First look of Exchange 2013 Preview:

                                    First look of Exchange 2013 preview:

Author,

Arun Chaudhary

MCP, MCTS, MCITP

(Exchange 2010)

Mail me: arunkalagarh@gmail.com

Follow me: http://exchangeby-arun.blogspot.com

About me: I am working as an Exchange Administrator & also a freelancer trainer of Exchange & other Microsoft Servers; I have 6+ years experience in Microsoft servers. I have written many articles on different – different topics & given Exchange Server training for more than 250 Indian & International clients.

Finally after a long wait for new Exchange Server Microsoft launch the first look of Exchange 2013 preview.

Microsoft announced the Preview edition of Exchange Server 2010 in 16^th July 2012. Exchange 2010 has many enhanced security & performance option, which help your organization to work fast, smoothly & in safe environment. It provides you more control on your email communication, compare than previous version of Exchange Server.

There are some new features of Exchange 2013 preview, which will change your email server experience.

1. Provide control, Online & On-premises: Exchange 2013 has ability to control your organization in online & on-premises or in the hybrid scenario.

2. Move your Exchange organization in the cloud: Exchange 2013 provide you tools to move to the cloud on your own terms, it limit’s user disruption when you move user mailboxes & provide flexibility to the users for sharing their calendar & scheduled meetings, when they are online or on-premises.  

3. Exchange Administration Centre: Exchange 2013 provide the powerful options, like – Data Loss Prevention (DLP) and site mailboxes, from a single & easy-to –use web based administration console. Using this you can also secure the ECP virtual directory & also can manage your public folder.

Server Roles: Microsoft make big change in Exchange 2013 architecture, now Exchange 2013 have only two server roles.

1. Client Access Server Role: As per the previous version of Exchange server CAS also provide the functionality of connecting all the Exchange clients, like (e.g. Outlook, OWA, Active sync)  to the MBX Server. The CAS authenticates and redirects clients request on the base of their mailbox server query to their appropriate MBX. CAS also can be highly available like previous version of Exchange Server.

Changes in CAS: CAS has now few changes like:

Client Access Service: This service is responsible to connect all the client connection to their MBX Servers.

Front End Transport Service: FETS service provides the functionality of email traffic filtering, mail routing between the Exchange servers & outside the organization.

Mailbox Server Role: MBX is used to store all the user mailboxes & public folder data. MBX also can be highly available using DAG, like Exchange 2010. MBX also provide the two Hub Transport Server services.

Hub Transport Service: This is also same like previous version of Microsoft Exchange server & provide the mail routing service with in the Exchange organization and also a have a enhance feature in Exchange 2013, It provide a connectivity between the Front End Transport service & Mailbox Transport service.

Mailbox Transport Service: This service is responsible for send the emails between the Hub Transport Service & the Mailbox database.

Other Server Roles from Exchange 2007/2010

With the reduction in server roles to just two in Exchange Server 2013 you may be wondering what has happened to the remaining server roles that existed in Exchange Server 2007 and 2010:

Hub Transport server – this functionality has been divided between the Client Access server (Front End Transport service) and Mailbox server (Hub Transport and Mailbox Transport services) and is no longer a dedicated server role

Unified Messaging – this functionality has been divided between the Client Access and Mailbox server and is no longer a dedicated server role

Edge Transport – Exchange 2013 Preview does not contain an Edge Transport server role, however it will function with Exchange 2007 or 2010 Edge Transport.

Exchange Server 2013 Prerequisites:

Before we go to install the Exchange 2013 preview, we must have to understand that what OS, Service packs, Schema updates & Domain or Forest functional levels required.

There is a complete table for all the prerequisites of Exchange 2013 installation:

 Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 prerequisites

To install the Exchange 2013 preview on the Win Server 2008 R2 SP1, you have to install the following features & software components.

