Saturday, September 12, 2009

New features in EMC for Exchange Server 2010

1. Diagnostic Logging ManagementDiagnostic Logging Management is back in Exchange Server 2010. A new wizard based UI now enables administrators to quickly Exchange server-related logging and logging levels. This will assist in easy instrumenting of your Exchange servers for diagnostics.
2. Outlook Web App Mailbox Policy ManagementIn Exchange Server 2010, administrators will now be able to configure and manage Outlook Web App (OWA) Mailbox feature policies completely within the EMC. Once these policies have been created (with quite a granular detail of control), they can then be assigned to mailboxes (individually or in bulk) within the organization.
3. Organizational HealthThe new Organizational Health screen in the EMC gives administrators a quick, unified view of their Exchange infrastructure. Summarized information on databases, Client Access Licenses (CALs), servers (2003, 2007 and 2010 versions of Exchange), and recipients (both by type as well as feature usage) is available here.
4. PowerShell Command LoggingPowerShell continues to be the core management platform for Exchange Server 2010. To provide visibility into what commands are being run by the EMC behind the scenes, and to also aid in learning Exchange PowerShell CmdLets, the administrator now has the ability to visualize which commands are being run in the background by the EMC. As a quick learning tool, this is a great addition that will aid administrators in rapidly scripting out advanced workflows. In Exchange Server 2007, the only place where commands were exposed was at the end of wizards. In Exchange Server 2010, administrators now have full visibility across the Console.
5. Bulk EditingTo make it easier for administrators to quickly edit multiple recipient objects in one operation, the EMC now enables Bulk Editing of mailbox objects. Prior to Exchange Server 2010, administrators would be forced to switch to scripting to perform this task. With EMC in Exchange Server 2010, this is as simple as selecting desired mailboxes, bringing up the properties dialog, and making edits as needed. Additionally, the cool new feature of PowerShell Command logging is also enabled in this scenario.
6. Certificate ManagementIn Exchange Server 2010, significant improvements have gone into managing certificates with the EMC. To name just a few enhancements: you can now assign a certificate to multiple Exchange services right within the EMC, you can specify wildcard certificates to apply to all sub-domains, you can renew both self-signed as well as 3rd party CA certificates, and so on. The EMC also allows administrators to positively identify and edit domains to be included on a certificate and identify the domain that will be used for the certificates' Common Name (CN).
7. Moving MailboxesExchange Server 2010 brings about a new set of PowerShell CmdLets to move mailboxes between databases and/or forests. The Move-Mailbox CmdLet of Exchange Server 2007 has been replaced with a set of *-MoveRequest CmdLets. As expected, the EMC also builds on top of this new CmdLet set. You can move mailboxes between databases using the New Local Move Request wizard. And, if you are connected to multiple forests in the same EMC (as described previously), you can also move mailboxes between forests using the New Remote Move Request wizard. Finally, you can monitor ongoing moves in the new Move Request child node under the Recipient Configuration node in the Left Navigation pane.
8. Receiving faxes using Exchange 2010 Unified MessagingExchange 2010 no longer creates fax messages itself but instead forwards the inbound fax calls to a dedicated partner fax solution. The partner fax solution establishes the fax call with the remote endpoint and receives the fax media on behalf of the UM-enabled user. It then sends an SMTP message, which contains the fax as a TIFF attachment, to the recipient's mailbox.
9. High AvailabilityHigh Availability is one of the core themes of Exchange Server 2010. High Availability (HA) in Exchange Server 2010 combines replication techniques and Windows Clustering to deliver a highly and continuously available Exchange infrastructure. One of the key concepts in managing HA in Exchange Server 2010 is "Database Availability Group" (DAG) - a logical container for a set of Mailbox servers that provide isolation from database, server or network failures. Associated with DAGs is the concept of DAG Networks, that can be turned on or off for creating customized continuous replication and database seeding networks. Creating and configuring DAGs as well as DAG Networks, are core scenarios made easy and seamless in the EMC.
10. ArchivingArchiving is another core theme in Exchange Server 2010. Archives deliver on a core legal compliance requirement by ensuring that your Exchange Server is in charge of all mailbox data, rather than being stored away in 3rd party backups, personal archives, PST files and such. Archiving can be turned on at a per-mailbox level either during mailbox creation or later individually or in bulk, for example, say at a department level.
11. Federation and SharingFederated sharing allows organizations to effectively collaborate beyond the traditional email exchange. Exchange Server 2010 makes it simple to share and access PIM data (free/busy, calendar and contacts) stored in Exchange with users external to your Exchange organization while maintaining customer confidence around security and control, both at an information-sharing level as well as at the TLS level. Configuring and managing this is a snap with the EMC.

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The blog is written to the share the knowledge mainly on Microsoft Exchange Server and other Microsoft product that experienced on day-to-day life.