Sorry for the delay in publishing the July 2015 digest for my Exchange Unwashed Blog on WindowsITPro.com. A small detail called vacation (hot sun, cool pools, and chilled rose wine) got the way. C’est la vie. In any case, here’s what happened during July.
Exchange transport pipeline not quite so much of a chokepoint as before (July 30). Exchange 2013 was supposed to make sure that every single message on a server went through the transport service. No workarounds, even for messages delivered from one mailbox to another in the same database. And then we find that some exceptions exist, including a pretty big one for the Clutter function in Exchange Online, which is able to inject its messages direct into mailboxes. Curious!
Why I can’t get my head around the Send App (July 28): Microsoft’s “Garage” incubator thinks that we need yet another way to communicate. Email is too complicated and perfectly incapable of transmitting single line messages to a single recipient. So we need a new app to do the job. I disagree… do you?
Exchange 2016 (preview) now available for testing (July 22): The big news of the month for many as the new version of Exchange appears in preview form. It’s really much more of a service pack for Exchange 2013 than a rip-roaring new release of the kind seen in the past. But that being said, there’s still a heap of goodness in the new software.
Microsoft says bring your data home as the Office 365 Import Service ingests everything (July 21): I think some folks missed the strategic import (no pun intended) of this development. Microsoft has built a general purpose import service to ingest information into Office 365. Sure, PSTs are important and the first target for Exchange people, but SharePoint libraries and file servers are interesting too… and all that other stuff that Microsoft is going after, like corporate Twitter and Facebook feeds!
What you should do to secure mailboxes when employees die (July 16): Based on feedback, it didn’t seem like many people enjoyed this article, but it is a subject that affects all of us. So it needed to be written as a companion piece to the articles discussing securing mailboxes of terminated employees. Now it’s done I don’t have to cover it again.
Microsoft announces new top-of-the-range E5 plan for Office 365 (July 14): When a conference comes around, you better have some good stuff to announce. Otherwise why have a keynote. So Microsoft launched their new E5 plan at the Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) and threw every piece of functionality they could find into the recipe. No news yet on how much it will cost.
Securing an Exchange Online mailbox after an employee is fired (July 9): Another popular topic, so here’s how I approach the problem of how to quickly secure a mailbox of a terminated employee.
Securing an Exchange on-premises mailbox after an employee is fired (July 7): Some differences exist (naturally) in the steps that can be taken to preserve information when you’re dealing with on-premises mailboxes over their cloud counterparts. So here’s my take on the topic.
Google’s Undo Send feature is better than Outlook Recall Message, but still not totally effective (July 2): Google marketeers are good at their job and they launched the Undo Send feature for Gmail with some panache. It’s a better implementation than what we have in Outlook, so maybe Microsoft can take some pointers from Gmail. But it’s by no means perfect. Ah well, seeking perfection does take time.
That’s the lot for July 2015. The most popular post was the one covering Exchange 2016 Preview and we will hear a lot more about this release in the coming months. Stay tuned for more information here.
Oh, and by the way, Paul Robichaux and I have parted company with Penton Media over the production of our Exchange Exposed quarterly podcast. There was no malice in the parting, just a realization that we probably don’t need each other to do the work. So Paul and I are working on a new series that will launch soon with the help and backing of some very good sponsors.
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