News and Announcements
Migration News
University Technology Services began working on the Exchange 2010 upgrade during the Summer and Fall semesters of 2010. Testing is ongoing. Plans to begin moving test environments into production will begin in early to mid-December 2010. Additional departments and colleges will begin the migration in January. UTS expects for all University departments and colleges to be on the new Exchange 2010 system by the end of the Spring 2011 semester.
The following is a list of questions and answers provided during a recent Exchange 2010 Town Hall meeting.
When setting up Sharing Permissions for Folders, will we still have to set up the Permissions for the Inbox and every folder below it separately?
Yes. There may be third party utilities that can make that easier, but essentially that does not change.
Where can we obtain the add-on piece for Entourage (Office 2008) for Macintosh? Will it be available for download on VIP?
Entourage can be downloaded from several locations, including http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads. It will soon be on VIP.
Will Mac users still experience the 10 minute timeout using Outlook Web Access?
The timeouts in Outlook Web Access are more a function of the Web browser being used. Right now, with Exchange 2003, only Internet Explorer is fully supported. With the move to Exchange 2010, more Web browsers, including Firefox and Safari, are supported. Therefore, Mac users should not experience the timeouts using Outlook Web Access.
What does the new Outlook Web Access look like? Does it look like the Student Live@edu e-mail?
Yes, it looks almost exactly like the student Live@edu e-mail.
Will we be able to create the new Exchange 2010 "Resource" account in ADUMS (Active Directory User Management System), or will that have to be done manually through a Help Desk ticket?
This is yet to be determined. It may eventually be included in ADUMS, but that may be a future enhancement. Until it can be incorporated into ADUMS, a ticket request should be submitted to the UTS Help Desk, 803-777-1800.
What do we need to do to get Exchange 2010 resource accounts set to automatically accept calendar appointments?
A ticket can be submitted to the UTS Help Desk to request a Resource account be converted from a regular Exchange 2010 mailbox account to an Exchange 2010 Resource account.
Can we get clarification on the new Exchange 2010 Resource account? Is the only difference that it can automatically accept calendar appointments?
Yes, for the most part. If you have a room resource, and don't have someone who logs into the room account and accepts calendar appointments manually, and you want the account to be able to automatically accept calendar appointments, then the resource account would need to be Converted to an Exchange "Resource" account.
Are all of the AD / Exchange accounts the same?
Today, every account in Active Directory is the same, whether it is for a real person, or for a conference room. They are all the same type of object in Active Directory. ADUMS (Active Directory User Management System) gives the ability to create non-people accounts, for things like Conference Rooms, or consultants who work at USC. With Exchange 2010, there will be a new type of Exchange account called a Resource account that will mainly be used for resources that need to automatically accept calendar appointments. It will still be based on the same type of Active Directory account.
Will Resource accounts still have to reset passwords?
Yes. All account passwords still expire every 180 days. Resource and guest accounts will still expire once a year, and need to be renewed. None of that changes with the migration to Exchange 2010.
Are there any additional or new features?
There are not very many new features with Exchange 2010, that as an end user you will notice, other than the larger mail box size. If you start using Outlook 2010, where you were using Outlook 2007, there are a few new features in Outlook. This link explains some of these new features: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc179110.aspx.
Will Exchange 2010 work well for Blackberries and iPhones?
Yes.
Are there any problems with migrating calendars?
A few tests have been done with calendar migrations, and no issues have been found. This migration is an Exchange to Exchange migration, so the file formats are similar.
Are you testing with archives? Are there any problems with PST files?
There has been minimal testing. A mailbox with a PST file associated with it has been migrated, and the PST file was still accessible after the mailbox was migrated. The pilot group of users will be testing this further.
Should the user be concerned with the archiving?
Automatic archiving can be set up, or manual archiving can be done. This may be a preference for the IT support staff of the specific department.
Will there be any third-party archiving solution, or will we be using the new Exchange 2010 archiving model?
The new archiving feature that is part of Exchange 2010 requires the Exchange Enterprise Client Access License (CAL). Right now, USC has the Standard Exchange CAL. If that changes, the archiving feature may be looked into.
Will the maximum message size change?
No, the maximum message size that can be sent in Exchange will stay at 32 MB. The actual limit is set to 40 MB to account for any message size expansion.
What about student email addresses? Will we see those in the Address Book, or is there a way to search for them?
No. Once everyone is fully migrated to Exchange 2010, we will look into what we can do to share the address book between the student e-mail system and the faculty/staff e-mail system. At that time, both systems will be Exchange 2010.
Will the migration be done department by department? Will the SLA customers go first?
Once the initial pilot/test group has been migrated, and we understand the extent or complexity of the migration, we will determine what the migration strategy will be. SLA customers may not necessarily be first. The network managers will help decide the migration priority for departments.
For departments that do not have an IT person, can we get assistance from UTS?
All departments under SLA (Service Level Agreement) will be fully supported for the Exchange migration.