Microsoft
Exchange Server 2019

by Faulkner Staff

Docid: 00016412

Publication Date: 2103

Report Type: PRODUCT

Preview

Microsoft’s Exchange Server is a messaging and collaboration software server
platform that features email, calendaring, and contacts, and also supports
mobile and Web-based applications. The original Exchange Server was released in
1996, with the most up-to-date version being Microsoft Exchange Server 2019,
which was released in October 2018. Recently Exchange Server has been the target
of ongoing attacks from both state-sponsored and independent hacking groups,
taking advantage of multiple vulnerabilities. Despite Microsoft’s patching of
the exploited flaws, unpatched systems remain high-profile targets. This report
reviews the key features and functions of Exchange Server 2019, along with its
requirements.

Description

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Microsoft Exchange Server 2019 is the foundation for Microsoft’s Unified
Communications platform and is designed to lower messaging costs, boost
productivity, allow access to business communications from any location,
and provide security and compliance to protect important business
data. The newest version of Exchange Server, which was released in
late 2018, offers SHA-2 compliant S/MIME in Outlook on the Web, 17
additional languages, and an improved download package. Starting with CU1,
it is now packaged as ISO files instead of a self-extracting EXE file.

Exchange Server manages all business communications including email,
voicemail, and instant messaging from any platform, Web browser, or
device.

In March 2021, Microsoft announced it detected multiple zero-day exploits
being used to attack on-premises versions of Exchange Server in limited and
targeted attacks. The threat actor used the vulnerabilities to access
Exchange servers, which accessed email accounts and allowed for
the installation of additional malware to facilitate persistence in the victims’
environments. Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC) attributed the
campaign to the Hafnium group, a state-sponsored actor supported by the Chinese
government.

While Microsoft quickly issued emergency fixes for the identified exploits,
the company soon reported that multiple other actors were also taking advantage
of unpatched systems to launch their own attacks on organizations with
on-premises Exchange Servers. In response, Microsoft issued a number of tools
to help both incident response teams and customers who do no have dedicated
security or IT teams identify indicators of compromise and apply the updates that will remediate and defend against the associated attacks.

Figure 1 displays Exchange Server 2019’s Web-based admin center
interface.

Figure 1. Exchange Server 2019 Admin Center

Source: Microsoft

Vendor

Name: Microsoft
Headquarters
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052-6399
Phone: (425) 882-8080
Fax: (425) 706-7329
Web: http://www.microsoft.com/
Type of Vendor: Operating System and Application
Software Provider
Founded: 1975
Service Areas: Global
Stock Symbol: MSFT (NASDAQ)

Among the key new features offered in Exchange Server 2019 are:

Improved search infrastructure
Faster, more reliable failovers
Metacache database
Modern hardware support
Dynamic database cache
Calendar – Do Not Forward
Calendar – Better Out of Office
Calendar – Remove-CalendarEvents cmdlet
Assign delegate permission via PowerShell
Email address internationalization (EAI)

