Now Available: Exchange Server 2013 Deployment Assistant
Published Mar 04 2013 03:29 PM 22.6K Views

We’re excited to announce the availability of the Exchange Server 2013 Deployment Assistant at http://technet.microsoft.com/exdeploy2013. The Exchange Deployment Assistant is a web-based tool that helps you deploy Exchange 2013 in your on-premises organization, configure a hybrid deployment between your on-premises organization and Office 365, or migrate to Office 365. It asks you a small set of simple questions and then, based on your answers, creates a customized checklist with instructions to deploy or configure Exchange 2013. Instead of trying to find what you need in the Exchange library, the Deployment Assistant gives you exactly the right information you need to complete your task.

The first scenarios available show you how to deploy Exchange 2013 in an organization with no previous installations of Exchange and show you how to configure a hybrid deployment between your on-premises Exchange 2013 organization and Office 365. We’re working hard on additional scenarios, such as upgrading from Exchange Server 2007 and Exchange Server 2010. These additional scenarios will be added in the coming months.

The Deployment Assistant for Exchange 2013 is supported on most major browsers and has a completely redesigned interface that’s no longer dependent on Silverlight technology. Here’s a screenshot from the Deployment Assistant after the initial set of questions were answered and the customized checklist was generated.

image

Of course, we can’t forget about Exchange 2010! If you still need to deploy Exchange 2010, you can access the Deployment Assistant for Exchange Server 2010 at http://technet.microsoft.com/exdeploy2010.

We would love your feedback. Feel free to leave a comment here, or send an email to edafdbk@microsoft.com directly or via the 'Feedback' link located in the header of every page of the Deployment Assistant. Also, please send us your 'success stories' after using this tool... we'd love to hear about them!

Katie Kivett
Microsoft Exchange Deployment Assistant PM

32 Comments
Not applicable

This might be helpful if you could actually deploy it.  Brand new installs only kinda misses the general Exchange target audience a bit.

Not applicable

The EDA has been a very useful tool over the last few years. Great to see the 2013 scenarios emerging. I'm looking forward to this version evolving with more scenarios and details :)

Not applicable

The EDA has been a very useful tool over the last few years. Great to see the 2013 scenarios emerging. I'm looking forward to this version evolving with more scenarios and details :)

Not applicable

The EDA has been a very useful tool over the last few years. Great to see the 2013 scenarios emerging. I'm looking forward to this version evolving with more scenarios and details :)

Not applicable

it's great tool but unfortuntily it misses sizing for exchange :(

Not applicable

Just waiting for Exchange 2013 CU1????

Not applicable

Is this kind of a joke???

Not applicable

This is currently useless since 99.99999% of people will be upgrading from Exchange 2010, of which this doesn't support. Yet again, the Exchange team releases stuff that is not yet RTM worthy or compatible with previous versions. Ye-haw!

Not applicable

@Yayo: Exchange Server Deployment Assistant does not provide sizing info or guidance. That must be done before you deploy. EDA provides step-by-step deployment instructions.

@Chris, @Wowzers: EDA will be updated for coexistence/upgrade scenarios after Exchange 2013 CU1 is released, which enables these scenarios.

Not applicable

Good first step.  The migration scenarios and steps are the bits most people will be interested in (myself included) so we look forward to that update.

Not applicable

Patience everyone - there is less than 4 weeks left to the end of Q1 and CU1 is promised to drop before then.

Katie, so when CU1 drops we will also have deployment assistant updates to cover existing on-prem Exchange 2010 SP3 with hybrid scenarios?  We will be able to migrate our ex2010 onprem/hybrid solution to 2013 cu1 immediately?  Or must we wait for something to change on the office 365 side of our hybrid solution before we do so?  Thank you.

Not applicable

Perhaps this post would have been better received in a couple of months time, when CU1 is actually out?

Not applicable

@Pesos: Guidance for existing 2010-based hybrid deployments and the latest release of Office 365 are covered in the 2010 Deployment Assistant and expect an announcement on this blog very <very!> soon. Guidance for migrating from Exchange 2010-based hybrid deployments to an Exchange 2013-based hybrid deployment for Exchange 2010 and 2007 organizations will be covered in upcoming scenarios that we’re working to add to the 2013 Deployment Assistant.

