Akal4tech

Founded in the year 2000, AKAL is the service provider of technology solutions for global organizations looking to transform, grow and lead. AKAL brings IT and engineering services expertise under one roof to solve complex business problems. 15+ years of business experience, 165+ tech experts , Microsoft Gold certified professionals, 24/7 International Delivery centre, are few features which set Akal apart from its competitors.

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New in Exchange 2016

There are a number of new features introduced in Exchange 2016

Outlook on the Web

Outlook on the Web is the rebranded new version of OWA. It has an improved look-and-feel and works smoother than before. Outlook on the Web is also the primary email client for Exchange Online.  This is the client that is controlled by the Exchange development team, and a lot of effort is put into Outlook on the Web.

Strongly related to Outlook on the Web is another server role called Office Online Server 2016, the successor of Office Web Apps server 2013. This server is used by Exchange to render Office attachments for use in Outlook on the Web

Simplified Architecture

The simplified architecture is Microsoft’s way to enforcing the Preferred Architecture to this new version. It means that by default the old Client Access server role and Mailbox server role are now combined into only one server role, the Exchange 2016 Mailbox server role. Under the hood it’s nothing more than the old multi-server role, but it is now enforced.

MapiHttp as the default protocol

MapiHttp is now the default protocol for Outlook clients to connect with Exchange 2016, and Outlook Anywhere  is now deprecated. MapiHttp is much more efficient than Outlook Anywhere, it is more stable when working with flaky Wifi networks and starting up the Outlook client is much faster compared to Outlook Anywhere

Auto Expanding Archives

You start with a 100GB Archive Mailbox, and at one point when this Archive Mailbox reaches its limit, it is automatically increased with 50GB increments (it actually adds another 50GB Archive Mailbox).

Storage Improvements

Just like previous version, Microsoft has made some improvements to the way ESE (Extensible Storage Engine, i.e. the database engine in Exchange) is working. But it is not only the ESE improvements, Microsoft now also recommends using the ReFS (Resilient File System) instead of NTFS. ReFS was already supported in Exchange 2013, but it is now a recommended solution.

Integration with Office 365

Exchange 2016 is even further integrated into Office 365. When you have a hybrid environment more options are available then when you have a pure on-premises environment. Look at features like Exchange Online Protection (ok, this is available in a stand-alone environment with Exchange on-premises as well), the new Compliance Center or Modern Attachments.

Coexistence scenarios

Since Exchange 2013 and Exchange 2016 are so close together, coexistence between the two is very, very easy. Unlike previous versions, Exchange 2013 Client Access can proxy requests to Exchange 2016 Mailbox, and of course Exchange 2016 can proxy requests directly to Exchange 2013. This up-version proxy makes integration between the two very easy. Just add Exchange 2016 servers to an existing, load balanced array of Exchange 2013 Client Access server and continue working. It doesn’t matter where the user’s Mailbox is located, it is fully transparent. The client experience matches the version of the Mailbox server where the Mailbox is located.

Deprecated in Exchange 2016

New versions come with new features, and at the same time a new version is used to cut old features, or deprecate them. This is a small list of features that are not available or deprecated in Exchange 2016:

Support for Outlook 2007

Support for Exchange 2007

Outlook Anywhere

Client Access server role

MAPI/CDO

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Installing MS Exchange Server 2016

In my previous blog, I wrote about the pre-requisites for MS Exchange Server 2016. Once you meet all those pre-requisites, you can proceed to the installation of Exchange Server.

Here I will tell you how to:

Prepare Active Directory for the installation of Exchange Server 2016.

Install the Mailbox Server Role on a new server for Exchange Server 2016.

Before we start the installation, few things need to be checked:

Active Directory Schema needs to be updated.

Apart from the Schema Update, Exchange Server 2016 installation process makes some irreversible changes in the Active Directory Forest.

So, if you are installing Exchange into the forest for the first time, you need to choose the organization name carefully, as in the later stage you won’t be able to rename.

PREPARING THE ACTIVE DIRECTORY

To install the Exchange Server, you first need to update the Active Directory Schema, as you do most Exchange Server cumulative updates, as well as prepare the Active Directory domains where Exchange Server 2016 and any mail-enabled objects will be located. In an Active Directory forest with a single domain this can all be performed as one task.

The Active Directory schema update will be automatically applied, when you run Exchange Server 2016 setup on the first server in your environment. A Windows Server 2012 R2 server with the Exchange Server 2016 Mailbox server role pre-requisites installed doesn’t quite meet the requirements (you’ll need to add the RSAT-ADDS feature). A domain controller will have RSAT-ADDS installed already, but may also need the .NET Framework version shown below to be installed first.

