Microsoft delays next Exchange Server release to 2025 Microsoft has updated its roadmap for Exchange Server and revealed that the next version will arrive in 2025 – four years later than planned. A post opens with a reminder of Microsoft's previous promise to deliver a new subscription-only version of Exchange in late 2021, then details the many security improvements made to the …
So you're telling me my next colonoscopy and all the various new misfeatures associated with the new version of this astonishingly corporate balls slapping in my face piece of shite have been delayed till at least 3 years from now.
Hell yeah. Thank you for taking longer to inevitably make this so much worse.
I foresee a lot of people who currently support Exchange look at their retirement portfolio and then say...
Ok, 2025 is it and I'm gone. 'F' you MS, I'm not going to start learning how to get around your inevitable stupidity and general crappiness with the next product.
Surely all they need to do is make the installer run the uninstaller for the old version of Exchange, then display a message thanking you for "upgrading" to Office 365?
I suppose they'll also need to produce a second version titled "Exchange for Governments, Banks and Pharma" which is four times more expensive and is just the current product with the version number incremented, but those customers won't mind a delay so there's no rush.
Three years does seem rather a long time to accomplish these simple changes...
...run the uninstaller for the old version of Exchange, then display a message thanking you for "upgrading" to Office 365?
It's far more complicated than that: First it's got to merge all the private shared mailboxes into one massive open to all mailbox. Then it's got to trim all the unshared mailboxes to the default 250Mb limit. Ideally, it then needs to identify the CEO's mailbox(es) and remove the content of all messages older than 2 months but not the headers. Only then can it issue the message that it has successfully upgraded.
I mean, why not, plenty of 9's, solid security, and a big enough deployment to hit economies of scale, and no upstream bandwidth fees because they already tapped all the fiber backbones.
The restore process takes a little getting used to. It's really easy though, just pick up any phone or radio and shout "Echelon, please deliver the snapshot I have selected on my screen" and then listen for the sound of a c-130 overhead and the sound of a refitted BLU-82 deploying parachutes. Please clear the LZ or it it will be cleared for you via UNMODIFIED BLU-82s. Service not available in all jurisdictions but IS available in most US controlled airspace over foreign soil, international waters, and low earth orbit.
To ensure the best snapshots are obtained please use a Carnivore equipped network provider and enable all ECDSA options.
(har har har... Oh wait, as I pay taxes in the US, I ALREADY paid them for that, they just don't want us getting into the admin dashboard again.)
Exchange will be split:
Exchange - the main exchange: The webinterface and ActiveSync. No new HW required, as the CPU features required do not change. You still can upgrade the HW, if you don't have 512GB RAM for IIS, tho.
Exchange Companion Apps: Hub/Transport, Mailbox, stuff like that. Needs a new license and definitely needs new hardware.
And what about hybrid setups? Still ignoring that, Microsoft?
If you have hybrid AD with the mailboxes on Exchange Online, you need an on-prem Exchange server to manage it propoerly. The last version where a license for this is 'free' is 2016 - which means it also has to run on Windows Server 2016 as it's not supported on newer versions.
The 2019 version of Exchange will apparently work, but you have to pay for the license, and it requires 128GB RAM minimum. I'm told that it works fine on less, but of course if there are issues that's an immediately escape clause for MS.
Are they ever going to produce a more lightweight management client for this purpose? Having to retain one Windows Server 2016 installation just for this is ridiculous, as is using something as heavyweight as Exchange just for management purposes.
Microsoft NEVER trumpet it from the rooftops when they do a u-turn, they're like politicians.
Case in point, I've been working on an image deployment project and was planning to move desktop OneNote as they'd made a big fuss about removing it in favour of OneNote for Windows 10. When I did some research as I couldn't find a way to customise the Office 365 installer it turns out they've changed their minds and desktop OneNote is not now being deprecated, but it was exactly the same, a low-profile blog post that made the announcement.
Exchange and RAM: I'm a UNIX bod and admit that I know sod all about Windows. But of course I am aware of it. Can anyone explain in a non-snarky way why Exchange requires so much memory for 14 mailboxes? I just don't understand it. Maybe I'm missing something. At a place where I worked previously we had about 150,000 mailboxes with POP3, IMAP, and web mail on UNIX systems. We didn't have calendaring, they were just mail boxes. But that setup was a lot busier than those 14 mailboxes, and we didn't need 800MB of RAM per mailbox. So I just don't see why it needs so much.
Apologies to those who keep a closer eye on such matters.
However, for those who last looked a couple of months back, there is some good news buried in the release.
For me this gives a client an upgrade path from WS2012/Exch2013 and who still need on-prem Exchange.
Aside: Yes I know there are alternatives, however, I've been unable to locate a business local to the client who would do the install and maintenance...
Yup.
Only problem is Windows Server 2022 is a bit cutting edge for many clients so they want Exchange 2019 on Server 2019, and will then be confused when an in-place upgrade to vNext can't be done and why are those nasty Exchange people wanting double the storage, again.
How about Server 2019 or Server 2022 core I hear you ask?
Oh, we haven't tried all our security stacks on that and the BAU guys get confused without a GUI so just go with Desktop Experience 'k?
Fact that the BAU guys having to actually RDP to an Exchange server should be a once in a blue moon event cuts no ice.
> they want Exchange 2019 on Server 2019
Agree, however, back in March MS were only shipping Exchange 2019 and Server 2022 via their charity scheme and were very clear that Exchange 2019 on WS2022 was, at that time an unsupported combination and were giving no date for the availability of the next release of Exchange that would run on WS2022 etc...
It'll be longer than 4 years, IME no version of Exchange is ever genuinely production ready until about a year, sometimes a lot more, after it ships. There are always interoperability issues, or features removed that they don't tell anyone about (remember the attempts to kill Public Folders in Exchange 2007?) that need hotfixes or service packs to put right.
>It'll be longer than 4 years
Well given: Exchange 2013 goes EoL April 2023; and both 2016 & 2019 go EoL Oct 2025 - MS are in urgent need of a supported on-prem product if they wish to retain those customers...
Given the above, it does seem that MS will be offering (£)extended support for Exchange 2019 for 3 years beyond 2025 to permit enterprises to migrate onto the new Exchange on-prem platform (and encourage 2013/2016 users to go to 2019 or cloud - potentially simplifying migration to Exchange '2025'). Obviously, they will need to be making the announcement in the near future so that contracts can be signed etc.
Naturally, there is the additional question - will Exchange '2025' run on Windows Server 2022 given WS2022 goes into Extended support in Oct 2026...
That is a current trend in gaming industry. There have been some very high profile cock-ups lately, interestingly MS who own Bethesda recently delayed two very highly anticipated games back to 2023 rather than released them in a crap state and risk shite PR.
MS are now in a strong enough position to be able to do this, what alternatives are there to Exchange? Almost nothing, so this is no skin off MS nose doing this.
You say that but is that really the case? I know that every get a fit of the giggles when Notes is mentioned but that is a very different platform now than the late 90's version everyone thinks of plus you have people like Google and Co with products which could all too easily be put into play as a small footprint system which would suit a lot of smaller companies whoc do not want to have to pay for the whole MS Catalogue just to be able to use mail, spreadsheets and word processing.
I know this has had more false dawns than the Linux Year of the Desktop but even a stopped clock is right twice a day and it just needs some Finance Director to decide a 90% match delivered now cheaply is better than a 103% Vapourware match at bitcoin prices for companies to shed the MS blinkers in much the same way they did with Big Blue a generation ago.
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