Live@Edu: Updated Message and Recipient Limits

[PiqueABoo]

Just stumbled over this on a blog I've never seen before (some Education Partner site[1]): Bit in bold is worth knowing because I've had folk legitimately hit the 500 limit e.g. Primary trying to mail parents/guardians to say the school might be closed, then is closed, then will likely be open tomorrow etc.

Outlook Live accounts have historically been 500 recipients per day. Microsoft has recently updated this policy to be in line with the Exchange Online offering in Office 365. All newly provisioned tenants will see these new limits immediately. For those customers who are already on Live@EDU, you should either see these now or you will see the changes over the upcoming weeks.

There is a recipient rate limit, often called a sender limit or sending limit, for cloud-based e-mail accounts. This limit defines the maximum number of recipients that can receive e-mail messages sent from a single cloud-based account in a 24-hour period. The recipient rate limit for Exchange Online is 1,500 recipients per day.

[1] Not in an announcement sent to Live@Edu tenancy Contact mailbox. Not on outlookliveanswers. Not on James Marshall's blog. Etc. The biggest problem I have with cloud-Exchange versus local Exchange is being aware of changes because there is no obvious single place you can go for the info. It's the biggest "cultural" difference from local where e.g. new SP comes out so you read what's new and know you've got that when you install it, or you go change some config and know you've done it.

[PiqueABoo]

Might be tied in with in progress Jan 2012 update, or not happen in Europe for ages, don't know. But if it is "upcoming weeks" you can check if yours has changed:

get-mailboxplan | select displayname, recipientlimits

Edit: Trusted some blog that reckoned this, but on second thoughts that's the max number of recipients on one message not the max in 24 hours, so you can't use it to check

[CyberNerd]

The limit on Google apps is 3000 external recipients per day. I don't think it is limited if you use groups or an appengine application to send mail

[PiqueABoo]

Groups can workaround this on Live@Edu (but it's rarely practical for lots of reasons), but this isn't a Live@Edu versus Google thread ;b

[CyberNerd]

but this isn't a Live@Edu versus Google thread ;b

I just thought I should add it for completeness.

[PiqueABoo]

::sits back and waits for full comparison with every mail system on the planet including any limits imposed by any given SMTP feed service you might have upstream of your own mail server::

[PiqueABoo]

Found out how to check this, by sneaking up to it looking for something completely different in a powershell session. Run this cmdlet:

get-throttlingpolicy

That displays lots of vaguely intriguing parameters, but look for RecipientRateLimit (or add stuff to the command so that's all you see). That must be the one, not least because the tenancy I'm playing with says it is 1500, plus I've got an audit log that says it was 500 back in Nov 2011.

[zag]

Very interesting, I just had a member of staff hit this today.

Is there any way to up the limit? He only sent out one whole school email as far as I know.

[PiqueABoo]

Nope. Was it the 1500 limit? Only some do have that 1500 limit now but others are still stuck with 500. And some that had the get-throttlingpolicy cmdlet don't have it now. I've given up trying to make sense of what any given tenancy should look like at any point.

PS: A whole school e-mail to a single distibution list (containing everyone) in the GAL shouldn't count as more than 1 message.

[zag]

I think it was the 500 limit. He send around 800 today I think.