Archive for the ‘Exchange 2010’ category

« Older Entries

Hosted Exchange Archiving Solutions

January 25th, 2011

In these austere times, it’s difficult for businesses to countenance expending large amounts of money on new IT systems or upgrades. Technology departments are often targeted for cuts as they have one of the largest budgets in an organization. When it comes to Exchange archiving solutions, there is a compromise available to save money, without compromising functionality, and we will discuss it here.

The traditional method of hosting email servers in-house has pervaded business for many years. It retains control, security and for a while, was the only way to do things. The advent of service providers who offered hosted versions of these systems offered a different way of doing things.

For a while, the uptake was limited to new and smaller business. These were most likely to appreciate that an in-house system was too expensive, and a little overkill for their needs. Also, traditionally, new businesses are much more open to new ways of doing things, which helped the hosted model take off.

The main problem the hosted model faces is trust. With a traditional Exchange archiving solution, everything was controlled internally. If there was a data leak or disaster, the business only had themselves to blame. With a hosting provider, the organization is trusting them to take as much care of their data as they would themselves.

That isn’t such a big deal now the software as a service sector has become more formalized. It’s in the service providers interest to maintain data security. It’s also part of the law governing Exchange archiving solutions. Just because the provider doesn’t generate the emails, doesn’t mean they are exempt from the legislative requirements governing them.

The ability to have a fully-supported system that is secure, up-to-date and maintained round the clock is a tempting prospect for organizations who don’t want the expense of setting one up for themselves. The hosted model is ideal for those in that situation. The main consideration is the choice of service provider, which is now easier than ever now there are some established names in the market.

The SaaS industry has been around long enough to have generated reputations for those who are good, and those who aren’t. A little research can provide a list of suitable candidates from which to begin negotiations. There are some large, well-known names in the market who offer SaaS as part of an overall product strategy.

There are also those who specialize in SaaS, or even in email archiving alone. Demand is such that these businesses often succeed where others don’t. The choice of who to do business with is down to the organization, but fortunately, there are now plenty to choose from.

Exchange Hosting & Exchange archiving solutions are ideal for organizations who either don’t want to set up their own messaging infrastructure, or those who aren’t yet large enough to warrant one. It’s the ideal middle ground between control and security. SaaS is definitely something to consider when considering a new business, or new way of working.

1 comment »

Posted in Exchange 2003, Exchange 2007, Exchange 2010, Microsoft Exchange Hosting

Tags:

Why to upgrade with MSE 2010

December 27th, 2010

exchange-logoSome times a question arises as to why it is important to upgrade with Microsoft Exchange 2010 and for this there are many good reasons which will definitely satisfy you about this product and the benefit that can be received from this product.

Some of its best reasons to upgrade with Microsoft Exchange 2010 are, it will reduce deployment cost such as backup, email archive, mobile email access and voice mail.  Another benefit is high availability and scope to recover from disaster and this process is made very simple my Microsoft Exchange 2010. It also reduces the complexity and delivery of business continuity. It is also very easy to administer and decrease the dependence on the help desk.  There is also greater mobility and flexible access as MES offers a universal inbox experience which enables users to have access to their business communication from a single location.

Decreased inbox overload and increased productivity enables users to prioritize their communications in their inboxes efficiently. Transformed voice mail is also another added feature in MES 2010. Simplified compliance, safeguard of sensitive information and also reduces the risk of malware and spam which helps to sieve all the junk email and supports an array of third party security products.

The above points necessitate the upgrade with MES and it is important that clients must understand fully and completely about the usability of MES before they upgrade. As the benefits are evident, it will surely reward the business in its own way, giving plenty of scope to advantage and benefit from the features offered by MES.

As thousands of businesses are getting launched for every business, it is important to manage their social media compliance and databases very well and this can be perfectly achieved by MES with more accuracy and speed.

With the top benefits of MES it is now clear and evident that MES will surely achieve its objectives of giving more perfect service to the customers by this new product and it will surely yield good benefits to the businesses and customers who are in requirement high performance systems.

Fast pace communication being the core important area, MES fulfills and meets all the requirements to meet all the benefits and advantages of high quality and performance. This will definitely be a successful product for many customers. Microsoft will also be on the upfront for giving good customer service to its customers and also in getting to know their requirements.

