Microsoft Exchange Server 2016 Administration Guide: Deploy, Manage and Administer Microsoft Exchange Server 2016

By Edward Van Biljon

This book is a handy guide on how you can use the features of Microsoft Exchange Server 2016.

It begins with sharing the new features of Exchange 2016 and compares it with the previous versions. This book will help you install Exchange 2016 and give you an in-depth understanding of how to configure its server end-to-end to ensure its fully operational. You will then go through the client connectivity protocols by configuring each one of them. Later you will learn how to view, create, and configure Databases and Database Availability Groups. Next, you will perform migrations of Unified Messaging and also mailbox migrations in different ways in Exchange 2016.

Lastly, you will work with the new commands of Exchange Management Shell and Exchange Admin Center. Towards the end, you will go through the common issues in Exchange 2016 and learn how to fix them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BPB Online LLP
• Release date: Jul 7, 2020
• ISBN: 9789389898026

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Introduction to Exchange 2016

Welcome to Exchange 2016 in-depth. In this chapter, we will be taking a look at getting your environment ready for Exchange 2016 and what the list of requirements are. We also take a look at coexistence scenarios and supported coexistence setups plus ending off the chapter with a brief discussion on IISCrypto and how you can secure your server and also load balancers and taking a look at Cumulative updates.

Structure

The topics to be covered in this chapter are:

Introduction to Exchange 2016

Changes in Exchange 2016 vs. 2013 and 2010

Domain requirements

PrepareAD and PrepareSchema commands

Coexistence

Prerequisites

.NET framework

UCMA 4.0 requirement

IISCrypto – Understanding protocols to be locked down.

Explaining cumulative updates.

Objectives

Learn about Exchange 2016 and how it has changed from Legacy versions.

Understand the prerequisites to run the Exchange 2016 installation.

Run in a coexistence environment.

Lockdown your environment.

Understand how Cumulative Updates work in Exchange 2016.

Introduction to Exchange 2016

Exchange 2016 is an on-premise email server that allows an organization to have its end users to connect Outlook to and to be able to send/receive the email. Exchange 2016 is by no means the first on-premise Exchange server, Exchange goes back a long way to version 5.5.

In time, a lot has improved in the newer versions and with the newer versions they are easily scalable and today can be built quickly to create a highly available on-premise solution. Exchange 2016 RTM was released on 01 October 2015 and has been around for a few years.

Exchange 2016 is the last version that can coexist with Exchange 2010 and is the migration path to the cloud as well if your company has skipped Exchange 2013.

Changes in Exchange 2016 vs. 2013 vs. 2010

With each new version of Exchange, something new is added and other things are removed or become redundant. Here is a table of some of the changes in each version and you will notice the key differences in each:

Table 1.1: Difference of roles

MBX – Stands for Mailbox

CHUME – Stands for CAS/HUB/Unified Messaging, Mailbox and Edge

Exchange Server supportability Matrix: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/plan-and-deploy/supportability-matrix?view=exchserver-2019

Domain requirements

With Exchange, you need to ensure that you are running the correct domain controllers and that your forest levels are on the correct level as well for things to work properly. Exchange 2016 supports the following domain controllers:

Windows Server 2019 standard or datacenter

Windows Server 2016 standard or datacenter

Windows Server 2012 R2 standard or datacenter

Windows Server 2012 standard or datacenter

Windows 2008 R2 standard or enterprise

Windows 2008 R2 datacenter RTM or higher

If you have earlier versions of Windows servers that are domain controllers, you will need to upgrade them to newer supported servers. Your Active Directory Forest Functional level also needs to be at a minimum of Windows Server 2008 R2 or higher. To be able to have Exchange running, you need to have a domain controller in your environment, Exchange cannot install without a valid domain controller and that domain controller needs to be a Global Catalog (GC) and needs to be writeable.

Running a windows server with just IPv6 is not supported, you need to have IPv4 running in conjunction with IPv6.

PrepareAD and PrepareSchema commands

The 2x commands listed above are normally required to be run prior to an installation or upgrade of Exchange 2016. The Exchange 2016 setup whether run in GUI or unattended mode does the PrepareAD at the beginning of the installation if you do not perform the command.

Microsoft recommends that in smaller environments you let the wizard handling upgrading the schema. However in larger environments or if you have different teams handling Exchange and Active Directory then you should run the commands:

Setup.exe /IAcceptExchangeServerLicenseTerms /PrepareSchema and Setup.exe /IAcceptExchangeServerLicenseTerms /PrepareAD

It is essential that the account running these commands is a member of the following groups:

Domain Admins

Schema Admins

Enterprise Admin

Organization Management

If you are running multiple domains in a forest, then you need to run the