Released: Exchange Sever 2010 SP1 Beta

by Bharat Suneja

Microsoft has released Exchange 2010 SP1 Beta. You can download it from the download center. Microsoft also announced Exchange 2007 SP3 is still on track and will be available soon.

The download link above is for the beta version of Exchange 2010 SP1. It’s not recommended to deploy beta software in a production environment.

What’s New in Exchange 2010 SP1

In Yes Virginia, there is an Exchange Server 2010 SP1, Microsoft’s Michael Atalla revealed the key new features in Exchange 2010 SP1. In a repeat of Exchange 2007 SP1, the first service pack for Exchange 2010 is also loaded with plenty of new features and many improvements to existing features. Here’s a list.

  1. Federation: In Exchange 2010 RTM, you must use certificates issued by supported certification authorities (CAs) to establish a Federation Trust with the Microsoft Federation Gateway. In Exchange 2010 SP1, you can also use self-signed certificates.
  2. Exchange ActiveSync (EAS): In Exchange 2010 SP1, you can use the Exchange Control Panel (ECP) to perform the following EAS-related tasks:
    • Manage the default access level for all mobile phones and devices
    • Setup email alerts when a mobile device is quarantined
    • Personalize the message device users receive when their device is recognized or quarantined
    • Get a list of quarantined devices
    • Manage EAS device access rules
    • Allow or block specific mobile devices for a mailbox user
    • List the mobile device partnerships for a mailbox user
    • Initiate remote wipe requests to wipe mobile devices
    • Remove mobile device partnerships
    • Create rules for all users of a specific mobile device types
    • Allow or block specific mobile device for a mailbox user
      • SMS Sync: Synchronize SMS messages from a mobile device to the mailbox user’s Inbox
      • Information Rights Management (IRM) in EAS: Server-side (protocol level) support for IRM in EAS
  3. Outlook Web App (OWA): OWA improvements include:
    • Office Communications Server (OCS) and OWA interop configuration stored in Active Directory. In Exchange 2010, this is stored in web.config file in IIS virtual directory.
    • New theme support, ability to set default themes in an OWA Mailbox Policy or on the OWA virtual directory
    • Custom theme support, and control over the order in which themes are listed
    • Attachment types marked as ForceSave are excluded from XML/HTML security checks
    • Reset Client Access server virtual directories
  4. Transport: The following transport improvements are incldued in Exchange 2010 SP1:
    • MailTips access control over organizational relationships (for Federation)
    • Enhanced MailTips monitoring and troubleshooting
    • Enhanced message tracking monitoring and troubleshooting
    • Message throttling enhancements
    • SMTP failover and load-balancing improvements
    • Support for extended protection on SMTP connections
    • Send Connector changes to reduce NDRs over well-defined connections
  5. Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): RBAC improvements include:
    • Database scope support in RBAC
    • Active Directory split permissions: Ability to create and remove ACtive Directory users and groups and manage non-Exchange attributes by Exchange administrators and servers has been removed
    • RBAC support in ECP: The Exchange Control Panel (ECP) includes UI for creating and managing RBAC role groups and role assignment policies.
  6. Store and Database improvements:
    • Detect and repair mailbox and database corruption issues using the New-MailboxRepairRequest cmdlet
    • Store limits increased for administrative access
    • Troubleshoot excessive growth of mailbox database logs using the new Database Log Growth Troubleshooter (Troubleshoot-DatabaseSpace.ps1) script
    • Public Folder client permissions support in EMC
  7. Mailbox and Recipients:
    • More scenarios supported in Calendar Repair Assistant
    • Mailbox assistants are now throttle-based assistants (in Exchange 2010 RTM assistants were schedule-based)
    • Internet Calendar Publishing to share Outlook calendars with Internet users
    • Import and export mailboxes from and to PST files using New-MailboxImportRequest and New-MailboxExportRequest cmdlets, does not require Outlook to be installed
    • Hierarchichal address book support
    • Distribution group naming policies to control distribution group naming
    • Soft-delete of mailboxes after completion of mailbox move requests
  8. High Availability Improvements:
    • Block mode continuous replication
    • Active mailbox database distribution
    • Improved Outlook cross-site connection behaviour
    • Enhanced datacenter activation coordination mode support
    • Enhanced management and monitoring scripts
    • EMC improvements for managing High Availability features
    • Failover performance improvements
  9. Messaging Policy and Compliance improvements:
    • Provision personal archives on a different mailbox database than the one the primary mailbox resides on
    • Import historical mailbox data to personal archive (or primary mailbox) using New-MailboxImportRequest cmdlet
    • Delegate access to personal archive
    • New Retention Policy management UI in EMC
    • Support for creating retention policy tags for Calendar and Tasks folders
    • Opt-in personal tags
    • Multi-Mailbox Search Preview to estimate number of items returned by a mailbox search
    • Annotations of messages returned by a discovery search
    • Multi-Mailbox Search Data De-duplication
    • Web-Ready Document Viewing of IRM-protected messages in OWA
    • IRM in EAS for protocol-level IRM support, allows non-Windows Mobile devices to create and access IRM-protected messages
    • IRM Logging to log IRM Exchange IRM operations with AD RMS servers
    • Mailbox audit logging to audit mailbox access
  10. Unified Messagng (UM):
    • UM reporting in ECP
    • UM management in ECP
    • Cross-Fores UM-enabled mailbox migration
    • Outlook Voice Access improvements
    • Caller Name Display support
    • Test UM connectivity and call flow using Test-ExchageUMCallFlow cmdlet
    • New UM Dial Plan wizard
    • OCS “14” support
    • Secondary UM dial plan support
    • New UM Language Packs
    • Call answering rule improvements
    • UM Managed API / Speech Platform improvements
    • UM auto-attendant update
  11. Audit Logging improvements
    • Administrator audit logging improvements
    • New Mailbox audit logging
  12. Support for Coexistence with Exchange Online

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