Exchange 2013 Preview

Introduction

Public Folders [PFs] were introduced in Exchange 4.0 as a approach to collect, classify and simply share information with other users. They were, and still are, used to share documents, e-mail messages, contacts and calendars. By mail-enabling a PF, users can also send e-mails to them, a underline that allows PFs to offer as a placement organisation repository or a contention forum for example.

Until Exchange 2007 and Outlook 2007, PFs were also compulsory in sequence to yield Free/Busy Information and concede users to download a Offline Address Book. Now, these facilities are supposing by a Autodiscover service, a Microsoft Exchange System Attendant use and a Microsoft Exchange File Distribution service.

PFs have always had their dedicated database that is customarily replicated between servers for high availability. This also allows for a PF reproduction to be closer to users from a network perspective, so saving bandwidth and improving performance. The obstacle is that a riposte process used between PF databases is distant from ideal and infrequently users have to wait mins for their PFs to get updated.

Throughout a years PFs have turn so renouned and useful that some companies have literary thousands and thousands of them. However, they are mostly used in a approach they shouldn’t be. For example:

For many years Microsoft has attempted to pierce divided from PFs and their superintendence around Exchange 2007 was for administrators to cruise relocating PFs into SharePoint as they wouldn’t be around for most longer. Although there are many collection now accessible to grasp this, for some companies it is simply usually not doable as SharePoint still doesn’t broach a same functionalities of PFs. They competence be old, a calamity to say and manage, yet they are still really valuable.

So once more, this time with Exchange 2013 and a new Office 365 “Wave 15”, PFs are here to stay! Although they haven’t most developed given they were initial introduced, with Exchange 2013 they finally have!

Improvements in Exchange 2013 Preview

One of my disappointments with Exchange 2010 is that PFs can't be partial of a Database Availability Group [DAG] and we still have to use a same riposte process accessible for PFs to grasp resilience and high availability.

The good news is that with Exchange 2013 Preview, PFs do take advantage of a existent high accessibility and storage technologies of a mailbox store, regulating specifically designed mailboxes to store both a hierarchy (the properties of a PFs and a structure in that they are organized) and a content (the tangible data) of PFs.

Besides PFs now being special mailboxes, there is no longer a Public Folder Database! The best partial is that PF riposte now uses a continual riposte model, and high accessibility for a PF mailboxes is achieved by a DAG, so relocating divided from a Multi-Master Replication Model PFs had, to a Single-Master Replication Model of DAGs.

A Multi-Master Replication Model is one where we have dual or some-more PF databases replicating between them. “Multi-Master” comes from a fact all PF databases are writable so we can have some users regulating one database, other users regulating a other database to entrance a same data, yet their calm is being constantly replicated between them, so all users have entrance to a same information. The problem is that this riposte is finished by SMTP messages sent between a servers holding a PF databases and is not really efficient, mostly causing conflicts when a same information is updated during a same time.

Because now PFs can be partial of a DAG, we no longer have this multi-master riposte model. Instead they replicate regulating a customary transaction record shipping method.

One emanate with a Preview book of Exchange 2013, is that since of a approach DAGs work, we can usually have a singular active duplicate of a sold PF mailbox anywhere in a organization. So if we wish to share a same PF between users in opposite locations, keep this in mind! However, it seems that Microsoft will be changing this in a future!

Creating Public Folder Mailboxes

The initial step to start regulating PFs in Exchange 2013 is to emanate a PF Mailbox. When we emanate a initial PF Mailbox, this will turn a Public Folder Master Hierarchy Mailbox, that is a usually one with a writable duplicate of a PF hierarchy. Every successive PF mailbox we emanate will be a elementary PF mailbox with a read-only duplicate of a hierarchy.

When a user performs a hierarchy change such as formulating or deletion a folder, this change is redirected to a Master Hierarchy PF Mailbox and afterwards replicated to all other PF Mailboxes, so avoiding conflicts.

Because we no longer have a Public Folder Management Console, we have to use a Exchange Management Shell [EMS] or a new Exchange Administration Center [EAC] to conduct PFs. Let’s start by regulating a EMS.

In a screenshot next we can see that we am regulating a cmdlets on a server named EXC2013, that is an all-in-one server. However, when we emanate a initial mailbox, this gets combined on a server named EXC2013MBX01, that hosts usually a mailbox server role. This is since Exchange will collect a pointless database if we do not use a –Database parameter.

Next, we emanate a second mailbox yet this time we manually mention in that database to emanate it. In this case, both PF mailboxes are on opposite databases and in opposite servers, that is not required.

Figure 1.1: Creating Public Folder Mailboxes by a EMS

In sequence to determine that a Master Hierarchy mailbox has been successfully created, we review a RootPublicFolderMailbox charge of your OrganizationConfig with a ExchangeGuid of your PF mailboxes. In this case, we will see that a MasterHierarchy mailbox we usually combined is indeed a Master:

Figure 1.2: Checking a Master Hierarchy Mailbox

In a screenshot above we can also see that it is regulating Set-OrganizationConfig that we set tellurian settings for PFs (unlike with Exchange 2007 and 2010), such as a quotas, limit distance for equipment or influence period, for example. The attributes PublicFolderLockedForMigration and PublicFolderMigrationComplete are used when migrating PFs from Exchange 2010.

You can also use a EAC to emanate PF Mailboxes. To do this, login to a EAC, navigate to Public Folders on a left side menu and name Public Folder Mailboxes: