Exchange 14?

Few things strike as much terror into the heart of Exchange Engineers as the following sentence:

"A new version of Exchange Server has been announced."

As it is Friday the 13th, I figured today would be a good day to do my write up on what we know so far.

Exchange 14 (no release name suggested yet) is going to be Microsoft's next generation Exchange Server platform to replace Exchange Server 2007.  Development is already well underway, and several feature sets have worked their way into the public through official and unofficial channels.  There's even a video about some upcoming features on the Exchange Team Blog site (See this link).

What we know so far isn't that much, but there are some things that are becoming clear:

1 - No SQL back end yet (insert stream of obscenities here).

2 - Merging of discrete-server design with "Software as a Service" (SaaS) theories.

3 - OWA is going to now work properly with non-Internet Explorer browsers

 

No SQL is annoying, we really wanted to see a more robust back-end solution than the ESE/JET Engine system, but with x64 performance, I'm sure it'll hold up under the strain.  This is not a huge drawback, but is very disappointing.

SaaS is the new "Web 2.0," and therefore seeing this make its way into Exchange isn't a shocker.  The idea is that your local Exchange Server will be able to share mail data with Microsoft's forthcoming Exchange Live Service.  This means that mail will effectively be available in multiple locations and on multiple servers.  There are some major hurdles to overcome with this, and I'm going to be very interested in learning how they'll be cleared.  First, what about data security of corporate mail on shared server space with Exchange Live?  If a hacker compromises an EL server, does that mean that everyone's mail is at risk?  Secondly, how will that mail get to the EL servers?  Log shipping is designed to allow for only one active server system, so that's out, and without an AD merge it would be difficult for any semblance of Database Portability to get morphed in.

In the end, I am sure we'll be hearing about new methods for overcoming these two issues (and others) as the product moves toward Beta stage.

OWA working properly on Firefox and other browsers is a huge step for Microsoft.  Prior to now, you could only use the scaled down version of OWA in a non-IE browser window, which left a lot to be desired.  Allowing enterprises to use whatever browser they want to standardize on (within limits) makes the idea of removing Outlook from the desktops (and therefore saving a ton on licensing) very appealing.

All told, the software isn't even in Beta yet, so everything is subject to change.  However, these little tidbits of pre-release info are causing quite a stir, so stay tuned for more stuff as I get hold of it!