No comments »

Posted in Exchange 2010

Tags:

Exchange 2010 Features and benefits

March 16th, 2010

Microsoft Exchange feature details are Mail box databases, Role based access and control, transport resiliency, remote power shell, online move mailbox, web-based administration, mail-box resiliency,  and there are many other features in Microsoft Exchange 2010. Some of the prerequisites of Exchange 2010 server are it is important to purchase Windows Server 2008 license. The edition of Windows Server that is required by the business or company, also depends on the features of Exchange Server 2010, which will be used in the offices.  For instance, Exchange 2010 servers that use Mailbox Resiliency features for high availability, they have to use either Windows Server 2008 or Data Center editions for its clustering features and for all other Exchange 2010 scenarios, Windows Server Standard stands good.

Therefore with the above features and benefits, the efficiency of Microsoft company products and also the working efficiency of Microsoft Exchange 2010 is also revealed for the benefit of customers. Customers can always make an assessment about the product and can take huge benefit and advantage from the products of Microsoft and can deliver quality work to the clients and customers.

With technology growing at a fast pace, it has become very important that businesses have to increase their volume of work quickly and efficiently and in this mode of working method, access to fast paced technology has become much necessary and software products as they have been helping many upcoming businesses to help its volume of business and growth, Microsoft products are enhancing to the quality of work and also working towards growth and prosperity of thousands of small and medium businesses around the world.  In fact Microsoft has been working towards the growth and development of small and medium businesses.  In this method of work, Microsoft Exchange has been an outstanding product in giving the best output through its performance.

For the future and for the present, Microsoft company will continue to do its research in giving the best products and to help business community to take huge advantage from its performance.  This is also in the interest of global technology companies which are working very hard to give the best to the entire business community.  Some of the important points to be noted here is that, many of consumers may not be aware of the new products of Microsoft company and it is important to advertise and campaign about the latest products of Microsoft company through mass media such as Internet and television.

1 comment »

Posted in Exchange 2010

Tags:

Exchange 2010 Transport Protection Rules

February 1st, 2010

One of the most important improvements in Exchange 2010 in my opinion is the new toolkit that allows administrators to implement policies that works with Outlook 2010 and Outlook Web Access too. The fact is offers many different tools that make Email Hosting better and easier to manage.

This is a significant step forward, as previously OWA was something of a unsubtle beast. You could either restrict access to mailboxes altogether or it was open season on emails. Now policies can be enforced across the board, whatever client the users prefer.

The Transport Protection Rules enable Exchange administrators to create rules that control every aspect of email, from content restrictions, size, approved recipients for sensitive emails, no copy and pasting and other neat tricks. While most of these features have been around in other incarnations, they have never been so easy to implement or ever worked with Outlook Web Access. The TPR system is new to Exchange 2010 and a welcome addition to the platform.

In a real life example of the TPR in action, say a project manager send a detailed email to his team listing a new product, it’s benefits, features and proposed release date. He can mark he email confidential so his people knew not to share it, which has always been the case. The mail would have a flag on it marking it as confidential.

Now, with Transport Protection Rules, Exchange can enforce a policy on confidential emails that includes not being able to forward them, copy and paste to or from them and other niceties. This means if someone absent mindedly forwarded it as part of a conversation the Exchange server would refuse. This is a significant step forward in information security, and allows administrators to control the flow of information with much more granularity than before.

Drilling deeper into the Transport Protection Rules, it’s also possible to restrict emails, by email address, location, recipient, whether it’s internal or external and a raft of other criteria. It also works seamlessly with Outlook Web Access too. Which is handy because Office 2010 doesn’t even have a release date yet.

The biggest bonus with these rules, and the closer integration with OWA is that everything will work with browsers other than Internet Explorer. No more will you need plugins to be able to enforce rules, or add functionality. Everything works out of the box, so Opera, Firefox or Safari users will also have full access to the available features, and also be subject to the Transport Protection Rules.

The Exchange 2010 was the largest beta Microsoft have ever run. From where I’m sitting, it was worth every minute. They have listened to feedback and integrated many of the improvements into the new system. While it’s still a big, cumbersome beast, it’s now a bit more manageable at least.

No comments »

Posted in Exchange 2010, Microsoft Exchange

Tags:

Benefits of Microsoft Exchange Server

September 21st, 2009

exchangeserver

Exchange Server is a software package designed to make email communication fast and effective with an organization.

Email is now so intrinsic to the way we do business that many, if not most companies couldn’t work effectively without it. The vast majority of business is now conducted via email, with businesses generating hundreds of millions of them a day. All these mails have to be created, sent, received and stored somewhere, which is Exchange’s strength.

Not only is Exchange one of the most efficient email platforms in the world, it is also the most user friendly, scalable and offers a host of other applications other than email, such as calendars, contact lists, and other collaborative tools. It makes working smoother, communication quicker, and time management much more efficient.

