Exchange Center

Microsoft recently announced a new DAG copy activation feature that will be available in Exchange 2016 CU2, but before we talk about that, I’d like to do a quick refresher on how database copy activation works currently and will continue to work for Exchange 2013 and 2010.

Office 365 is a collection of online services that allow organizations to use Exchange, Skype for Business, and SharePoint in the cloud. In the nearly five years that Office 365 has been available most of the organizations using Office 365 have used it just like that; for Exchange or Skype for Business or SharePoint in the cloud. Some organizations are using more than one of those services, but for the most part they are still using them separately.

The nice people at SurveyMonkey sent me a note about their blog post of 20 April titled “Office 365 vs. Google Apps: Microsoft struggles to compete on mobile” to outline the case that Google has outpaced Microsoft in every (mobile application) category. However, I’m not sure that the arguments they advance are on the mark.

Spoofing has long been one of the biggest issues with email, and with the move to cloud services in the last few years it has become an ever hotter topic. Although a number of features designed to combat spoofing exist, many of which have been discussed on the blog, no perfect solution is available.

Preservation policies were introduced almost a year ago as part of the Compliance Center in Office 365 (which you might also know as the Protection center, or as Security & Compliance Center after the latest rebranding). In a nutshell, they allow you to preserve content across (almost) all Office 365 workloads. They also provide support for true immutability of the data, such that even the company administrators cannot override.

With the release of Exchange Server 2016 it’s time for on-premises customers to consider their upgrade options. Which means that it’s also a good time to review their Exchange storage strategy.

The best way to learn about Exchange Server is to get hands-on with the product. And the best way to get hands-on without risking a production environment is to build your own test lab.

The following blog post is a trimmed-down excerpt from the eBook "Exchange Server Troubleshooting Companion":

One of the primary talking points of my Storage Configuration Options for Exchange session at IT Dev Connections was around JBOD with Exchange, and what that definition means to various people.

A career-defining moment for many IT professionals is the day that their customer requests some data to be restored from backup, and the backup is found to be not working. Or even worse, the backup doesn’t even exist.

It’s not a situation you ever want to find yourself in, and to help you to avoid it I’m going to tell you about the common (but easily remedied) mistakes that can lead to such an unfortunate position.

The following blog post is a trimmed-down excerpt from the eBook "Exchange Server Troubleshooting Companion":

Mailbox corruption is not a new problem for Exchange Administrators, Support Engineers, and Consultants. Causes of corruption can vary and include: