Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Microsoft Exchange Server 2016 Is Shipping

Posted by Soulskill on from the onward-and-upward dept.

jones_supa writes: Microsoft's mail and calendar server package Exchange Server 2016 is being refreshed and is now out of preview, along with the 2016 revamp for other Office products. The new Exchange tries to simplify the software's architecture while still adding new features and working better with other Office products. You can now use links from Sharepoint 2016 and OneDrive for Business as email attachments, instead of having to upload the actual file, leading to more robust file sharing and editing. Add-ins have been introduced, which allows extensibility similar to extensions on a web browser. Microsoft is providing a 180-day trial for free.

94 comments

  1. this will be the year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Of windows on the server

    1. Re:this will be the year by Penguinisto · · Score: 0

      Of windows on the server

      ...only because it takes so damned many of them to do the job of one *nix box...

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
  2. Refreshed? by schwit1 · · Score: 1

    I want new. Refreshed sounds too much like pre-owned.

  3. It's all clouds by craigg7500 · · Score: 2

    Most of us don't really care much about this since we use managed email in the cloud. This is only for big IT folks.

    1. Re:It's all clouds by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Most of us don't really care much about this since we use managed email in the cloud. This is only for big IT folks.

      I'm fat and I still use email in the cloud

    2. Re:It's all clouds by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The NSA thanks you for your cooperation.

    3. Re:It's all clouds by CimmerianX · · Score: 1

      Anything on the 'cloud' is no longer secured.... I don't care how shiny and new it is. Data will forever stay on my servers.

    4. Re:It's all clouds by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      How big is big? I've worked at a couple SMB IT shops over the last decade and 90% of our clients have used Exchange. That may be 70% more recently, with the smallest going to hosted Exchange (typically O365). But really the costs aren't that much to run in-house, and their are a lot of benefits including privacy/security.

      I'd say I've only run into one 50+ person company using O365, and they are very unhappy with it (I wasn't directly involved). My exposure/client base in the last 3 years is probably only 350 clients, so not a huge sample, but enough to get a "feel". Now 15 users or less, clearly O365 time. But even when the costs "make sense" the lack of up-time, features, control, integration, and support, often turns people away.

      -apk

    5. Re:It's all clouds by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm also a fat fuck, and I have a neck beard. I too use email in the cloud.

    6. Re:It's all clouds by JeffSh · · Score: 1

      only until you can't afford it anymore.

    7. Re:It's all clouds by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I hope the ones that use Office 365 don't accidentally add the O365 host IPs to their blacklist in their HOST file. Can you imagine what a disaster that would be?

    8. Re:It's all clouds by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Being a luddite would suck.

    9. Re:It's all clouds by Penguinisto · · Score: 1

      only until you can't afford it anymore.

      ...in which case he'll probably have it sitting on tape. *shrug*

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
    10. Re:It's all clouds by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I work for a company with several thousand employees and we're O365 now. Prior to that we were on Exchange 2003, obsolete, not fit for purpose and hopeless with mobile devices. Senior management kept putting off the investment to upgrade but got frustrated with performance. Instead of recognising that they needed to upgrade, they chose O365. Obviously by comparison it's better, but I don't know if they're feeling the lack of control yet.

      And this is in an industry where we have regulatory mandated email retention policies...

    11. Re:It's all clouds by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Being a luddite would suck.

      Being a foolish child would suck.

    12. Re:It's all clouds by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When did they make that shift? Hopefully it was a long time ago...Exchange 2003 was out of support in early 2014, but realistically if a company was using "modern" client software/devices/processes it would be been painful to use after 2010 was released. Part of their decision may also have been the fact that they waited to long. There was NO direct migration path from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2013. You essentially had to migrate to a temporary Exchange 2010 system, then do another migration to Exchange 2013. The fact that your company's systems were so old indicates a lack of proper IT staff/management, so the above task (dual migrations) along with requiring DCs be added/upgraded, forest/domain levels increased, etc, was probably overwhelming to them.

      I'm curious though, do you know if your O365 system is AD integrated? I would have to imagine it is given the size (otherwise what a PITA), but I haven't done an AD integrated migration from 2003 to O365, I wonder if that is still difficult given the domain would still need to be upgraded, and the migration path is still essentially 2003->2013 (now/soon I guess 2016).