It also has an effective security backbone that adds an extra layer of protection against spam, interception of email and other malicious attacks. Emails can be encrypted to protect company secrets, accessed via HTTPS to protect them when they are sent or received, securely stored to protect them while the company remains in compliance, then securely deleted when their life comes to an end.

The security is comprehensive though. Threats to corporate security are many and varied, and Exchange only offers a modicum of protection. Further security will be needed for total protection on the email infrastructure, such as firewalls and anti-virus.

Organizations that use Microsoft Exchange have more freedom than ever before. With remote working becoming more common, the Outlook Web Access (OWA), the cell phone interaction, and even Blackberry interfacing all offers the ability to keep in touch wherever in the world someone may be. Most of the features are available remotely such as the collaborative tools like public folders or shared calendars, email and the contact list, so any employee can function fully when out of the office.

As the Exchange platforms have developed and evolved, they have become more and more efficient. The front-end is now familiar to most users, who can now navigate it easily. The back end is more efficient, and allows for much easier troubleshooting. A comprehensive built-in maintenance package allows for technicians to find and fix problems easier than ever before. The ability to cluster Exchange means they can be scaled easily, grown with the organization and keeps downtime to a minimum. All important considerations for any business.

The improved monitoring capabilities of the platform also allow for effective pre-empting of issues, allowing engineers to take action before the event. Comprehensive logging, fault reporting and trend analysis tools built into the platform also help troubleshooting. Servers don’t always warn you when they are going to fail, so it’s vital that accurate and timely logs are retained to effective root cause analysis can be carried out.

Microsoft Exchange is one of many messaging platforms available on the market today. It is however the most comprehensive, and popular one. More emails are sent throughout the world to and from Exchange than any other platform.

No comments »

Posted in Exchange 2003, Exchange 2007, Exchange 2010, Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Exchange Server

Tags:

Features and Benefits of Microsoft Exchange

September 21st, 2009

microsoft-exchange

Microsoft Exchange was designed from the outset to be easy to maintain and manage throughout its operating lifetime. It delivers much improved communication capabilities to users while offering decent protection against outside attack.

One of the main benefits is remote access. Users no longer have to be in the office to access all the features of the system. They can be anywhere in the world with either an internet connection or a cell phone. All a users emails, calendars and contact lists can be made available no matter where they are.

Exchange, and it’s client, Outlook are now familiar throughout the world. The easy to learn, and use interface offers a single place to perform many forms of communication such as email, instant messaging, voicemail, fax and document storage. Text-to-speech features in later editions even added the option to have voicemail converted to text to read later.

Added compliance features help significantly in every organizations legal obligations to store and index email and electronic communications. It offers a secure storage facility where emails can be quickly archived, and retrieved as the various laws dictate. Exchange can also integrate with external storage mediums if space becomes an issue.

Built in spam protection features protects the infrastructure and the users from malicious or junk emails. Users won’t have to waste work time sorting through spam, or worry about viruses as the security system will check the emails before they are even delivered. Sophisticated filtering software keeps out the vast majority of junk mail without anyone even having to interact with it.

Some of the features of Exchange are;

Outlook auto-discover. This applet saves the time of the administrator by automatically configuring an account by searching for the email address input by a user and allowing access to the system. Account administration used to be one of the most time consuming jobs of any system technician.

The built-in search facility enables users to search emails and documents for a given term. This is a powerful tool, which can save a lot of time and effort when trying to retrieve an old mail or old information.

Outlook Web Access is also one of the major features of Exchange. It allows users to access their email and other tools from anywhere in the world.

Integrated encryption is also a feature of the platform. Emails can be sent and received securely using certificates. This protects the contents from malicious hackers or corporate raiders trying to gather information on an organization.

Document viewing tools enables users to view documents in all different formats directly from Outlook, even if the specific format reader isn’t installed on their machine. For example a user can read a PDF through Outlook without having Adobe Reader installed.

These few are just an overview of the features and benefits of using Microsoft Exchange. The full list would fill volumes, and would bore you long before you reached halfway. I hope these few are enough to pique enough interest to investigate further.

9 comments »

Posted in Exchange 2003, Exchange 2007, Exchange 2010, Microsoft Exchange

Tags:

Setting up Outlook to Connect to Exchange

September 16th, 2009

microsoft_exchange_server_2010

Exchange servers are used by companies all over the world to pass messages both internally and externally. Email is now the primary method of communication in business. We send hundreds of millions of emails every day, and the vast majority of them are sent and received by Microsoft Exchange Server.