Whether you’re running the schema update from an Exchange Server or a separate server, the following requirements apply:

.NET Framework 4.5.2 must be installed

The RSAT-ADDS feature must be installed

C:\> Install-WindowsFeature RSAT-ADDS

The forest functional level must be at least Windows Server 2008

The account used to run the schema update and Active Directory preparation must be a member of Enterprise Admins and Schema Admins.

The server you’re running the schema update from must be located in the same Active Directory site as the Schema Master. You can identify your Schema Master by running Get-ADInfo.ps1 script, or by using the Get-ADForest PowerShell cmdlet.

PS C:\> (Get-ADForest) .SchemaMaster

Now we’re ready to run the Active Directory schema update and preparation.

If you’ve already got Exchange Server running in your environment you should check the current Exchange schema version before applying the update, so that you can see what the before and after version numbers are.

Extract the Exchange Server 2016 setup files into a folder, open a command prompt window, and then navigate to the location where the Exchange setup files were extracted.

To apply the schema update, run the following command:

After applying the schema update we should check the version number again.

To prepare Active Directory, run one of the following commands. Note this will also apply the schema update if you did not perform that step already.

If you do not already have an Exchange organization you’ll need to provide a name for the organization now, for example:

C:\Admin\ex2016>setup /PrepareAD /OrganizationName:”Exchange Lab” /IAcceptExch

If you’re installing Exchange Server 2016 into an existing Exchange organization you do not need to specify the organization name, for example:

C:\Admin\ex2016>setup /PrepareAD /IAcceptExchangeServerLicenseTerms

INSTALLING THE EXCHANGE SERVER 2016 MAILBOX SERVER ROLE

The Mailbox server role contains all of the components required to run an Exchange Server 2016. There is also an Edge Transport role, but that is not a mandatory role.

After installing the Exchange Server 2016 pre-requisites on a server, you can install the Exchange Server 2016 Mailbox server role by running the following command from an elevated command prompt.

Now you need to restart the server to configure Exchange Server 2016. With this step, the installation process is complete for MS Exchange 2016. Please share your thoughts & feedback.

Visit: http://www.akal4tech.com/ms-exchange-support  for expert assistance on MS Exchange Installation.

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FTE Technical Support plans are proving to be Life Saver for IT Administrators.

Don’t you think, it would be amazing, if you could save on the business resource costs by paying only for the duration these resources work for you?

Exactly this is how FTE Technical Support plans work. Before explaining further on this, let us first discuss, what is FTE? FTE or Full Time Equivalent is nothing but a ratio of the total number of paid hours during a period (part time, full time, contracted) by the number of working hours in that period Mondays through Fridays. In other words, one FTE is equivalent to one employee working full-time. But instead of working on a single task you can direct and monitor the resource to work on different tasks.

Any business organization can use FTE Technical Support plans, to suit specific technical support requirements for their IT Infrastructure.

IT Administrators are generally burdened with the task of managing the entire IT Infrastructure of the organization. IT Infrastructure in itself is a huge concept and involves various technologies like Networking, Servers, Firewalls, and so on. Efficient management of these requires ever changing technical skills, resources and time which are generally scarce in small & medium size companies.

FTE Technical Support Plans provide a permanent solution to this problem faced by small & medium sized companies. Now with FTE Technical Support Plans, they can get the technical assistance from experienced, well qualified & certified IT Experts for any technical issue with their IT Infrastructure.

FTE Technical Support Plans are quite flexible too. You can customize these plans to suit your specific requirements. You can have a single FTE resource or a whole team working on your project. They can work on a project-by-project basis, continuing basis, or you can even move resources from one module to the other as per your need.

Another unique thing about these plans is that the cost of FTE resources remains fixed which means you never have to pay extra for the technical support.

In short, The FTE Technical Support plan is a transparent, secure, flexible and scalable way of working. Considering the complexities of technical problems faced today, these plans are proving to be life savers for IT Administrators of companies.

To know more about FTE Technical Support Plans visit Here

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Exchange server 2016 software pre-requisites

In my previous blogs, I discussed about the New Features and Technical Improvements in MS Exchange Server 2016 and Hardware Requirements for Exchange Server 2016. In this blog, I will discuss about the software pre-requisites to install MS Exchange Server 2016.

