Time has come to start and plan your upgrade
Microsoft announced recently that Exchange Server 2013 will reach end of support on 11th April 2023. This means Microsoft will not provide any technical support, bug fixes and security fixes past this date.
It is strongly recommended for organisations to migrate to Exchange Online or upgrade to Exchange Server 2019 before this date, which means most organisations have little more than eight months to complete this upgrade from the date of this article.
What you can do:
For organisations with Exchange Online:
If your organisation is running Exchange Server 2013 in Hybrid with Exchange Online, you should consider migrating all mailboxes to Exchange Online. Before you migrate, you will need to ensure that Exchange Online and Exchange Online Protection is fully configured including any anti-malware, anti-spam, anti-phishing, zero-hour auto purge, safe attachments and safe links policies in Defender for Office 365, along with any configuration of SPF, DKIM and DMARC are in place and have moved MX records to Exchange Online.
Once the Exchange Online environment is configured and mail transport has been moved, you should ensure the Outlook clients are running a supported version of Outlook, currently:
- Outlook 2016
- Outlook 2019
- Microsoft 365 Apps for Enterprise
- Microsoft 365 Apps for Business
Should your organisation be using a legacy version of Outlook, you should consider deploying the supported Outlook version to client machines before migrating the mailbox to Exchange Online.
Once the organisation has these in place, you may wish to consider a pilot migration to ensure the Exchange Online service meets the organisation requirements and then migrate the remaining mailboxes, for this Microsoft FastTrack services can be employed to help you migrate.
Finally, you should consider upgrading the Exchange Hybrid server(s) to Exchange Server 2019 to remain in a supported environment, as the Exchange Hybrid server provides secure mail transport to/from Exchange Online and also provides management of mail objects as the Source of Authority is in AD DS. For this, you will need to deploy a minimum of a single Exchange Server 2019, only minimum sizing will be required as it will not host any organisation mailboxes. The Exchange Server 2019 should be configured like-for-like as the existing Exchange Hybrid and will require the Hybrid Configuration Wizard to be re-ran to establish the Hybrid with the Exchange Server 2019. Finally, the legacy Exchange Server 2013 servers may then be gracefully decommissioned from the organisation.
For organisations without Exchange Online:
For organisations without Exchange Online, you will need to start planning the Exchange 2019 upgrade. This involves correctly sizing the Exchange 2019 servers to host the organisations mailboxes, ensuring the storage requirements are in place, building the Exchange Server 2019 servers and configuring the Exchange Server 2019 roles.
Once the Exchange Server 2019 environment is configured, you should ensure the Outlook clients are running a supported version of Outlook to support the move of the Client Access to the Exchange Server 2019 servers. Supported versions are currently:
- Outlook 2013 (requires the latest Office service pack and the latest public update)
- Outlook 2016
- Outlook 2019
- Outlook 2021
- Microsoft 365 Apps for Enterprise
- Microsoft 365 Apps for Business
Once you have the prerequisites in place, you should move both the client access and mail transport to the Exchange Server 2019 servers before migrating mailboxes.
As with all mailbox migrations, it is recommended to run a pilot migration before migration of all the mailboxes to Exchange Server 2019 to ensure the environment meets the organisation requirements.
Gotchas:
- Exchange Server 2019 requires a minimum of Windows Server 2012 R2 Domain Controllers and forest function levels. If you are running any legacy versions of Domain Controllers or forest functional levels, these must be upgraded to support Exchange Server 2019. This should be carefully planned and implemented prior to upgrading.
- If you are using Unified Messaging in Exchange Server 2013, and as this is no longer supported in Exchange 2019, you will need to move to Cloud Voicemail.
- If you are using Modern Public Folders in Exchange 2013, these can be migrated to Exchange Online, if in Hybrid. Or, If you are upgrading to Exchange Server 2019, you can migrate the Modern Public Folders to Exchange 2019.
Next Steps:
Should you organisation need assistance with planning, deployment or migration, risual Ltd offers consultancy services with experienced Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to assist your organisation in this transition.