Exchange is a platform that sits on a server and co-ordinates email clients throughout an organization. It accepts emails from users, translates them into binary, packages them up and sends them to the recipient. The receiving Exchange server will unwrap the email, build it again and forward it on to the recipient. As well as email, there are also calendar and contact functions as well as Outlook web access and mobile features that allow email to be sent to laptops, cell phones and PDA’s.

Users new to Exchange may find themselves in a position of trying to configure Outlook to connect to the server. In most organizations, this will be done for you, but there are some that will leave it up to you to figure out.

That’s where we come in, this article will describe how to connect your client to an Exchange server in no time at all so you can get on with emailing in the shortest time. The process is pretty straightforward, as Outlook is often installed by default on any machine with Office. If your machine doesn’t have Office either, Outlook Express may be there.

So, click Start then Control Panel then Mail. See? Easy so far. Select Email Accounts and then Add New Email Account and then Next. Choose the Microsoft Exchange Server then hit Next.

Here you have some options for which you need information. You will need the address of the Exchange server. If this hasn’t been provided for you, ask a colleague and copy their settings. Depending on how things are set up this may be enough to get you going.

You need to input the Exchange Server address, this is often something like “mail.company.com”, but can in fact be anything. You will also need to input your username and password, which the administrator will need to provide you. It may be different than your system login, but give it a try if you don’t have the details.

Once you have input the information, the application should do a quick check to ensure the details are correct then return it’s version of your email address. Once this happens click Finish.

Outlook should now chug away a bit and start downloading your emails and email settings. It will also install any corporate signatures, calendar events, contact books and rules. Depending on the organization, this could take a little while, but can be done in the background.

That is all there is to it. IT support may make a big deal out of setting you up with the connection, but once your account has been created in Exchange, the rest is easy.

4 comments »

Posted in Exchange 2010, Microsoft Exchange

Tags:

Getting Exchange email on your iPhone

September 16th, 2009

exchange

Whatever your feelings about the iPhone, it has become a popular gadget to many people. What some don’t know is that you can configure a corporate exchange server to push email to it, just like a Blackberry as long as it runs the version 2.0 software.

You can then access calendars, contacts and emails on the move, on the iPhone.

To do this you will need the Exchange Server to be at least 2003 with service pack 2, or of course Exchange 2007. The servers will need to have a current, valid digital certificate for this to work.

Firstly we need to configure the server in order for it to push the email and allow access to contacts and the calendar. To do this we use ActiveSync to keep the iPhone updated. Without a valid digital certificate the phone will refuse the connection, which is why it’s vital here to have one.

If you use an ISA server, it must allow ActiveSync traffic through the network to the Exchange gateway. There is a test tool that comes with ActiveSync which can test the transmission through the network to ensure that packets can pass freely to Exchange. Test this a few times to ensure the path is clear.

Next is the firewall. The default port for Exchange traffic is port 25. You will need to allow traffic through the SSL port 443 and have it forwarded to the Exchange gateway. This again is to allow the ActiveSync traffic through the network to Exchange.

As you can see we are slowly building the highway through the network, working outwards. This is often the easiest way of making network changes in any environment. You are within the firewall up until the last change, which offers maximum protection until you open the door.

Once you can verify that traffic can pass freely through port 443 on the firewall to the Exchange infrastructure, and that the ISA server if you have one lets the traffic through, its time to configure the iPhone.

The iPhone has a list of mail services on it which should include Microsoft Exchange. Selects it then proceed through the configuration, inputting your email address, username and password. These details will be the same ones you use when logging in at the office. The iPhone will then auto discover the server, and will most likely fail doing so.

The next screen will ask you for the name of the Exchange server, but you will want to input the name of your corporate firewall. You can’t connect directly to the Exchange server from outside the network without passing through the firewall first.

This should allow you to connect, and you should then be prompted as to what you want to synchronize and how much mail you want to store on the phone. Once finished making decisions, press the Sync button and let the phone do its thing.

That’s all there is to it, pretty straightforward, and iPhone users can now access Outlook functions from anywhere in the world.

1 comment »

Posted in Exchange 2003, Exchange 2007, Exchange 2010, Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Exchange Hosting

Tags:

Exchange 2003 The Top Five Mistakes in Configuration

September 16th, 2009

subHero_1215

Microsoft Exchange 2003 was the most deployed messaging system worldwide. There are literally billions of emails that travel through Exchange servers each week, and hundreds of thousands of Exchange servers to do the processing.

