation is a key part of the architecture of Exchange 2010, powering new organization-to-organization sharing scenarios. Learn how federation enhances the capabilities of Exchange 2010 and enables advanced coexistence between Exchange Server and Exchange Online.
    Presenter: Paul Tischhauser, Principal Program Manager Lead, Microsoft Corporation

    TechNet Webcast: Exchange 2010 Voice Mail enabled by Unified Messaging (Level 300)
    Wednesday, June 24, 2009 9:00 AM Pacific Time
    Event Overview: Exchange 2010 Unified Messaging is Microsoft’s second generation unified messaging and voice mail solution. In this webcast, learn about the features, benefits, and architecture of  Unified Messaging in Exchange 2010.
    Presenter: Michael Wilson, Principal Program Manager Lead, Microsoft Corporation

    TechNet Webcast: Exchange 2010 Information Protection and Control (Level 300)
    Monday, June 29, 2009 9:00 AM Pacific Time
    Event Overview: This webcast will introduce you to new ways to address information protection and control with Exchange Server 2010. A discussion of the use of encryption and rights management in parallel with Exchange will be included as well as an introduction to new functionality in Exchange that supports information protection scenarios.
    Presenter: Harold Wong, Senior IT Pro Evangelist, Microsoft Corporation

    TechNet Webcast: Exchange 2010 Transition and Deployment (Level 300)
    Wednesday, July 01, 2009 9:00 AM Pacific Time
    Event Overview: In this session we will cover the migration planning and deployment path to move an organization from Exchange 2003 or Exchange 2007 to Exchange 2010.
    Presenter: Kristian Andaker, Principal Group Program Manager, Microsoft Corporation

    Meanwhile, while reading Henrik Walther Blog, I noticed there are some cool sessions from TechEd USA that are now available to the general public:

    How the IIS vulnerability (Security Advisory 971492) affects Exchange 2003

    Microsoft released recently Security Advisory 971492, which alerts for a vulnerability in Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0, 5.1 and 5.0 (7.0 is not affected), that can allow elevation of privilege.

    The vulnerability only occurs when WebDAV is enabled. Since Exchange Server 2003 uses WebDAV to service users, these servers are potentially at risk.

    To find out whether a specific server is using WebDAV or whether it’s not, you can use the method Jane Lewis describes on her blog.

    To mitigate the risk, follow the procedures described in Microsoft Security Advisory 971492.

    Related Links:

    [UPDATE]

    According to the Security Research and Defense blog, OWA is not affected:

    Question: Is Outlook Web Access (OWA) vulnerable to the authentication bypass?
    Answer: No, OWA is not vulnerable to this vulnerability. Exchange 2007 and earlier supported the WebDAV protocol but they did so with an Exchange implementation of WebDAV which only reads/write to/from the Exchange store. It does not interact with the filesystem directly.

    Exchange Server 2003 Shifts to Extended Support

    Exchange Server 2003 shifted into Extended Support on April 14, 2009. Details on the lifecycle policy for Exchange 2003 can be found at Support.com.

    If you’re still using this version of Exchange Server, maybe now it’s a good time to upgrade to Exchange Server 2007… Or maybe start planning the deployment of the recently announced Exchange Server 2010.

    What does this mean for customers?
    The major differences between the Mainstream Support phase and the Extended Support phase are the following:

    • No-charge Problem Resolution Support is not available
    • Microsoft no longer accept product design change requests (CDCRs) or provide new feature functionality
    • Microsoft no longer provide new non-security hotfixes without enrollment in Extended Hotfix Support

    Customers have 90 days after 4/14/2009 to purchase an Extended Hotfix Support Agreement. One exception – customers who have Software Assurance can opt in for the Extended Hotfix Support Agreement at any time.

    One of the important things to note is that Extended Support is still a publicly supported phase and no separate agreement is needed to obtain support.  As long as customers are opening paid incidents, they will still be able to receive support. In fact, many Premier and Pro customers who already open paid cases with Microsoft will notice little difference in the support that is provided in this phase. They will continue to be able to open paid cases, receive security updates, obtain support assistance from their TAM, etc.  

    Scoop of the week: Exchange 2010 Beta is publicly available!

    Home

    Unless you’ve been living on Mars during the last few days, the fact that the next version of Exchange Server, previous code named Exchange “14” and now officially branded as Exchange Server 2010, is now publicly available, constitutes no surprise for you.

    Here are the links to the released software:

    What’s new:

    If you’re planning to install it right away, there are some links that can really help you:

    And, of course, the news… Lots and lots of news, that’s why this post is far from being a scoop 🙂