Exchange Server

Given the increased ways to apply rights management protection (encryption) to Exchange Online messages, the volume of encrypted traffic should rise. That’s good for users because their email is protected, but it’s not so good for ISVs who must deal with encrypted email. One such example is autosignature products, where server-based components can’t touch protected email to add their text.

Microsoft has shipped Exchange 2019, the latest in a long line of enterprise-class email servers stretching back to 1996. The latest version runs on Windows Server 2019 and Microsoft recommends that you use Server Core. There’s fewer people using on-premises servers today, but those that do can install the best email server in the business.

Microsoft released lots of information about Exchange 2019 at the Ignite conference. Administrators will love some of the new features, but end users will find little to amuse them. But then again, the Exchange on-premises story is all about being a bulletproof enterprise-class email server. And that’s just what Exchange 2019 delivers.

Microsoft has scheduled 1,500+ sessions for the Ignite 2018 conference in Orlando next week. What’s happening for Office 365? Well, there are many sessions to attend, but the interesting thing is the huge number of sessions assigned to Teams compared to other workloads. SharePoint does OK, but Exchange is low, and Yammer gets a surprising allocation.

Office 365 Administrators have many ways to access user data. It’s important to set up a policy to control and then verify that access. If you don’t, your administrators might be looking into Exchange mailboxes, SharePoint, and OneDrive without oversight. And that would be a bad thing.

Microsoft has just launched the preview version of Exchange 2019. The good news is that it’s a new version. What might be unexpected is the lack of new features. Some worthy plumbing won’t turn user heads, but then again, when you’re the best standalone email server on the planet, do you need to change very much? Dropping Unified Messaging will cause some brows to darken. Expect some sparks at Ignite.

The news that Microsoft will make mailbox auditing the default in Exchange Online is very welcome, as is the new mechanism they plan to use. Microsoft won’t get the new feature rolled out across Office 365 until the end of 2018, so there’s still a gap to fill to make sure that audit records are gathered for mailbox activity.

The venerable Exchange Get-MailboxStatistics has been around for over ten years, but now it’s telling lies about Office 365 users. Well, just the last login date to their mailbox. The problem is that the world is a very different place to when Microsoft first introduced PowerShell in Exchange 2007. Mailboxes didn’t get so many visits from mailbox assistants then…

Companies that move to Office 365 have to decide what mobile email client to use. A native client that uses Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) or Outlook? In the past, the best choice was probably something like the iOS mail app. Now, Outlook is the focus of Microsoft’s mobile efforts and it’s where all the new functionality appears. EAS is still valuable, just less so than it was before.

A year ago, Microsoft said RPC over HTTP was dead from Oct 31, 2017 and that Outlook clients must use MAPI over HTTP to connect to Exchange Online. The protocol is still dead, but it will persist in a zombie-like unsupported mode. The question is for how long?