Windows Server 2012 or Windows Server 2012 R2 is required to install Exchange Server 2016 (if your system doesn’t have the mentioned versions, first you need to upgrade it to Windows Server 2012 or Windows Server 2012 R2). Further, for both versions of Windows Server either the Standard Edition or Enterprise Edition is required to run MS Exchange Server 2016. MS Exchange itself does not rely on any specific features of either the Standard or Enterprise Edition.

A full server installation is required for Exchange Server 2016; it can’t be installed on Core Mode installation of Windows Server.

The prerequisites that are required to install MS Exchange 2016 depend on which Exchange Role you want to install. There are three possible roles can be installed:

Mailbox Server Role (This is the mandatory server role)

Edge Transport Server Role (This is optional. It can’t co-exist with the Mailbox Server Role on the same Windows Server)

Management Tools (This is for Admin Workstations or Servers)

The requirements for each installation type are different, so let’s look at each of them in turn.

INSTALLATION PRE-REQUISITES FOR AN EXCHANGE 2016 MAILBOX SERVER

Follow the below instructions to install an Exchange 2016 Mailbox Server.

Open Windows PowerShell.

Run the following command to install the required Windows components.

Install-WindowsFeature AS-HTTP-Activation, Desktop-Experience, NET-Framework-45-Features, RPC-over-HTTP-proxy, RSAT-Clustering, RSAT-Clustering-CmdInterface, RSAT-Clustering-Mgmt, RSAT-Clustering-PowerShell, Web-Mgmt-Console, WAS-Process-Model, Web-Asp-Net45, Web-Basic-Auth, Web-Client-Auth, Web-Digest-Auth, Web-Dir-Browsing, Web-Dyn-Compression, Web-Http-Errors, Web-Http-Logging, Web-Http-Redirect, Web-Http-Tracing, Web-ISAPI-Ext, Web-ISAPI-Filter, Web-Lgcy-Mgmt-Console, Web-Metabase, Web-Mgmt-Console, Web-Mgmt-Service, Web-Net-Ext45, Web-Request-Monitor, Web-Server, Web-Stat-Compression, Web-Static-Content, Web-Windows-Auth, Web-WMI, Windows-Identity-Foundation

Once you’ve installed the operating system roles and features, install the following software in the order shown:

.NET Framework 4.5.2

Microsoft Unified Communications Managed API 4.0, Core Runtime 64-bit

Edge Transport Server Role

To install Edge Transport Server Role in MS Exchange Server 2016, you need to follow the below mentioned instructions.

Open Windows PowerShell.

Run the following command to install the required Windows components.

Install-WindowsFeature ADLDS

Once you’ve installed the operating system roles and features, install .NET Framework 4.5.2

Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 Prerequisites (admin tools only)

Only .Net Framework 4.5.2 is required to install Windows 8.1

The default installation of Windows 10 meets all of the necessary prerequisites to install the Exchange 2016 admin tools.

After installing these pre-requisites, you can install MS Exchange Server 2016. In my next blog, I will discuss about the steps involved in installing Exchange Server 2016.

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What’s new in MS Exchange 2016?

Learn what are the new features and technologies added in Microsoft Exchange 2016 over the earlier versions at http://akal4tech.blogspot.in/2016/01/whats-new-in-ms-exchange-2016.html

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What’s new in MS Exchange 2016?

Many of us were eagerly waiting for the new version of MS Exchange Server that is MS Exchange 2016, but are not sure about the added features it has to offer over the earlier versions of MS Exchange. Here I am listing down few new added features that are introduced in MS Exchange 2016.

MS Exchange 2016 Architecture

The primary design goal of Exchange 2016 is to ensure Simplicity of Scale, Hardware Utilization and Failure Isolation. MS Exchange Server 2016 uses a Single Building Block Architecture that provides email services for deployments at all sizes, starting from small organizations to the large multi-national corporations.

Outlook on the Web (Formerly Outlook Web App)

In MS Exchange 2016, the earlier used Outlook Web App User Interface is upgraded and optimized for tablets and smart phones, in addition to desktop and laptop computers.

MAPI over HTTP

MAPI over HTTP is now the default protocol that Outlook uses to communicate with Exchange 2016. MAPI over HTTP improves the reliability and stability.

Document collaboration

MS Exchange 2016 enables Outlook web users to link to and share documents stored in OneDrive for Business on an on-premises SharePoint server instead of attaching a file to the message.

Office 365 Hybrid

The Hybrid Configuration Wizard (HCW) that was included in MS Exchange 2013 has become a cloud-based application in Exchange 2016. Now you can download and install the wizard as a small application.

Messaging Policy and Compliance

There are several updates in Message Policy and Compliance Features in MS Exchange 2016.

Data Loss Prevention (DLP)

With new DLP policy and transport rules in Exchange 2016, you can now identify, monitor, and protect 80 different types of sensitive information with new conditions and actions. This change coupled with the improved site resiliency of MS Exchange 2016 means that the recovery from server failures and corruptions is much faster.

In-place Archiving, Retention, and eDiscovery

Exchange 2016 includes improvements in In-Place Archiving, Retention, and eDiscovery to help your organization meet its compliance needs:

With public folder support for In-Place eDiscovery and In-Place Hold, MS Exchange 2016 has integrated public folders into In-Place eDiscovery and Hold workflow. You can use In-Place eDiscovery to search public folders in your organization; you can also put an In-Place Hold on public folders. And similar to placing a mailbox on hold, you can place a query-based and a time-based hold on public folders.

Compliance Search is a new eDiscovery search tool with new and improved scaling and performance capabilities available with Exchange 2016. You can use it to search very large numbers of mailboxes in a single search. Also, there is no limit on the number of searches that can run at the same time.

In MS Exchange 2016, Compliance Search is only available if you are using the Exchange Management Shell.

Improved Performance and Scalability

For Exchange 2016, the search architecture has been redesigned. The new architecture is asynchronous and decentralized. It distributes the work across multiple servers, so that you can get reliable results in a faster way.

Another advantage of the new architecture is that search scalability is improved. The number of mailboxes you can search at once using the console has increased from 5k to 10k. You can also search an unlimited number of mailboxes using Exchange Management Shell.

So, basically the latest version of Microsoft Exchange Server is here to help you work more effectively and efficiently.

If you are facing any issue with MS Exchange Server, you can contact the experts at http://goo.gl/vtPo5S

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Is your Hardware ready for MS Exchange 2016?

If you are planning to switch to the latest version of MS Exchange Server, there are few things which need to be checked before you implement the change. Before installing Exchange Server 2016, you need to check whether your existing hardware setup supports the latest version of exchange server. Below I am mentioning few system requirements which should be met to be compatible with MS Exchange 2016.

 Supported Coexistence Scenarios

 Below is the list of scenarios supporting the coexistence of MS Exchange 2016 with earlier versions of MS Exchange

 Exchange 2007 and earlier versions: Not supported directly. To upgrade to MS Exchange 2016, you first need to upgrade to the newer versions, namely MS Exchange 2010 or later after which the final upgration to MS Exchange 2016 can be done.  

 Exchange 2010 and later versions: If MS Exchange 2010 or the later versions are installed on the system, it can be easily upgraded to MS Exchange Server 2016.

 Supported Hybrid Deployment Scenarios:

Exchange 2016 supports hybrid deployments with Office 365 tenants that have been upgraded to the latest version of Office 365.

 Network and Directory Server:

Network and Directory Server requirements for Exchange 2016

 Domain controllers:

In order to be compatible with MS Exchange Server 2016, all domain controllers in the forest need to be running one of the following:

·         Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard or Datacenter

·         Windows Server 2012 Standard or Datacenter

·         Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard or Enterprise

·         Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter RTM or later

·         Windows Server 2008 Standard, Enterprise, or Datacenter

 Directory Server Architecture:

The use of 64-bit Active Directory Domain Controllers increases the directory service performance for MS Exchange 2016.

Installing Exchange 2016 on Directory Servers

For security and performance reasons, we recommend that you install MS Exchange 2016 only on Member Servers and not on Active Directory Servers.

Hardware:

Hardware requirement for MS Exchange 2016

Processor:

·         x64 architecture-based computer with Intel processor that supports Intel 64 architecture (formerly known as Intel EM64T)

·         AMD processor that supports the AMD64 platform

·         Intel Itanium IA64 processors are not supported

 Memory:

Varies depending on Exchange Roles that are installed:

·         Mailbox: 8GB Minimum

·         Edge Transport: 4GB Minimum

 Disk space:

·         At least 30 GB on the drive on which you will install MS Exchange.

·         An additional 500 MB of available disk space for each Unified Messaging (UM) language pack that you plan to install.

·         200 MB of available disk space on the System Drive.

·         A hard disk that stores the Message Queue Database with at least 500 MB of free space.

 Getting your hardware ready for MS Exchange 2016 is the first step you need to take before you make the actual shift. Hope I am able to give some clarity on the system requirements for MS Exchange 2016. If you need more clarification or information on this, you can contact the experts http://goo.gl/vtPo5S