      Also, you can do retention via O365 extremely easily, legal holds, etc, but it is typically recommended to use a separate vendor/infrastructure for compliance purposes. There is no issue though with using a third party archiving system in conjunction with O365. I believe that often regulations require pre-delivery capture, but I've seen MANY using Exchange Journaling/routing to achieve "compliance" in this respect without protest (HIPAA, SEC, SOX, PCI DSS). Personally, I think if it hits your equipment (or services contracted for) then it should be archived, regardless of actual delivery.

      -apk

      captcha: strain

    13. Re:It's all clouds by nine-times · · Score: 2

      I understand that mentality, but at the same time, I have to wonder: do you have a team of admins who are experts in security in general, and in securing the email software you use in specific? Because if not, your email may be more secure if you outsource it to a group who does have a team of such experts, rather than trying to do it yourself.

      Sure, it requires that you trust the team you're outsourcing to-- that's true. If you don't trust Google, don't use them as a mail host. However, I'd rather trust Google with securing my email than my company's one generalist IT guy with 3 years of experience, running a 8 year-old Exchange server shoved under someone's desk. For a lot of small companies, that's the choice they're making.

    14. Re:It's all clouds by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It was, IIRC, earlier this year, maybe tail end of last. We knew 2003 was out of support and knew about the 2010 path (we now have a small 2010 instance for some legacy systems to talk to). We are AD integrated. It's a slightly more complex story, as we had an offshore arm of the company on a later AD, so we migrated the users to that (we're all now on their domain) and integrated that with O365. Which even though I'm posting AC, could be a clue if anyone else from my "UK based but with big India operations" company is reading...

      We could've done the 2003 to 2010 migration back in, oh, 2010 or 2011 with the budget and been looking at 2013 this time round. It was purely underfunding. For the bean counters O365 is operational expenditure rather than capital expenditure, and so it gets the nod.

      Our IT staff would've struggled, to be fair, but then we'd have employed contractors and consultants - the same way we did to migrate to O365 anyway. The internal staff are fine for keeping it running, but there aren't enough of them for big projects.

    15. Re:It's all clouds by DigiShaman · · Score: 1

      Office365 BABY!!! Yeah!

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
    16. Re:It's all clouds by holiggan · · Score: 1

      To be honest, securing email is not that hard, unless you want to "manually" set up a structure to check messages for weird stuff.
      You can "outsource" an email hygiene service, to handle the inbound of your email, clean it, and deliver it to your own server (either Exchange or some other thing). You can do that for outbound as well, so your Exchange (or some other thing) will only send and receive SMTP on port 25 from a very specific group of know IPs (the ones from your email hygiene service provider). This alone will take away a huge chunk of the on-premisses worries with email security (no need to worry about spam attacks, bursts in email messages, workload increases, etc, etc). You just pay other guys to handle that for you.
      Of course, you can do that with spam assassin, a couple of linux boxes and such (and your email hygiene supplier will most likely be doing something similar). The difference is that they are payed and specialized in keeping an eye on email security and the latest trends, and for you, usually, this is just one of the many "hats" you wear as an IT administrator.

      --
      "A sysadmin is a cross between a detective, a police officer, a gardener, a doctor and a fireman"
    17. Re:It's all clouds by nine-times · · Score: 1

      To be honest, securing email is not that hard, unless you want to "manually" set up a structure to check messages for weird stuff.

      It's not that complicated, but it's complicated enough that I've seen plenty of people mess it up. And no, it's not just "checking messages for weird stuff". If you think that's all that's involved, then you don't know enough to run a mail server.

      Do you know what SSL certificates are, or how to set one up? Do you know how to set up your firewall to allow only the appropriate ports to the Exchange server, and which ports need to be allowed? Do you understand the security implications of allowing incoming traffic to your network? Do you need to set up multiple Exchange servers with different roles, and do you know what the security implications of that would be? Do you know what MX servers are, and how to set it up so that you don't lose incoming email during a server outage? Do you know how to do a proper backup/restore of your Exchange environment, and how to secure those backups both from breach and loss? Do you know if your email system currently has any unpatched vulnerabilities? Do you have a way of mitigating those vulnerabilities? Do you have a good regimen for installing updates and patches, including testing to prevent unforeseen downtime?

      Security isn't just about protecting yourself from malicious email.

      You can "outsource" an email hygiene service, to handle the inbound of your email, clean it, and deliver it to your own server

      Whoa there. I thought we just established that you're unwilling to trust an outside vendor with your email, and now you're planning on routing all of your email through an outside vendor? If I were paranoid enough about my email to refuse to use a hosted provider, I don't think I'd be willing to use a hosted spam filtering service.