When building or deploying Exchange 2003 there are five easy mistakes to make when configuring the system. As an ex-IT engineer, I can describe them here, and tell you where you went wrong. While this list is by no means exhaustive, these are the most “popular” mistakes I have seen in my ten year career.

The first is not forwarding Port 25. In larger organizations this means talking to a network team. This port must be forwarded, or an alternative port allocated and configured for mail use. Firewalls and any DMZ routers must be configured to forward all port 25 traffic to the Exchange cluster in order for mail to work. If another port is specified it should only be internally as external messaging servers will send mail to the default port.

The second error is Improper reverse DNS. Reverse DNS is a useful anti-spam tool that is enabled by default on Exchange. Each message server of any type needs to be able to identify itself to other Exchange servers in order to reduce spam. If this is improperly configured, outgoing mail may be refused as junk and deleted. Both the forward DNS and reverse DNS should ideally resolve to the same address.

The third error is connection filtering that isn’t set up. Server 2003 and upwards has a connection filtering feature which is like a spam block list. It holds a list of “blacklisted” spam IP addresses which it compares the incoming email against. If this isn’t configured properly then one defense against spam is wasted. In the battle against junk mail, you need to use every weapon in the arsenal to protect your messaging network.

Fourth is incorrect MX records. MX records are held by a web host and specifies the DNS record of the server which accepts incoming email. If this has been configured with an IP instead of a hostname, or points to the wrong host, then email isn’t going to get through. This record needs to be the gateway mail server that sits on the edge of the network.

Last, but certainly not least is not having deleted item recovery set up. Deleted item recovery is an exchange tool that allows users to try an recover items they deleted. This saves time by letting the user do it themselves instead of calling on an administrator to recover it from storage. With a large user base, this is essential if you want to keep support costs down.

While these aren’t the only errors made when configuring an Exchange server or cluster, they are by far the most common. Fortunately they are also the easiest to remedy if you have administrator access to the system, and network, or know someone who does.

No comments »

Posted in Exchange 2003, Exchange 2007, Exchange 2010, Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Exchange Hosting

Tags:

Demands on Exchange Email Inbox Sizes

September 16th, 2009

Microsoft Exchange Server 2007

Email used to be the preserve of the tech savvy or scientifically oriented. Then it slowly became more accessible and evolved from the rudimentary text only technology into the rich media offering we have today.

Every business, and the vast majority of individuals use email to communicate. Hundreds of millions of mails are sent every day. While most of them will be spam of junk, the rest will be anything from corporate contracts to the latest celebrity gossip.

Email has become the quick, reliable communication medium we know today, partly thanks to Microsoft Exchange Server series of applications. While it certainly isn’t the only message server software around, or even the best, it is the most widely used. Mainly thanks to how it integrates with Windows servers.

As email became more popular, mailbox space started becoming an issue for business. There was a time when a one megabyte email inbox was plenty of space. Now the average users needs at least a couple of hundred. Even the free email providers like Gmail offers several gigabytes storage.

Users began swapping music, video and other space intensive files via email which put further demand on storage. Emails began expanding from a couple of kilobytes into several megabytes. Multiply that by several hundred users, and you have a considerable strain on a messaging infrastructure.

Many organizations limit the size of emails that can be sent within its infrastructure, but with our increasing dependency on email for communication, space is still an issue. With the latest versions of Exchange, inbox size can be limitless, defined only by the amount of disk space allocated to it. While hard disk drives are larger and cheaper than before, they are still an expense.

Then along comes E-discovery and compliance. As email was such an important piece of business, and so much dealing was done, governments and the legal system needed access to it in order to make or break cases.

Compliance law came into being a couple of years ago and stipulates that all corporate email should be retained and archived securely for a minimum of five years. This added considerably to the space requirements of any messaging system whether Exchange based or not. Users inboxes now had to be indexed, compressed and retained in a secure environment.

Some organizations decided to bear the expense and run their own secure storage facilities, while others went to vendors like Archive Compliance in order to have their email stored. Outsourcing seemed like the least of two evils, as it negated the investment needed in hardware and support infrastructures.

These kinds of software as a service operations saved the small to medium business a lot of time and money by offering archiving and compliance as a service. No up-front expenses like servers, licenses, software and engineers was needed as they would manage it all.

As we depend more and more on email, the demand for larger inboxes, and storage will increase. Fortunately some of the expense is offset by larger hard drives becoming cheaper all the time. Until email is superseded by another technology, it is something that business is just going to have to deal with.

No comments »

Posted in Exchange 2003, Exchange 2007, Exchange 2010, Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Exchange Hosting