To combine the MBX & CAS role:

Do the following to install the required Windows roles and features:

1. Open Windows PowerShell.
2. Run the following command to load the Server Manager module.

Import-Module ServerManager

3.  Run the following command to install the required Windows components.

Add-WindowsFeature Desktop-Experience, NET-Framework, NET-HTTP-Activation, RPC-over-HTTP-proxy, RSAT-Clustering, RSAT-Web-Server, WAS-Process-Model, Web-Asp-Net, Web-Basic-Auth, Web-Client-Auth, Web-Digest-Auth, Web-Dir-Browsing, Web-Dyn-Compression, Web-Http-Errors, Web-Http-Logging, Web-Http-Redirect, Web-Http-Tracing, Web-ISAPI-Ext, Web-ISAPI-Filter, Web-Lgcy-Mgmt-Console, Web-Metabase, Web-Mgmt-Console, Web-Mgmt-Service, Web-Net-Ext, Web-Request-Monitor, Web-Server, Web-Stat-Compression, Web-Static-Content, Web-Windows-Auth, Web-WMI

After you've installed the operating system roles and features, install the following software in the order shown:

1. Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5 RC 
2. Windows Management Framework 3.0 
3. Microsoft Unified Communications Managed API 4.0, Core Runtime 64-bit 
4. Microsoft Office 2010 Filter Pack 64 bit 
5. Microsoft Office 2010 Filter Pack SP1 64 bit 
6. Microsoft Knowledge Base article KB974405 (Windows Identity Foundation) 
7. Knowledge Base article KB2619234 (Enable the Association Cookie/GUID that is used by RPC over HTTP to also be used at the RPC layer in Windows 7 and in Windows Server 2008 R2) 
8. Knowledge Base article KB2533623 (Insecure library loading could allow remote code execution) 

Imp: Hot fix may be already installed on your server, If you have configure auto updates on you windows server.

For Exchange 2013 Preview, you must also do the following in the order shown:

1. Uninstall Microsoft Visual C++ 11 Beta Redistributable (x64)   This task must be done after you've installed UCMA, but before you run Exchange 2013 Preview Setup. To uninstall Microsoft Visual C++ 11 Beta Redistributable (x64), do the following:
1. Open Control Panel > Programs and Features.
2. Select Visual C++ 11 Beta Redistributable (x64) - 11.0.50531 and then click Uninstall.
3. In Microsoft Visual C++ 11 Beta setup, click Uninstall.
4. When Microsoft Visual C++ 11 Beta is uninstalled, click Close.

Register ASP.NET with .NET Framework 4.5 in Internet Information Services (IIS)   This must be done after you've completed the process described earlier in “Uninstall Microsoft Visual C++ 11 Beta Redistributable (x64)”, but before you run Exchange 2013 Preview Setup. To register ASP.NET with .NET Framework 4.5 in IIS, do the following:

a. Open a Windows Command Prompt.

b. Run the following command:

%SystemDrive%\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\aspnet_regiis.exe -ir -enable

c.       Now restart the IIS service using this command.

IISReset

Imp: During the IIS service restart, all the active website, which are host on IIS server, will be stop the respond.

Windows 7 requirements:

Follow the instructions in this section to install the prerequisites on domain-joined Windows 7 64-bit computers where you want to install the Exchange management tools.

1. Open Control Panel, and then select Programs.
2. Click Turn Windows features on or off.
3. Navigate to Internet Information Services > Web Management Tools > IIS 6 Management Compatibility.
4. Select the check box for IIS 6 Management Console, and then click OK.

After you've installed the operating system features, install the following software in the order shown:

1. Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5 
2. Windows Management Framework 3.0 
3. Knowledge Base article KB974405 (Windows Identity Foundation) .

Windows 2012 Server Prerequisites:

The prerequisites that are needed to install Exchange 2013 Preview on a Windows Server 2012 computer depends on which Exchange roles you want to install. Select the section that matches the roles you want to install.

Mailbox server role or combined Mailbox and Client Access server roles

---

Follow the instructions in this section to install the prerequisites on Windows Server 2012 computers where you want to do one of the following:

·             Install only the Mailbox server role on a computer.

·             Install both the Mailbox and Client Access server roles on the same computer.

Do the following to install the required Windows roles and features:

1. Open Windows PowerShell.
2. Run the following command to install the required Windows components.

Install-WindowsFeature AS-HTTP-Activation, Desktop-Experience, NET-Framework-45-Features, RPC-over-HTTP-proxy, RSAT-Clustering, Web-Mgmt-Console, WAS-Process-Model, Web-Asp-Net45, Web-Basic-Auth, Web-Client-Auth, Web-Digest-Auth, Web-Dir-Browsing, Web-Dyn-Compression, Web-Http-Errors, Web-Http-Logging, Web-Http-Redirect, Web-Http-Tracing, Web-ISAPI-Ext, Web-ISAPI-Filter, Web-Lgcy-Mgmt-Console, Web-Metabase, Web-Mgmt-Console, Web-Mgmt-Service, Web-Net-Ext45, Web-Request-Monitor, Web-Server, Web-Stat-Compression, Web-Static-Content, Web-Windows-Auth, Web-WMI, Windows-Identity-Foundation