Check out the 2010 Deployment Assistant here - technet.microsoft.com/.../exdeploy2010

Not applicable

I look forward to seeing Exchange 2007 and 2010 Support

Not applicable

anybody know that is SIS there in exchange 2013 ?

Not applicable

@Jeevan - I would say yes since thats how they have been able to achieve the storage performance numbers they wanted

Not applicable

@javeen and @squeakiest lobster - Single Instance Storage was removed in Exchange 2010.  Please see my blog post for understanding the why - 

Dude, Where's My Single Instance? And no, we didn't add it back to get performance in E2013. We have made tactical decisions with the redesign of the store process and how we store data which netted us further IO reduction in E2013 when compared to E2010.

Ross

Not applicable

@bharat Suneje:since exchange 2013 provides improvement in IOps i need a help how to do new sizing for mailbox any help

Not applicable

Very good and to the point guides (following the Installing a new Exchange Server 2013).

It would be very nice to also have the PowerShell commands listed for ALL the steps - instead of just the GUI walk-through if possible?

-Jonas

Not applicable

What a useless tool.  I haven't seen a new Exchange deployment is years.  MS has completely missed the boat on this release!

Not applicable

Wait. Wait. Wait. It doesn't include any scenarios for upgrading from Exchange 2007 or 2010?

So, it's obviously not done or even useful at this point. Shame.

Not applicable

@Robert, thank you but I guess my question is whether or not ex2013cu1 on-prem is compatible with the current cloud implementation.  In our case, we are only using Exchange Online Archiving licenses, so our hybrid setup consists of nothing but archive mailboxes - no mailflow.  Will we be able to move to ex2013cu1 on-prem as soon as it's available or do we need to wait for something to be changed on the o365 side?  I certainly hope not because o365 tech support told me that the o365 upgrade rollout is not scheduled to be completed until end of the year!

Not applicable

I know you are all tired of hearing this, but, is there an ETA on when a Mailbox Server Role calculator tool for Exchange 2013 will be released?  Will it also include sizing guidelines for the CAS role (i.e. number of CAS server roles to effectively proxy the target number of mailboxes)?

Not applicable

@Pesos: Yes, your Office 365 tenant must be upgraded to the latest release (v15) for compatibility with Exchange 2013 CU1. The hybrid deployment tenant requirements and tenant version verification content is here -

technet.microsoft.com/.../hh534377(v=exchg.150).aspx

Not applicable

Somewhat limited use, as others have commented.  However, it is useful for those people migrating off other non-Microsoft platforms (GroupWise, Domino etc..)   I have seen a few such requests come through to me through my site: emailmigrations.com.   Like everyone else, I am looking forward to Exchange 2013 CU1 - not many days left until end of Q1.

Not applicable

I don't remember asking for a tool that can't support our onsite Exchange deployment for coexistence. Screw the cloud, I need to support my onsite solution. You'd think that after 6 months of release to manufacturing this information would be widely available, but it is not. ms seems to be putting its onsite customers dead last and this is a serious problem for me.

Not applicable

How do we ensure our tenant is upgraded in a timely fashion?  There have been many delays to us rolling out Exchange 2013, and now we have yet another roadblock potentially delaying us from doing so once CU1 is released.

Not applicable

Does anyone else feel that Exchange 2013 was released just a tad bit too early? I really respect the Exchange group and have been involved since 4.0 was released (without the SMTP connector, which you had to buy separately). Was the Exchange team forced to release the product to meet the Windows 8 launch? I say this because it is obvious that this product and the documentation for this product are not complete yet. It seems to be a fail if you launch a product and then months later still don't have the co-existence documentation in order. I'm all for O365 and such, but certainly not at the expense of on-site features and critical documentation.

Not applicable

The EDA has been a helpful assitant over the time. And as the name states it is an "assistant" and should not be seen as a replacement for own thinking, sizing and planning. Additionally it should be mentioned that not only the EDA has been updated in the past to reflect all deployment options.

Not applicable

You said you'd have an update of the deployment assistant covering the upgrade scenario, once 2013 CU1 was released. That was released a week ago as you know, so is there a time frame for the updated deployment assistant? Thanks.

Not applicable

@Upgrade from 2010: We are finalizing the upgrade scenarios and we’re releasing them *very* shortly. Please keep checking here for an upcoming release announcement soon!

Not applicable

Great!!  This is really helpful for deploying new Exchange 2013.

Version history
Last update:
‎Mar 04 2013 03:29 PM
Updated by: