Posts Tagged ‘exchange’

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.

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

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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.

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Posted in Exchange 2010

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Exchange 2010 Licensing and pricing

March 16th, 2010

For any important licensed product, there will be many restrictions on its purchase and Microsoft products are also in the same line that it requires licensing and pricing to purchase Microsoft products. Exchange Server 2010 offers three types of licenses which are server licenses, client access licenses and external connector licenses. Licenses are authorized certificates to use Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 and this is very essential as using without permission will not yield good results and it also amounts to violation of copyrights. Therefore, Microsoft has offered licensing which permits customers to select a suitable type of license and gain benefit from ME 2010.

The IT market is already filled with lot of stuff that are purchased and used without license and customers cannot ask for any service or for an updation if purchased without license. This also indicates that customers have to lose their investments for purchasing products without license. Further license indicates legality and confirmation to use products under certain working environment which is acceptable to the Microsoft company. This is very important because of the fact that multinational companies use lot of equipment in researching a product and the assurance of quality with guarantee is made available only with the software giants which have high technology at its front to bring best products to the market.  Therefore practicing license formalities is very essential and it must strictly practiced by customers who wish to purchase Microsoft products.

Pricing is made suitably according to the technology used in development of a product and since this product is manufactured in United States and price is in U.S. dollars.  For instance there are several editions in Microsoft servers and each edition is differently priced and therefore, it is important to check each price and take it on note before purchasing it.   It is true that Microsoft products are highly priced and they are not definitely within the range of a middle income group level and therefore, corporate sector, industrial sector can derive huge benefit for setting up its IT department by installing ME 2010 in their office. Companies can definitely afford high prices as the investments for business will definitely be on a large scale.   So, in this pattern, Microsoft ensures that licensing and prices are both are followed by customers when a purchase has to be made from its web site.  It is also a fact that because of its professional working methods, Microsoft giant has become a very successful leader in leading the world.

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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.

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Posted in Exchange 2010

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Unified Messaging or Voicemail – A new attraction in Exchange 2010

March 8th, 2010


Voicemail was added as a core component to Exchange 2007 with its release, but there were not many organizations that chose to implement Exchange 2007Voicemail. With the release of Exchange 2010, more Unified Messaging servers are being implemented, the reason being that core features are included in the Exchange update.

In terms of technology, the voicemail of Exchange 2010 provides all the capabilities as any of the voicemail systems in the market. Thus the Exchange 2010 is ‘as good’ in technology as anybody else in the market. However there are a couple of reasons which make Exchange 2010 Voicemail stand ahead of all others and why organizations are implementing it:

  • Conversion of Voice to Text: a new polished feature of Exchange 2010 where your voice messages are automatically converted to text and saved with the voice message in the form of text. So if you receive an attachment containing a voice message, you also get its transcription in text with it. This feature is extremely useful when you are out, you will not have to give back a call to the voice mail system for listening to your voicemail and you can just read the text message present along with it.
  • Redundancy in Voicemail: another reason being that exchange mailbox is being followed for the user by Exchange Unified Messaging Server. There are new Database Availability Groups with the new Exchange and an organization can maintain up to sixteen copies of mailbox of a user for the purpose of fault tolerance and high availability. There is a need thus for voicemail system to know the location of the mailbox. Exchange 2010 does provide this facility whereas a lot of third party voicemails do not.

Thus with having all the similar features as of any voicemail system and the above two added advantages, the Exchange 2010 voicemail is getting increasingly popular.

Following are the steps to install Exchange 2010 Unified Messaging. :

First you have to install the Unified Messaging Role-

  • Go to control panel
  • Select Programs and Features
  • Select Microsoft Exchange Server 2010.
  • Click on the Change button
  • Enter Exchange Maintenance mode.
  • Click Next.
  • Select the check box stating Unified Messaging Role
  • Click Next.
  • Readiness checks are performed by installer.
  • Click on the Install button
  • Unified Messaging server role will get installed.
  • After the successful completion of installation, click Finish.

After the installation of Unified Messaging Server Role, complete the following post-install configuration jobs for basic installation:

  • Form a UM dial plan.
  • Associate with it subscriber access numbers.
  • Create a gateway of UM IP.
  • Associate the dial plan with the UM server.
  • Form a UM Auto Attendant.
  • Form the hunt groups.
  • Enable the mailboxes for UM.
  • Test the functionality.

The new feature is definitely worth working with and getting familiar with.

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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.

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Posted in Exchange 2010, Microsoft Exchange

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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.

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

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