The New Exchange Reaches RTM!
Published Oct 11 2012 03:00 PM 13.2K Views

Today we reached an important milestone in the development of the new Exchange.

Moments ago, the Exchange engineering team signed off on the Release to Manufacturing (RTM) build. This milestone means the coding and testing phase of the project is complete and we are now focused on releasing the new Exchange via multiple distribution channels to our business customers.

We have a number of programs that provide business customers with early access so they can begin testing, piloting and adopting Exchange within their organizations:

  • We will begin rolling out new capabilities to Office 365 Enterprise customers in our next service updates, starting in November through general availability.
  • Volume Licensing customers with Software Assurance will be able to download Exchange Server 2013 through the Volume Licensing Service Center by mid-November. These products will be available on the Volume Licensing price list on December 1.

Since announcing the Preview of the new Exchange back in July, the EHLO team has been actively blogging about the features and capabilities of the new Exchange. We’re excited to start getting the finished product into the hands of our customers!

For those who are interested in learning more about the new Exchange, check out the series of posts that have been published over the past couple months:

In addition to Exchange, the new Office, SharePoint, and Lync have also reached RTM. For more information on the announcement, go to Office News. Thanks again for your continued support, and please do keep the feedback coming!

Exchange Team

53 Comments
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Congrats! you are doing an amazing job and your job is amazing! :)

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Exchange 2013 rocks!

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gr8 news. I sincerly hope that i would at last be able to deploy a version of Exchange ( that is 2013 ) on core edition of windows (2012).....

i tried with 2007 Exchange on windows 2008(core), though made possible but officially un supported.

then i tried with 2010 on windows 2008 R2(core), not made possible neither supported.

Now it seems that converting to core is a tricky step only. Let's hope it does in my scneario also.

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Low performance, very hard migration process, no real advances for most of the Enterprise....

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Fantastic!  So when will E14 SP3 RU* release that is a requirement for co-existence?

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@Julian: Thanks!

@Chet: See Announcing Exchange 2010 Service Pack 3

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hmmm, would have thought that with E2013's code finalized that E2010 SP3's code would also be finalized at the same time, seems like to many "what if's" like something more needs to be changed in the 2013 code to accommodate the 2010 SP3 code.

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Awesome. Now we just need to wait unti Service Pack 1 where hopefully the Exchange team builds in support for direct mailbox modification scanning (aka Real Time Scanning via the VSAPI) and a 3rd party vendor to provide us a mutli-engine defense in depth solution that doesn't require Microsoft's cloud solution on the front end.

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Great - but existing Exchange customers won't be able to deploy until "first half of 2013" when Exchange 2010 sp3 is due?  Any ability to narrow down that timeframe now that RTM is here?

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Great news - thanks for all your efforts.

One thing that I expect lots of customers will start asking for though, is guidance on publishing Exchange to the Internet now that Forefront TMG has reached the end of the line. Is the recommended approach likely to be based on Forefront UAG? Perhaps something we haven't heard about yet?

I shudder when I think of trying to explain to a Windows-savvy administrator that they need a hardware firewall and a Linux server to act as the publishing mechanism for Exchange (and all the other Office web products)!

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Congrats!

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Congratulations!

What about coexistence with Exchange 2007?

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Congrats team, FYDIBOHF26SPDLT!

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Congratulations team on this awesome achievement.

On a lighter side, it was thought that 2013 will be skipped and the product will be named 2014. Any (fun) reason why we didn't?

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Good news for us!

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Yes!!!

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When will SP3 for 2010 be released so existing customers can start testing?

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@Anthony: As commented previously, see Announcing Exchange 2010 Service Pack 3.

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@ DavidRa - we do plan on publishing some guidance, but in the meantime I'll tell you that TMG can be used to publish Exchange Server 2013, and so if you have it, you can certainly use it.

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@Greg, @Bharat: please explain. According to earlier posts EX 2010 SP3 is a requirement for co-existence with EX 2013. Does this mean that only new customers can install EX 2013 once it's released in November and that existing EX 2010 customers will have to wait until SP3 is released so that they can migrate from 2010 to 2013?

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@Frank - According to the Announcing Exchange 2010 Service Pack 3 post, yes.  Only new customers will be able to use Exchange 2013 until 2010 SP3 is released.  This unfortunately will not be the first half of 2013.  So it could be 6 more months before existing customers can start testing 2013.

