In October of last year Microsoft released a new version of on-premises Exchange server. Here at the ENow's Solution Engine blog, we realized we had a lot we could cover. Normally I focus mostly on writing about Office 365 and Azure features and updates, but I think there is still room in the blog-o-sphere for a post about on-premises software too.
Autodiscover was first introduced in Exchange 2007 and Outlook 2007 to quickly configure Outlook profiles, based on only the username and password. Outlook connects to the Exchange server, you enter your email address and password, and the Exchange server returns an XML package that Outlook uses to create or change its profile. The first implementation of Autodiscover was in Exchange 2007, but it is still used in Exchange 2019. Of course, there have been some improvements over the years, both in Exchange server as well as in Outlook, but overall the mechanism is the same.
On July 24, 2018, the Exchange Product Group released the preview version of Exchange Server 2019. This version is the third version of modern Exchange Server. Like the previous versions, Exchange Server 2019 benefits from the product developments tested and implemented in Exchange Online. But not all features available in Exchange Online are available in the on-premises version of Exchange Server. Additionally, not all features that are announced for the new release will be available when the RTM build is released. That is something that we have learned with previous releases of the product.
Outbound messages to the Internet are routed from the Exchange Online organization through your on-premises organization. With the exception of messages sent to other recipients in the same Exchange Online organization, all messages sent from recipients in the Exchange Online organization are sent through the on-premises organization.
Securing mobile devices access to an on-premises Exchange Server infrastructure without a hybrid setup is not complicated when using a single-vendor strategy. You simply implement a Mobile Device Management Solution and you are done. Enterprises doing business in the high security industry tend to follow a multi-vendor strategy to reduce the risks due to security flaws in third-party devices.
Any seasoned Exchange administrator has at one time needed to deal with a massive storm of “reply all” emails circulating the organization. It’s a chaotic situation, and not much fun to deal with, although you may enjoy telling the story to friends for years afterward.
Recently, one of my customers reached out to me stating they were having trouble delivering emails due to SPF failures. While it’s not uncommon for SPF checks to fail (you don’t want to know how many organizations struggle implementing SPF records correctly!), I was a little surprised. After all, the customer had successfully implemented SPF records for quite some time now, and rarely ran into issues with it.
This time next year we’ll (hopefully) be in the midst of project planning for the newly released Exchange Server 2019. After a scheduled late-2018 release, many organizations will be looking to learn, test, deploy, and administer the new on-premises Exchange version after returning from their holiday break. As someone who works in the Exchange Support and Consulting world, this (Jan 2017) is actually a relatively slow period for us. Exchange 2016 has been released for a couple years, its bugs and quirks mitigated, and the rush of early adopter migrations have passed; leaving only the steady flow of migration and deployment work driven by company financial scheduling rather than the Exchange product release cycle.
Editor's Note: Originally posted by Paul Cunningham (Microsoft MVP) on his blog, Practical365, this review is extremely comprehensive and discusses the many ways Mailscape can be used for Monitoring and Reporting of your on-prem environment.
Exchange Server is a very tolerant software product and allows for installation in different IT infrastructure environments. Some of the possible infrastructure environments are well suited for running Exchange Server, others are less good.