Exchange 2013: New Features and Changes, Part 1

Microsoft recently released Exchange Server 2013, an improved messaging platform that provides quite a few interesting features at various levels. There are major changes, and organizations will have to rethink the way they plan to maintain or integrate messaging in their infrastructure. The level of changes is not as dramatic as those seen between 2003 and 2007, but as you will see, certain things are dealt with differently. As of now, very few organizations have Exchange 2013 running, so it is certainly going to be interesting to see how this iteration of the product will interconnect with existing messaging solutions soon.

Here we examine what is new in this release, as well as what has been simplified from 2010. This will help us gather key information we need to evaluate the possibilities and implement this fresh release into production. As of now, configuring Exchange 2013 on top of an existing Exchange infrastructure is not possible, but with the release of new service packs and cumulative updates, it will be feasible, and we will cover the most obvious features here.

Mail Flow

SMTP Services

One of the first changes we notice during setup is that the hub transport role is no longer available for installation. In fact, it has been divided into two services that run on all client access server and mailbox roles.

A new service, the Front-End Transport Service, runs on the Client Access Server (CAS). This component provides basic spam scanning for incoming messages, quickly forwarding them to the appropriate mailbox servers. It also relays outgoing e-mail to the Internet or, preferably, to smart hosts. This service does not host a message queue.

The Front-End Transport Service is not a replacement for the Edge transport service (but can certainly use the 2010 version of the relay), and despite the fact it seems to be for the outside world, it is not supposed to reside in the perimeter of the network. When a message is exchanged between internal Mailbox servers, the CAS Front-End Transport Service is not used.

A mailbox server now fully integrates SMTP mail flow components.[g1]  In fact, that is where the core of e-mail flow happens. It contains different queues, and categorizers, pick-up directories, as well as other components that deliver e-mail to appropriate mailboxes. It is composed of two services:

• Mailbox transport delivery: This component allows the internal e-mail routing engine to appropriately forward an incoming e-mail to the user’s mailbox.
• Mail transport submission: This component routes the outgoing e-mail from a mailbox to the SMTP components to successfully deliver the e-mail to the next messaging server.

Malware and spam protection

Identifying viruses and threats is possible with Exchange Server 2013, as the malware protection component can be enabled for the organization. A message can be scanned for typical threats. This is a service that is now fully integrated into the architecture at no cost. However, it can also be paired with third-party products or Exchange Online Services.