    18. Re:It's all clouds by Jack+Griffin · · Score: 1

      Data on "your" server is no longer secure. The only thing that is certain is your delusion that you have control over your data under any circumstances.

  4. Imperative? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Am I the only one who reads "Exchange Server" as an imperative? As in "Exchange this server real soon now, Cody!"?

    1. Re:Imperative? by sims+2 · · Score: 1

      No your not my first thought when I saw the headline was "I would like to exchange this server"

      --
      Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
  5. Integrated vs. interfaced. by jellomizer · · Score: 0

    The issue I have with Microsoft's approach to software is that they like to make large do everything software. vs smaller do one thing and do it well software.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    1. Re:Integrated vs. interfaced. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is important to those of us who don't want to spend all of our time screwing around with compiling software from source code and just want to get actual work done. There's a good reason that Microsoft is sitting on billions of dollars in cash.

    2. Re: Integrated vs. interfaced. by izm · · Score: 2

      They're sitting on billions because they know how to market to the people holding the purse strings (non-technical executives). Nobody ever got fired for buying Microsoft...even if its not the best tool for the job (and I will give it to them...some of their stuff is genuinely the best). That said, You'd be surprised how little "compiling" of software is required these days with linux-based solutions. Also, my biggest gripe about Microsoft is having to look for non-descript error codes online to figure out what's broken vs Iooking at an error log with some verbosity. Having access to the code also makes it easier to implement a bug fix since I can be more precise on my bug reporting, saving everybody time.

      --
      izm
    3. Re: Integrated vs. interfaced. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      again, things like going through error logs and doing online searches for error codes are for people whose time is worth less than the software is. If it takes me an hour to figure something out, I've already lost money as compared to just buying the latest version of Windows.

    4. Re: Integrated vs. interfaced. by TWX · · Score: 0

      things like going through error logs and doing online searches for error codes are for people whose time is worth less than the software is. If it takes me an hour to figure something out, I've already lost money as compared to just buying the latest version of Windows.

      Sounds to me like you just don't know how to use the software, and that you don't have enough of an install-base to where you really do have to consider the software expense.

      Various Linux distributions have been able to use their package management to automatically process updates sourced from a local mirror for longer than Microsoft has had that option. Linux distributions have had rich remote command-line capabilities since Linux's inception, Windows has only recently gotten that level of immersion with Powershell. Linux has had native-network GUI since its inception. Linux is less resource-intensive than Windows, so less hardware can do the same work. Linux has free integrated programming language compilation tools for just about every language in existence, so one can create any extra bits needed to translate or convert anything to anything else without having to make additional purchases.

      Microsoft is currently King of the GUI, as far as server administration is concerned. That's good for them, but it means that people that only think they know what they're doing can really mess things up when they're incorrect.

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    5. Re: Integrated vs. interfaced. by izm · · Score: 1

      I thought I made it clear that googling for obscure error codes was a windows thing....

      --
      izm
    6. Re: Integrated vs. interfaced. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      again, things like going through error logs and doing online searches for error codes are for people whose time is worth less than the software is. If it takes me an hour to figure something out, I've already lost money as compared to just buying the latest version of Windows.

      Yeah, it doesn't take any of your time to resort to the one true Windows troubleshooting technique - reboot and hope it works.

      Look up error codes? Actually FIX the root cause of a problem SO IT DOESN'T HAPPEN AGAIN??

      We can't expect any Moron Confused by Sun Equipment to do THAT!

    7. Re:Integrated vs. interfaced. by present_arms · · Score: 0

      1999 wants it's comment back, It's been at least that long since I've had to compile any server software under Linux, so what exactly do you think you need to compile? Slashdot can we please have an age verification questions in here, anyone under puberty should be blocked from commenting.

      --
      http://chimpbox.us
    8. Re:Integrated vs. interfaced. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Clearly you wouldn't pass.

    9. Re: Integrated vs. interfaced. by nine-times · · Score: 1

      it means that people that only think they know what they're doing can really mess things up when they're incorrect.

      To be fair, it also means that people who pretty much know what they're doing (but might not be experts) figure out how to do things by browsing through the GUI. I think that's a point that often gets missed by the pro-CLI crowd. CLIs can be much easier and more powerful if you really know all the commands and syntax and intricacies of the shell language, but if not, it's easier to browse through a GUI, see all of your options, and check a few boxes.

    10. Re:Integrated vs. interfaced. by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      The reason I LIKE Microsoft's approach to software is that they like to make large do everything software. vs smaller do one thing and do it well software.

