When it got here out, Change Server 2013 eliminated quite a lot of deployment complexity. It might scale from a single server to the hundreds of thousands of mailboxes in Workplace 365.
It additionally had higher administration instruments, together with public folder and cellular gadget administration, higher availability with computerized failover, Outlook internet entry that was nearly indistinguishable from desktop Outlook, and a hybrid choice that allow you to begin shifting mailboxes to the cloud with out giving up all of your on premises servers.
With the most up-to-date updates, Change Server helps Home windows Prolonged Safety, which improves Home windows authentication protocols to guard in opposition to authentication relay or man within the center assaults.
Why must you improve to Change Server 2019?
However even in case you’re updated on safety patches, you continue to have to plan to maneuver off of Change Server 2013 within the subsequent few months. After April 11, 2023, it received’t be getting bug fixes, safety patches, technical assist or time zone updates—and international locations and states make final minute modifications to their daylight financial savings schedule extra typically than you may anticipate.
An Change server accommodates a few of a company’s most delicate company knowledge, together with an organization tackle e-book that will be helpful to attackers attempting to idiot workers with phishing or enterprise e mail compromise. Contemplating how shortly most organizations would grind to a halt with out e mail and shared calendars for conferences, safety and assist are crucial.
For those who’re nonetheless working your personal Change server quite than utilizing Microsoft 365, it’s often due to regulatory necessities or excessive confidentiality issues, which makes it much more necessary to remain in assist.
SEE: Guidelines: Server stock (TechRepublic Premium)
What’s included in Change Server 2019?
Though it was initially deliberate for this 12 months, the subsequent model of Change Server received’t be out there till the second half of 2025. For those who have been ready for that, improve to Change Server 2019 as an alternative; you don’t want to put in Change Server 2016 first.
There are safety enhancements: Consumer connections use TLS 1.2, and shortly TLS 1.3, by default, and you may disable legacy authentication, which is weak to interception and brute pressure assaults. Furthermore, Outlook makes use of MAPI over HTTP because the default connection to Change, which provides customers a extra secure and dependable connection; though, it’s good to allow that in Change 2013 earlier than establishing Change 2019. There are enhancements to the compliance and knowledge loss prevention options as effectively, and calendar conferences that want to remain confidential might be set to Do Not Ahead.
Plus, Change search has been utterly rebuilt: It’s primarily based on the Change On-line search infrastructure and might index a lot greater recordsdata with higher search efficiency.
Transferring to Change Server 2019
Though it’s generally doable to do an in-place improve of Change, it’s not supported. And in case you’re shifting from Change 2013, it’s unlikely your servers will meet the Change 2019 {hardware} necessities. Given how way more highly effective central processing models have change into over the past decade, you’ll probably be capable to assist the identical variety of mailboxes with fewer servers.
You’ll have to run Home windows Server 2019 or Home windows Server 2022, however you’ll be able to run Change 2019 on Home windows Server Core to scale back the patching floor. You possibly can preserve your Energetic Listing forest purposeful stage at Home windows Server 2012 R2 for the migration, although you may need to enhance efficiency by upgrading that later.
With extra highly effective CPUs in servers, Change 2019 doesn’t want an structure that divides up duties for efficiency. As a substitute, it’s optimized to profit from the {hardware} you may have and for failure isolation.
That’s why there at the moment are solely two server roles. Mailbox consists of shopper entry providers like authentication, redirection and proxying, which had their very own position in Change 2013, in addition to the transport service and mailbox databases. And Edge Transport, which is deployed exterior of your Energetic Listing forest to deal with internet-facing mail movement, reduces the assault floor of your Change server in addition to provides one other layer of safety in opposition to malware.
Upgrading requires updates and issues to retain all providers
It may appear unusual to replace Change 2013 simply so you’ll be able to arrange Change 2019, however you’ll should be on one of many two most up-to-date cumulative updates for Change 2013 to be in assist and for it to coexist with Change 2019 whilst you work by means of the improve. When you’ve got Change 2013 Consumer Entry servers, you’ll be able to proxy visitors from them to Change 2019 mailboxes, which provides you extra flexibility.
One Change 2013 function you don’t get in Change 2019 is Unified Messaging, which places voicemail within the Outlook inbox. For those who’re not prepared to modify to Groups as an alternative, you’ll have to arrange Skype for Enterprise Server 2019 and use the Microsoft Cloud Voicemail service. For those who’ve been utilizing Change 2013 Unified Messaging along with your personal department trade, that’s extra advanced to get working with Skype for Enterprise Server, and it’s possible you’ll need to contemplate Microsoft Groups Telephone and cloud PBX as an alternative.
