Exchange Server 2016 Goes Into Public Preview

For IT administrators, the Exchange product is a lifeline of their organization, and allows users to communicate 24/7. It’s product line has been updated through the years, with Microsoft adjusting to its needs. On Wednesday, Microsoft put the latest Exchange Server 2016 into public preview.

In a blog post on Wednesday, Microsoft announced the preview to download for Exchange Server 2016. It’s a product that is meant for the cloud, and takes advantage of the power of the cloud in many ways. Traditional Exchange fans with love the new features as well.

Three New Key Areas

With Exchange Server 2016, Microsoft focused one three areas, according to Greg Taylor who authored the blog post on Wednesday. First is Simplification. The simplification is in both server architecture and migration from Exchange Server 2013 and 2010. Both are still in wide usage according to Microsoft.

Second is reliability, and key learnings from running Exchange Online gave them ways to predict potential failures through automation before they occur. Thirs is performance and reducing the total cost of ownership. Connectivity costs and low cost servers make it cheaper to run overall.

Still A Work In Progress

The Exchange Server 2016 product is still a ways from launch. A blog post has announced the full availability of the preview, and a number of other feautres will be added in the future. At 1.7 GB, its a sizeable download, and one that should be run on test machines for now.

It’s described as: Microsoft Exchange Server 2016 brings a new set of technologies, features, and services to Exchange Server. Its goal is to support people and organizations as their work habits evolve from a communication focus to collaboration. Exchange Server 2016 helps lower the total cost of ownership whether you deploy on-premises or provision your mailboxes in the cloud. This release is not approved for production use and should be installed in a lab environment only.

If you love Exchange, try it today. It’s free to download, and free to try from Microsoft.