Table 1. Microsoft Exchange Server’s Key Features
Exchange Server Technologies	Features
Cloud Transition	Exchange allows for onboarding to the cloud overnight and management of hybrid deployments with both online and on-premise mailboxes. Users can share calendars and schedule meetings regardless of environment.
Exchange Administration Center	Through the web-based Administration Center, users can manage Data Loss Prevention (DLP) and site mailboxes. It provides role-based access control, letting help desk and specialist users perform tasks without requiring full administrative permissions.
Exchange Online Protection	Exchange Online Protection provides security features deployed across global data centers to help streamline administration.
In-Place Archive	Users can keep email in their primary mailbox or move items to an In-Place Archive. Flexible retention policies gives users the ability to take control of storage and compliance demands while maintaining productivity.
Site Mailboxes	Through site mailboxes, users can collaborate and share information. SharePoint offers co-authoring, document storage, and versioning.
Web-based Apps for Outlook and Outlook Web Apps	Exchange lets users provide plug-in access to web-based apps within both Outlook and Outlook Web App. Single sign-on is offered for multiple apps, which helps reduce complexity.
Voicemail with Unified Messaging	Voicemail with Unified Messaging is designed to reduce the administration required to manage voice messages. Within this feature, Microsoft offers: Voicemail preview – Allows users to read their voicemail messages much as they would emails. Outlook Voice Express – Lets users access their inboxes with a telephone keypad or voice inputs from remote locations. Message Waiting Indicator – MWI lets users know that voicemail messages are waiting and how many there are. Unified Messaging Auto Attendant – Enables users who don’t know the extension for a particular individual to navigate to that person. Protected Voicemail – This enables control over voicemail messages. Using Active Directory Rights Management Services, Exchange can apply Do Not Forward permissions to voice messages that are designated either by the sender (by marking the message as private) or by administrative policy. Protected voicemails cannot be forwarded in a playable form to unauthorized person, regardless of their email clients. Call Answering Rules – Provides custom greetings, options to find the proper person within the organization, and call transfer options. The rules can be based upon conditions such as caller IDs, time of day, and Exchange free/busy status.
Mailbox Resiliency	To support disaster recovery, backup, and high availability, Exchange can handle high volumes of mail through the following features: Database availability groups – Consists of a set of mailbox servers that continuously replicate to update database copies, communicate to manage failures, and provide automatic recovery from failures. Database-level failover – Provides automatic failover at the database level without traditional clustering. Site resiliency – Offers a simplified process to extend data replication between data centers for site failover. Transport resiliency – Manages both on-site and off-site data replication and mailbox servers. Built-in mailbox recovery – Provides up to 16 replicated database copies for high availability purposes. Ease of deployment – High availability can be added to the Exchange environment without reinstalling Exchange. Integrated administration – Handles all high availability administration. Single item restore – Administrators have control over how long deleted and edited email is kept in the Recoverable Items Folder, allowing for the recovery of accidental deletions. Online Mailbox Moves – Mailboxes may be moved within databases without the need to bring files offline. Storage IO reductions – Reduces Disk IO over earlier editions of Exchange Server. SATA Disk Optimizations – Optimizes IO patterns to prevent disk writes coming in bursts. Automatic page restore – Automatically detects and repairs minor disk errors. JBOD Support – Can be deployed with up to 16 replicated copies of each mailbox database.
Mobile Email with Exchange ActiveSyncI	The mobility features within Exchange Server enable users to have access to their communications on various compatible devices. These features include: Conversation view Free/Busy lookup Nickname cache Reply state New user interface SMS sync Unified Messaging card Global address list photos Voicemail preview Installable client Allow, block, and quarantine control Rights protected managing
Outlook Web App	With Outlook Web App, users can access email, voicemail, instant messages, and SMS text messages through all major Web browsers. Outlook Web App features: Nickname cache Conversation view Filters Search Single page of messages MailTips – Warns users when they are about to take an action that could be damaging such as sending attachments that are too large to distribute Voicemail preview SMS sync View/set status Instant messaging Calendar sharing Calendar publishing and printing Themes Optimized user interface Multiple browser support
Management Tools	Microsoft Exchange Server’s management tools were created to help reduce the need for administration to handle common tasks. The management tools feature the following: Role-based access control Moderated distribution groups Exchange control panel Distribution group management Message tracking
Information Protection and Control	To prevent unauthorized or accidental data distribution, Exchange Server can supervise email and apply appropriate levels of control based on each message’s sensitivity. Such controls include: MailTips Transport rules Transport rule conditions Dynamic signatures Moderation Message classifications Transport Protection Rules – Enables administrators to apply Information Rights Management (IRM) protection to email after a message is sent Outlook protection rules Protected voicemail IRM in Outlook Web app IRM in Exchange ActiveSync Transport decryption IRM search
Email Archiving, Retention, and Discovery	Since so many organizations have vast amounts of email messages, Exchange Server provides archiving, retention, and discovery capabilities which enable such data to be stored yet found quickly. The new features include: Personal archive Retention policies Legal hold Multi-mailbox search Role-based access control (RBAC)
Deployment	Exchange offers tools in an effort to make deployment simple. These include: Online move mailbox Outlook Autodiscover Exchange Best Practices Analyzer Exchange Remote Connectivity Analyzer (ExRCA) Exchange Deployment Assistant Server roles Exchange federation
Security	In an effort to protect data and the overall messaging system, Exchange has implemented security features to deflect malware, control access to information, and guard against other types of attacks. The features are: Data Loss Prevention (DLP) capabilities Outlook policy tips Intra-organizational control Inter-organizational encryption IRM support S/MIME support Edge Transport server – Deployed at the network perimeter as a standalone server, the Edge Transport server supervises all Internet-facing mail flow and is equipped with anti-spam agents and anti-virus capabilities Safelist aggregation Anti-spam filtering agents Forefront Online Protection for Exchange (FOPE) Forefront Protection for Exchange Server (FPE) Anti-virus scanning Anti-virus integration Anti-virus stamp Edge Transport rules