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So Exchange 2013 is (almost) out ... but unless you go net-new you have to wait for SP3 so it's not really usable.

This is right in line with Server 2012 being out .... but we have to wait for System Center SP1 so none of it is really manageable (an amazing hyper-visor upgrade no one can deploy because scvmm doesn't support it).

Microsoft seems to be really botching on the timing of their releases this year... tons of cool stuff _we_can't_deploy_ because they don't have their ducks in a row.

I'm really bummed.

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Justin said it.  Not having sp3 ready to go by end of 2012 calendar year is absurd.

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We have several customer scenarios where for various reasons we are eager to move.  This mostly revolves around hardware deployment issues.  (eg - We know we have to replace servers now and would like to minimize the number of migrations, upgrades, redeployments, need to additional hardware, etc.)

Questions:

1)  So where can I actually get RTM bits?  Not on MSDN or the Exchange page (which is still handing out the Preview release).  

2)  The post in July seemed to imply that coexistence would be possible when XS2K13 RTM was released.  I read the later postings as superceding this and that we have to wait for XS2K10SP3.  True?

3)  If "co-existence" is out of the question, is a complete "migration" from an existing XS2K10 to XS2K13 RTM possible?  Is we accept downtime to get a migration done can we actually do it or is migration also dependent on "co-existence"?  Is this documented anywhere?

4)  Is there any specific information on deployment of diversity for all roles (Both in single site and over a WAN)?  Load balancer requirements etc?

5)  I am interested in hearing anyone's experienceknowledge about supported Microsoft or third-party apps for backup (eg Symantec BackupExec, CA Arcserve), Antivirus (eg symantec, TrendMicro, others), and antispam (eg GFI Mailessentials), fax integration (eg GFI FaxMaker).  As usual these are probably the blocking issues fro actual production.

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Without Forefront For Exchange 2010 support, Ex2013 is worthless for me.

Thanks MS for dropping such a nice product.

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What about licensing?

Any details you want to share?

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@ Shahid Roofi

Exchange 2013 will not support the core edition of Windows 2012. There are a few key things we need and we do not support installs of Exchange 2013 on Windows 2012 core.

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@fpelover:

It was dropped because it's now _built_into_ Exchange 2013.  On this front it's a win for you.

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Dave Espinoza said "Exchange 2013 will not support the core edition of Windows 2012".  Forgive my confusion but I want to be sure I understand exactly what is meant by this.  I think you mean installing on a GUI-less server core OS right?  You are not saying that it is currently a problem to deploy on a Hyper-V instance running W2K12 are you?  Any comments on my previous questions?

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We've just built a new 2K8R2 forest with msx2010...... Can we simply uninstall the 2010 server and built a new one with exchange 2013 RTM ? Our source forest is AD2003 with exchange 2003 so would be hoping to same migration steps based on preparemoverequest.ps1? The target forest has no live users in it currently.

Looking forward to the improved site failover behaviour in DAG 2.0 :)

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@randomtech: It will be available for download on MSDN/TechNet around the same time it's available for volume license customers - in mid-November. As indicated in previous SP3 post and responded in a few comments, coexistence with Exchange 2010 will require SP3. Stay tuned for deployment guidance.

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@ex2013: No licensing details yet, but stay tuned!

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Good News.....

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exc 2010 requires sp3  for coexistence

what does exc 2007 require  ?

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@neil don: Exchange 2007 SP3 requires a rollup - will be announced here when we have more to share.

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"Exchange 2013 - Is a big mistake"  ...excellent, intelligent, and highly informative post.  You are clearly a technical force to be reckoned with.   /sar

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@randomtech: Installing in a Hyper-V VM is supported. See

Exchange 2013 System Requirements (aka.ms/ex2013req) >

Hardware virtualization.

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Who cares if RTM is today if not available for download for one more month :(

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@Justin - you are incorrect. FPE is >NOT< included in Exchange 2013. They have included a single Microsoft antivirus engine that ONLY scans at the transport level, not at the store level, and it certainly has no where near the level of protection or features of FPE.

Yes it's a good thing Microsoft is providing a "free" antivirus solution with Exchange 2013, but it should not be a reason to drop the full featured and defense-in-depth FPE product.

