Microsoft has recently announced some new features that will be available with Exchange 2010 SP1 (anticipated in the summer timeframe of this year). While a more detailed list is forthcoming from Microsoft, a few highlights can be found below:
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- Archiving Enhancements – With SP1, you will be able to store a user’s primary mailbox in one mailbox database and that user’s Personal Archive mailbox in a different mailbox database. This will allow administrators to leverage tiered storage for primary and archived data. Additionally, new server side features will allow for easy back-end PST imports directly into a mailbox. Finally, as alluded to by Microsoft previously, SP1 will include updates that will enable Personal Archive access from Outlook 2007. Without SP1, the only methods of access for the Personal Archive are Outlook Web App 2010 and Outlook 2010.
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- Management Enhancements – New capabilities will be added to both the Exchange Management Console (EMC) and Exchange Control Panel (ECP). Specifically, the EMC will have new tools to configure/manage Retention Policies, Retention Policy Tags, Litigation Holds, DAG IP addresses and Alternate Witness Servers, recursive public folder settings and permissions, and more. The ECP will have new tools to configure/manage Transport Rules, MailTips, Personal Archives, RBAC roles, and more. In summary, many tasks that previously required the Exchange Management Shell will now be available through either the EMC or ECP.
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- Discovery Enhancements – Multi-mailbox search will be improved by providing a Search Preview that will provide an estimated number of results (with keyword statistics as well) before exporting the desired content to the designated discovery mailbox. This will help discovery users understand the impact of their queries and how much data to expect before actually exporting this data. Additionally, a search de-duplication option will be provided that, when checked, will only export one instance of each unique message to the designated discovery mailbox. This could dramatically reduce the amount of time it would take for a discovery user to review the data exported from a query. Finally, support for annotation will be introduced so that discovery users can include notes while reviewing discovered data.
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- Outlook Web App Enhancements– Outlook Web App (OWA) gets more efficient by pre-fetching message content to make reading faster and running some actions asynchronously (delete, mark read, etc.) to make them appear faster. Additionally, various user interface improvements will be included to reduce clutter in OWA and prevent long running operations (such as attaching files) from blocking OWA access for the end user. A new feature to anonymously share calendars via the web will be an option as well. Finally, OWA themes return to allow users to customize the look and feel of OWA.
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- ActiveSync Enhancements– Support for send as and conversation view, along with other new features will be provided.
You can read more about these new features of Exchange 2010 SP1 at http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2010/04/07/454533.aspx.