Microsoft Exchange 2019 and Hybrid?

Microsoft Exchange Server 2019:

Back in October 2018 Microsoft announced the release of Exchange Server 2019 RTM bringing a number of new security, performance, client and collaboration features with it. See the Microsoft article here for more information.

It was interesting to find that the Unified Messaging role has been removed from Exchange Server 2019. This affects customers planning to migrate to Exchange Server 2019 who are using a third-party PBX or Skype for Business Server, as they won’t be able use them with Exchange Server 2019 mailboxes. Microsoft recommends customers with this setup to consider migrating to Skype for Business Server 2019 and using Cloud Voicemail, or migrating to Office 365 with Cloud Voicemail.

Microsoft Exchange Server 2019 Hybrid:

Exchange Hybrid is supported with Exchange Server 2019, although Microsoft have yet to update their Exchange Server Deployment Assistant page with Exchange Server 2019 options however, it’s interesting to note that Microsoft recommend Exchange Server 2019 is deployed on Windows Server 2019 Server Core edition to fully take advantage of the most secure platform for Exchange. Using Windows Server 2019 Server Core edition requires some preparation of the network settings such as the IP address and DNS and installing the required Windows features and prerequisite software and of course domain-joining the server. Once these steps have been done, you can go-ahead and install and configure Exchange Server 2019 on the server.

To manage Exchange Server 2019, Administrators can still use the Exchange Admin Center web console and Exchange Management Shell to connect remotely to the Exchange organisation.

To make the Exchange Server 2019 a Hybrid server, Exchange Administrators will need to secure the Client Access with a public SSL certificate and present Autodiscover and Exchange Web Services from the Exchange Server 2019 server(s) to the internet and run the Hybrid Configuration Wizard to build the Hybrid configuration.

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