After you've installed the operating system roles and features, install the following software in the order shown:

1. Microsoft Unified Communications Managed API 4.0, Core Runtime 64-bit 
2. Microsoft Office 2010 Filter Pack 64 bit 
3. Microsoft Office 2010 Filter Pack SP1 64 bit 

For Exchange 2013 Preview, you must also uninstall Microsoft Visual C++ 11 Beta Redistributable (x64). This must be done after you've installed UCMA, but before you run Exchange 2013 Preview Setup. To uninstall Microsoft Visual C++ 11 Beta Redistributable (x64), do the following:

1. Open Control Panel > Programs and Features.
2. Select Visual C++ 11 Beta Redistributable (x64) - 11.0.50531 and then click Uninstall.
3. In Microsoft Visual C++ 11 Beta setup, click Uninstall.
4. When Microsoft Visual C++ 11 Beta is uninstalled, click Close.

After installing all the prerequisites for installing the Exchange 2013 preview, we have prepared the Active Directory. Before you start AD preparation must check the AD replication issues, if any fix it & then start the AD preparation.

     To track the progress of Active Directory replication, you can use the repadmin tool (repadmin.exe), which is installed as part of the Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Active Directory Domain Services Tools (RSAT-ADDS) feature.

 AD Preparation Tasks:

First put the media of Exchange 2013 preview.

Start-à Runà cmd

From the command prompt run the following commands.

Permission required:

• Domain Admin Group
• Schema Admin Group
• Enterprise Admin Group

 Setup /PrepareSchema     or       Setup /PS

This command performs the following tasks:

·        Connects to the schema master and imports LDAP Data Interchange Format (LDIF) files to update the schema with Exchange 2013 Preview specific attributes. The LDIF files are copied to the Temp directory and then deleted after they are imported into the schema.

·        Sets the schema version (ms-Exch-Schema-Verision-Pt) to 15132.

Note the following:

·        To run this command, you must be a member of the Schema Admins group and the Enterprise Admins group.

·        You must run this command on a 64-bit computer in the same domain and in the same Active Directory site as the schema master. 

·        If you use the /DomainController parameter with this command, you must specify the domain controller that is the schema master.

·        After you run this command, you should wait for the changes to replicate across your Exchange organization before continuing to the next step. The amount of time this takes is dependent upon your Active Directory site topology.

Now run this command from the command prompt

setup /PrepareAD [/OrganizationName:<organization name>] or setup /p [/on:<organization name>]

This command performs the following tasks:

·             If the Microsoft Exchange container doesn't exist, this command creates it under CN=Services,CN=Configuration,DC=<root domain>.

·             If no Exchange organization container exists under CN=Microsoft Exchange,CN=Services,CN=Configuration,DC=<root domain >, you must specify an organization name using the /OrganizationName parameter

Now run this command to prepare your domain

Run setup /PrepareDomain or setup /pd to prepare the local domain.

Or

Run Setup /PrepareAllDomains   to prepare the entire domain in your organization.

These commands perform the following tasks:

·             If this is a new organization, creates the Microsoft Exchange System Objects container in the root domain partition in Active Directory and sets permissions on this container for the Exchange Servers, Exchange Organization Administrators, and Authenticated Users groups. This container is used to store public folder proxy objects and Exchange-related system objects, such as the mailbox database's mailbox.

·             Sets the objectVersion property in the Microsoft Exchange System Objects container under DC=<root domain>. This objectVersion property contains the version of domain preparation. The version for Exchange 2013 Preview is 13236. 

·             Creates a domain global group in the current domain called Exchange Install Domain Servers. The command places this group in the Microsoft Exchange System Objects container. It also adds the Exchange Install Domain Servers group to the Exchange Servers USG in the root domain.

After running all these commands successfully, verify that your AD is prepared for the Exchange 2013 or not.

Do the following to verify that Active Directory has been successfully prepared:

·             In the Schema naming context, verify that the rangeUpper property on ms-Exch-Schema-Verision-Pt is set to 15132.

·             In the Configuration naming context, verify that the objectVersion property in the CN=<your organization>,CN=Microsoft Exchange,CN=Services,CN=Configuration,DC=<domain> container is set to 15448.

·             In the Default naming context, verify that the objectVersion property in the Microsoft Exchange System Objects container under DC=<root domain is set to 13236.