What's New in Exchange Server 2010?

Ever wondered what’s the big deal with Microsoft Exchange 2010? Well, you asked the right question, so get prepared for a monumental answer.

Exchange as a messaging and collaboration platform has evolved through the years, to come to Exchange 2003, that was WIDELY appreciated and deployed, then with Exchange 2007 which again has been very well defined, made collaboration easier and more user defined.

With Exchange 2010, Microsoft has gone not one, not two, but I’d say 5 steps than the most conventional strides in Technology, and made Exchange Server 2010 into a very solid and robust messaging and collaboration platform. It’s more scalable, more robust, more user friendly, more Administrator friendly, simplified, but with a rock solid architecture and working process that makes it the MOST MATURE release of Exchange Server till date!

I was attending the MCT summit in early February 2009 at Hyderabad, and one of the speakers – Sarbjit Singh Gill from BT Global, asked me to define the next release of Exchange Server based on it’s features and scalability in simple terms and I said – “Collaborate with Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere!”

That’s exactly what Exchange 2010 is all about. Collaboration, Richer Functionality and Scalability. If you are a messaging administrator, then boy are you going to go bonkers with the newly added rich and mature functionality. Read on Mates !!!!!

Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 brings a new and rich set of technologies, features, and services to the Exchange Server product line. This topic lists many of the new features and functionality that are included in Exchange 2010. The list isn't comprehensive; however, it provides important information to use when you're planning, deploying, and administering your Exchange 2010 organization:

• New Rights-Protected E-Mail Functionality with Active Directory RMS
  
• New Transport and Routing Functionality
  
• New Permissions Functionality
  
• New High Availability Functionality
  
• New Messaging Policy and Compliance Features
  
• New Outlook Web Access Features
  
• New Unified Messaging Features
  
• Web Management Interface
  
• New Exchange Core Store Functionality
  
• New Administration Functionality in the Exchange Management Console
  
• New Administration Functionality in the Exchange Management Shell
  

New rights-protected e-mail functionality with Active Directory Rights Management Services (AD RMS) in Exchange 2010:

• Transport rules to apply AD RMS protection to messages based on conditions.
• Persistent protection of attachments in rights-protected messages.
• Support for AD RMS templates.
• An Internet confidential AD RMS template for protection over the Internet.
• AD RMS protection for Unified Messaging voice mail messages.

 

New Transport and Routing Functionality

• Cross-premises mail routing An organization can choose to outsource some of their mailboxes to a hosted solution while maintaining their on-premises deployment. For example, a university can choose to host the mailboxes for all faculty and staff in their on-premises deployment and use a hosted solution for student mailboxes. Exchange 2010 allows routing of messages between the on-premises and hosted mailboxes.
• Enhanced disclaimers   Exchange 2010 lets you add disclaimers that can include hyperlinks, images, and HTML-formatted text. You can also insert Active Directory attributes that are substituted for the sender's attributes when a disclaimer rule is triggered.
• Transport rules integration with AD RMS   Exchange 2010 gives you the ability to create rules that require AD RMS protection based on keywords or patterns.
• Moderated Transport   Exchange 2010 provides an approval workflow for sending messages to recipients. When you configure a recipient for moderation, all messages sent to that recipient must go through an approval process.
• Shadow redundancy   Messages that are submitted to an Exchange 2010 Hub Transport server are stored in the transport database until the next hop reports successful delivery of the message. If the next hop doesn't report successful delivery and it fails, the message is resubmitted for delivery.
• Transport dumpster truncation based on log copy status   When messages that are in the dumpster are replicated to all mailbox databases, they're removed from the dumpster.
• Latency SLA management   Exchange 2010 Transport lets you measure service levels delivered relative to your service level agreement (SLA) goals. Exchange 2010 gives you the ability to measure latencies for each hop, as well as end-to-end latency.
• Transport database improvements   Performance improvements in the Transport database result in reduced database I/O per second (IOPS) per message, which increases message throughput.

New Permissions Functionality

In Exchange 2010, Role Based Access Control (RBAC) has replaced the permissions model that was used in Exchange 2007. RBAC lets you define extremely broad or extremely precise roles and assignments based on the roles of your administrators and users, and the tasks they perform. Access to the cmdlets and parameters required to perform a task is granted by assigning the related RBAC management role to a user or universal security group. If you want to grant an administrator or user the ability to perform tasks in Exchange 2010, you must either add the administrator or user to a universal security group that already has been assigned a specific RBAC role, or you must assign the role directly to the administrator or user.

New High Availability Functionality

Exchange 2010 integrates high availability into the core architecture of Microsoft Exchange to enable customers of all sizes and in all segments to economically deploy a messaging continuity service in their organization.

Exchange 2010 combines the key availability and resilience features of cluster continuous replication (CCR) and standby continuous replication (SCR) into a single high availability solution that handles both on-site data replication and off-site data replication. Mailbox servers can be defined as part of a Database Availability Group to provide automatic recovery at the individual mailbox database level instead of at the server level. Each mailbox database can have up to 16 copies.

The following features in Exchange 2007 and Exchange 2007 Service Pack 1 (SP1) no longer exist in Exchange 2010:

• Local continuous replication (LCR)
• Single copy clusters (SCC)

In addition to these features, the concept of a clustered mailbox server no longer exists in Exchange 2010.

New Messaging Policy and Compliance Features

Exchange 2010 compliance features make retention independent of users' mailbox management and filing habits, and these features ensure retention policies are applied continuously.

New messaging and compliance features:

• New interface for applying retention policies
• Auto tagging for retention policies
• Mailbox search features for cross-mailbox search with Advanced Query Syntax (AQS) support
• New transport rules predicates and actions

New Outlook Web Access Features

• Favorites in the Navigation Pane
• Search folders
• Message filtering
• The ability to set categories in the message list
• Options in the Web management interface for Outlook Web Access
• A side-by-side view for calendars
• Multi-client language support
• The ability to attach messages to messages
• Expanded right-click capabilities
• Integration with Office Communicator, including presence, chat, and a contact list
• Conversation view
• The ability to send and receive text (SMS) messages from Outlook Web Access
• Outlook Web Access mailbox policies

New Unified Messaging Features

• Personal auto attendants (call answering rules)
• Additional language support including in Outlook Voice Access and Voice Mail Preview
• Enhancements to name lookup from caller ID
• Voice Mail Preview
• Messaging Waiting Indicator
• Missed call and voice mail notifications using text messaging (SMS)
• Protected Voice Mail
• Built-in Unified Messaging administrative roles

Web Management Interface

• Text messaging (SMS) integration
• Voice messaging integration
• Mailbox Search
• Distribution list creation and management
• Moderation and approval for distribution list submission

New Exchange Core Store Functionality

• Storage groups are deprecated.
• Mailbox databases are no longer connected to the server object.
• Extensible Storage Engine (ESE) has many improvements for high availability, performance, and database mobility.
• The Store schema has been flattened.

New Administration Functionality in the Exchange Management Console

The core EMC refers to new functionality that affects how you use the Exchange Management Console, not how you use specific features.

• Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP)
• Organizational Health
• Community and Resources
• Command logging
• Property dialog command exposure

New Administration Functionality in the Exchange Management Shell

• Remote administration   With the new Shell, you can connect to remote Exchange 2010 servers across the network with only Windows PowerShell V2 CTP3 and Windows Remote Management 2.0 CTP installed.
• Administrator audit logging   Actions that result in the modification of Exchange organization configuration and other object properties in the Exchange Management Console, the Web management interface, and the Shell can now be logged for later review.

Technical References from – http://technet.microsoft.com