For those companies and organizations that are still deploying and maintaining Exchange on-premises, you may be aware of the newest version of Microsoft’s flagship messaging product is now in preview – Exchange Server 2019. This latest iteration does bring about some significant changes and one interesting feature. Here is a quick summary of the changes being made:
Exchange Server on Windows Core
This has been an ask of many a client of mine when they upgrade to a new version of Exchange – Can I install it on Windows Core? Well, now you can. Windows Core will be a bit of an odd experience for those who are solely used to the Windows GUI for doing everything on the desktop for Exchange. However, I think Microsoft has positioned this well and has been actually preparing for this change since 2013 with the removal of the MMC and the addition of a web only interface for Exchange administration. A lot of administrators I work with do not log into their Exchange servers except for the occasionally weird issue that may arise. Otherwise most, if not all of their current operations can be done remotely:
- Backup
- Event Log monitoring (log shipping/monitoring software)
- Remote PowerShell for running commands ‘locally’ on the server
- Web Interface for other configuration duties
- Rebooting
In the end, a headless version of Windows for Exchange totally makes sense. Now, it doesn’t resolve every issue when it comes to security footprint as there will be some services you may want to disable or other customizations you might make for servers running on Core, but at least it is finally available for Exchange Server.
Unified Messaging
One of the larger changes for Exchange On-Premises is the removal of the Unified Messaging role/services. The change is almost casually noted on the EHLO website:
“One thing to note is that Unified Messaging role will not be available in Exchange Server 2019. Customers who currently connect either a 3rd party PBX or Skype for Business Server to Exchange Server won’t be able to do so with Exchange Server 2019 mailboxes. Those customers considering an upgrade to Exchange Server 2019 should consider migrating to Skype for Business Server 2019 and using Cloud Voicemail, or migrating to Office 365 with Cloud Voicemail. More information on this change will be available prior to launch”
This means that if you have Unified Messaging on either Exchange 2013 or Exchange 2016 and are planning an upgrade to Exchange 2019, you will need to be aware of this change and begin planning for either using a non-Microsoft product
Further Reading
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/skypeforbusiness/hybrid/plan-um-migration
https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/exchange/2018/07/24/exchange-server-2019-public-preview/
http://www.expta.com/2018/07/say-bye-bye-to-exchange-unified.html
Other Notable changes
- Bing Search
- SSDs for supported purposes
- up to 256GB of RAM
- Do Not Forward
- Simplified Calendar Sharing
Conclusion
Personally I like the changes that were made to allow Exchange to install on Windows Core. I think that this will provide value to customers who are looking to reduce their footprint, to move to a more headless solution for all of their servers. Although I think this change would have made more of an impact back in the Exchange 2013 or 2016 versions than it will now. Mainly because of the number of organizations moving to Office 365 and Exchange Online. However, it could make for a good headless server to be used for management of a hybrid environment. The removal of UM is a big change and some organizations are not going to want to use Microsoft’s cloud voicemail, if only for the simple reason they don’t want UM functions to traverse the Internet. I am more interested in the search improvements and RAM increases and how this will affect the end user experience. In a future block article I will review the Simplified Calendar Sharing and Do Not Forward features to give you a better idea of how they operate in the real world.