You’ll additionally have to verify which model of Outlook your customers are on. Change 2019 doesn’t assist something older than Outlook 2013, so in case you nonetheless have Outlook 2010, you’ll have to replace that as effectively.
Use the Change Deployment Assistant to get a step-by-step plan for shifting from Change 2013 to 2019. It would stroll you thru all the course of from Energetic Listing schema updates and Area Title System settings to configuring Change, shifting mailboxes and public folders, and eradicating any pointless permissions when you’re executed.
Suggestions for decommissioning Change 2013
After you have Change 2019 up and working, you’ll be able to decommission your Change 2013 servers. There’s a useful guidelines of the steps to comply with right here, together with:
- Inventorying purposes, purchasers and Autodiscover connections and ensuring they’re configured for the brand new Change server
- Acquiring a brand new Safe Sockets Layer certificates if the namespace has modified
- Checking the mail movement connectors
- Migrating the mailboxes
- Eradicating the mail databases
It’s a good suggestion to run your Change 2013 servers in upkeep mode for per week or so to make it possible for nothing is attempting to connect with them. It’s simpler to verify the logs to search out {that a} forgotten or not often used software or workflow remains to be utilizing the previous server quite than to try to troubleshoot why that’s failing as soon as the server is gone.
If you’re prepared, you’ll be able to uninstall Change 2013, clear up the firewall, Energetic Listing and DNS settings, and repurpose or get rid of the {hardware} or delete the digital machines.
Lose your final Change server
After all, in case you’re confronted with a serious improve like this, you may resolve you’d quite cease working an Change server in any respect, particularly in gentle of current safety points.
Alternate options to Change Server
There are different mail servers for Home windows like Axigen, hMailServer, mailEnable or Apache James—a few of which will even run on Linux—and a few of them supply calendaring in addition to e mail. However, you’re shedding Change-specific options like public folders and the tight integration with different Microsoft instruments, reminiscent of utilizing OneDrive for Enterprise for sharing and enhancing paperwork inside Outlook.
Even if in case you have SharePoint, with out Change, you received’t get all the options of Groups or the upcoming Loop parts. You can even contemplate shifting to Gmail or one other on-line supplier with collaboration options, like Zoho.
Or keep within the Microsoft ecosystem
For those who’re staying within the Microsoft ecosystem, the plain choice is to transfer to Change On-line. You get precisely the identical options and admin instruments and the identical integration with Energetic Listing, plus bigger mailboxes, higher spam and antimalware safety, and new instruments like targeted inbox and Viva Insights.
Furthermore, you don’t have to take care of and improve a server or deal with future migrations; though, the following model of Change Server will simplify that by supporting in-place upgrades. Most Microsoft 365, Workplace 365 and Change On-line subscriptions qualify companies for Quick Observe help with the migration from Microsoft.
When is the newest I ought to improve to Change Server 2019?
Up till April 11, 2023, you need to use Change Server 2013 emigrate to Change On-line or Microsoft 365, then transfer to Change 2019 and decommission your Change 2013 servers after you migrate. For those who use Unified Messaging in Change 2013 and also you’re shifting to Cloud Voicemail, doing it in that order will keep away from voicemail outages.
However, in case you’re not going to get all of that executed by the cutoff date, you’ll have to improve to Change 2019 first and use that emigrate to Microsoft 365. As a result of as soon as it’s out of assist, you received’t be capable to use Change 2013 for the migration.
For those who’ve already moved to Change On-line and also you’ve solely been retaining Change Server round to handle recipients by syncing your Energetic Listing to Azure AD—a typical state of affairs typically often called the “final Change server”—you’ll be able to run the Change Server 2019 Administration Instruments on any domain-joined Home windows system and do away with your native Change server altogether.
Simply be sure you shut down and reformat the server while you’re certain you don’t want it any extra quite than uninstalling Change, as a result of that may take away necessary info from Energetic Listing. And if you would like a graphical consumer interface quite than managing by means of PowerShell, take a look at the (unofficial) Change Recipient Admin Heart. For those who’ve been utilizing Change Server for SMTP relay, you need to use an Edge Transport server as an alternative.