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Can you confirm Exchange 2013 will be available for download to MSDN subscribers (MS ISV partners)?

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I will use Exchange 2013 to store public folders only.

Why they removed EMC...

IIS web based interface is not handy, how can i mark several users, open properties of them and edit atributes for example?

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@Restore EMC: You can select multiple objects (mailboxes / contacts etc.) just as you can in EMC - press Shift and select multiple contiguous objects, or press CTRL and select objects that are not contiguous. In the Details pane on the right, you are presented with common settings you can modify for all selected objects.

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RTM bits are now for download on technet/MSDN

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Congrats Team! And happy to see it's now downloadable as well. Guess all we need now is EX2010SP3 :) Any ETA on that guys?

Cheers

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Is this some kind of a joke??  Where's Alan Funt?

What's the point of this?   We can't install it for another 8 months or so anyway!

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So, core-installation is not supported but the webinterface seemed like a good idea?

Come one guys, where's your heads at?

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I have a test environment with Exchange 2010 SP2 installed on it. It means that the schema was updated during tghe installation for supporting the Exchange version

When I try an Exchange 2013 RTM  setup /prepareschema command, I get the following error:

"Prerequisites Analysis FAILED

All Exchange 2010 servers must have Exchange 2010 service pack 3 or later installed"

Does anyone know if it is possible to run this after uninstall the Exchange 2010 server? or if, unfortunatelly it is not possible to install Exchange 2013 RTM in a schema which was previously updated for running Exchange 2010?

I have in mind to remove my Exchange server next monday, but I'd appreciate if someone has tried this before and tell me how it has finished.

thanks

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@Xuanxo: If you uninstall your Exchange 2010 Server cleanly then you will be able to install Exchange 2013.  I have done this in my test lab and there were no problems.

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Cool for Exchange 2013, but why send it to RTM before all existing customer are able to migrate.

This is just like if the new exchange doesn't exist.

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Can anyone answer my questions #3-5  and new question 6 below?  

Let me expand a bit on my original question #4.  Now that the server editions for server 2012 have changed what are the specific requirements for high availability in Exchange 2013?  In Exchange 2010 I believe it was required to have Server Enterprise Edition to have HA for the CAS role right?  Now we do not have the same roles nor do we have an Enterprise Edition of the OS.  Will we require the Datacenter Edition?  Will Standard Edition work?  I have to make some licensing decisions ASAP so an answer would be appreciated.

We have several customer scenarios where for various reasons we are eager to move.  This mostly revolves around hardware deployment issues.  (eg - We know we have to replace servers now and would like to minimize the number of migrations, upgrades, redeployments, need to additional hardware, etc.)

Questions:

3)  If "co-existence" is out of the question, is a complete "migration" from an existing XS2K10 to XS2K13 RTM possible?  Is we accept downtime to get a migration done can we actually do it or is migration also dependent on "co-existence"?  Is this documented anywhere?

4)  Is there any specific information on deployment of diversity for all roles (Both in single site and over a WAN)?  Load balancer requirements etc?

Let me expand a bit on my original question #4.  Now that the server editions for server 2012 have changed what are the specific requirements for high availability in Exchange 2013?  In Exchange 2010 I believe it was required to have Server Enterprise Edition to have HA for the CAS role right?  Now we do not have the same roles nor do we have an Enterprise Edition of the OS.  Will we require the Datacenter Edition?  Will Standard Edition work?  I have to make some licensing decisions ASAP so an answer would be appreciated.

5)  I am interested in hearing anyone's experienceknowledge about supported Microsoft or third-party apps for backup (eg Symantec BackupExec, CA Arcserve), Antivirus (eg symantec, TrendMicro, others), and antispam (eg GFI Mailessentials), fax integration (eg GFI FaxMaker).  As usual these are probably the blocking issues fro actual production.

6) Let me add a question 6.  What exactly would I need in the way of load balancer(s) in various scenarios.  It sued to be that the general consensus was that you had to get a hardware load balancer becuase the windows load balancing service was not a good solution.  How is taht in Exchange 2013 now?  What woudl be required to support HA in a single site environment?  What would be required to support full HA in a two-site (geographically diverse) environment?

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