Applications

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Microsoft touts Exchange Server as a full messaging system that utilizes
security features to meet the challenges like deployment, administration,
and compliance that enterprises face daily. Exchange Server has been used
by companies in a variety of markets which include financial, automotive,
systems integration, and food and beverages.

Environment

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Exchange Server requires:

Processor
- x64 architecture-based computer with Intel processor that supports
  Intel 64 architecture (formerly known as Intel EM64T)
- AMD processor that supports the AMD64 platform
- Intel Itanium IA64 processors are not supported
OS
- Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard or Datacenter
- Windows Server 2012 Standard or Datacenter
Memory
- Mailbox 8GB minimum
- Edge Transport 4GB minimum
Hard Disk Drive
- At least 30 GB on the drive on which you install Exchange
- An additional 500 MB of available disk space for each Unified
  Messaging (UM) language pack that you plan to install
- 200 MB of available disk space on the system drive
- A hard disk that stores the message queue database on with at
  least 500 MB of free space
Drive – DVD, local, or network accessible
File Format – Disk partitions must be formatted for
the NTFS file system

Support

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Users can access support for Exchange Server via the support section of
Microsoft’s Exchange Server Web page. The Microsoft technical team has
posted various options for self-service help like documentation, blogs,
videos, files, and photos. Interested customers can also take a test drive
of Exchange Server’s features without a complete installation. The
Exchange Learning Portal, another sub-section of the support page, is
equipped with training resources that can assist users in learning about
and creating new applications for Exchange. A Support Contact section
links users to Microsoft’s local or worldwide Support Services Web site,
where they can view a list of Microsoft Professional Support phone
numbers. Microsoft also offers various support packages in tiers depending
upon the level of help that businesses need.

Pricing

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For Server licenses and CALs, Exchange Server 2019 is offered in both a
Standard and Enterprise Edition. The Standard Edition is designed for small
to midsized organizations and supports one to five mailbox databases. The
Enterprise Edition supports 1 to 100 mailbox databases in large enterprises.
Exchange online costs $4.00 per user per month. Exchange online, which
offers unlimited storage and hosted voicemail, costs $8.00 per user per
month. Table 2 compares licensing for Microsoft Exchange Server 2019.

Table 2. Microsoft Exchange Server 2019
Product	Feature
Server Licenses
Standard Edition	Enables creation of up to five databases per Mailbox server role.
Enterprise Edition	Enables creating up to 100 databases per Mailbox server role.
CAL Licenses
Standard CAL	Required for each user/device gaining access to the server, and entitles access rights to both editions of Exchange Server.
Standard plus Enterprise CAL	Provides access to Unified Messaging and advanced compliance.

Competitors

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Exchange Server’s main competition comes from HCL’s Lotus Notes and
Domino, and Google Apps.

Web Links

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