Finally Get Rid of Your Last Exchange Server (for Hybrid environments)!

[colly72]

For anyone who is running Exchange purely for recipient management in a Hybrid environment, it's now finally possible to remove/shut down your last Exchange Server, following the release of Exchange 2019 CU12. This update also updates the licensing to allow hybrid environments to use Exchange 2019 for free, with updated product keys.

 

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/exchange-team-blog/released-2022-h1-cumulative-updates-for-exchange-server/ba-p/3285026

 

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/Exchange/manage-hybrid-exchange-recipients-with-management-tools

 

It's been a long time coming but hopefully worth the wait!

[free780]

Get used to PowerShell and then more PowerShell. No nice GUI anymore.

May be worth the pain rather than exchange updates.

[chaplic]

There never has been a real need for a on prem exchange server, all the values can be set by AD PowerShell commands. I suspect the Exchange product group dont trust end users enough to advise them of that (as the exchange commands check for correctness better) or theres some weird self preservation thing going on, but they have piled on huge unnecessary costs onto companies by this wrong headed advise till now (not just exchange servers but reverse proxies, load balancers, backup etc).

 

I know one firm who just turned their on prem servers off and left them there so they could be within MS support guidance. Never turned back on.

[3s-gtech]

There are a load of functions, like AD integrated mail group membership, that I have to manage on my local server. I guess user creation would be the same (I have to use PS to do that otherwise it creates the mailbox on-prem) but some functions I’m not sure about.

 

Obviously I’ll have to change the MX records too at some point - our on-prem is still the receiving server.