      I have spent way too much of my life with interoperability problems to be swayed by the do one thing and do it well approach.

    11. Re: Integrated vs. interfaced. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are you one of those who go to youtube when you want to know something?

      How much harder is it to read text in a terminal than in a GUI?

      You mean you can try faster what this checkbox does without beeing able tho know it?

      It is not easier to browse through all functions of a GUI than through a man page in the same way that it is not easier to use youtube than wikipedia. I know many people cannot really read (more than a few words), but you are not one of them.

    12. Re: Integrated vs. interfaced. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are you one of those who go to youtube when you want to know something?

      How much harder is it to read text in a terminal than in a GUI?

      You mean you can try faster what this checkbox does without beeing able tho know it?

      It is not easier to browse through all functions of a GUI than through a man page in the same way that it is not easier to use youtube than wikipedia. I know many people cannot really read (more than a few words), but you are not one of them.

      Quit being stupid.

      How the hell would someone unfamiliar with a CLI even know which fucking man page to start looking at?

      A GUI will at least present you with your options, something a blank command prompt simply does not do.

      Never thought of that, now did you?

      Probably not the first thing you failed to think of...

    13. Re:Integrated vs. interfaced. by squiggleslash · · Score: 1

      Sometimes that's a good thing though. It took decades for the *ix community to realize that, actually, yes, email, rules applying to email, address books (both local and LDAP), and calendars go together, and many are still trying to figure out SSO, largely because the latter isn't as relevant to home networks as, say, email.

      The problem isn't integration, it's bad integration. Netscape really screwed everyone over by making Communicator some all-in-one master-of-nothing PoC in the 1990s, creating unnecessary bloatware that influenced a generation of geeks to fear attempts to integrate.

      Exchange Server is something I reluctantly admit Microsoft got completely 100% right.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    14. Re:Integrated vs. interfaced. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is important to those of us who don't want to spend all of our time screwing around with compiling software from source code and just want to get actual work done. There's a good reason that Microsoft is sitting on billions of dollars in cash.

      This is why. They have been jerking consumers for years.

      http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0218817/

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp.

      And of course we all know that they didn't want "to be split in two" so they paid a settlement. A settlement that was just a tiny fraction of money ripped off from consumers. Who did they settle with? Well let's look at Windows at present. It is total fucking global spyware.

      http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/08/microsoft-has-no-plans-to-tell-us-whats-in-windows-patches/
      http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/09/leaks-show-that-microsoft-writes-release-notes-so-why-cant-it-publish-them/

      https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-microsoft.html
      http://www.computerworlduk.com/blogs/open-enterprise/how-can-any-company-ever-trust-microsoft-again-3569376/
      http://www.networkworld.com/article/2956574/microsoft-subnet/windows-10-privacy-spyware-settings-user-agreement.html

      http://www.technobuffalo.com/2013/08/22/nsa-windows-8-exploit/
      http://www.technobuffalo.com/2013/07/11/microsoft-gave-the-nsa-direct-backdoor-access-to-outlook-skype/
      http://winsupersite.com/windows-10/how-stop-windows-10-upgrade-downloading-your-system
      http://www.extremetech.com/computing/195592-with-windows-10-microsoft-could-move-to-a-subscription-based-model
      http://www.extremetech.com/computing/205320-microsoft-windows-10-will-be-the-last-version-of-windows
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GU5uv28a3I
      http://techrights.org/2015/07/31/vista-10-anticompetitive/
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwRYyWn7BEo
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gghj03J_ri0
      http://localghost.org/posts/a-traffic-analysis-of-windows-10
      http://www.ghacks.net/2015/08/28/microsoft-intensifies-data-collection-on-windows-7-and-8-systems/

      THESE
      https://gitlab.com/windowslies/blockwindows
      ^(have to uncomment the #'s on two url's in the hosts file per latest change)
      https://senk9.wordpress.com/checklists/windows-10-privacy-checklist/

      So sitting on billions in cash neither makes their OS cool or them good.

      And since you know little enough about computers to not know every Linux has binaries for whatever you need.... and you assert that at least with Microsoft Windows you "don't have to compile from source"... you're a fucking shill. Get fucked.

      want to get actual work done

      I'm sure sitting on your ass thinking like you do.. whatever you call getting work done doesn't count as work.

      As to TFA... if Amazon and Google and so many other large international corporations can run everything on Linux... so can your company. You are a sucker if you stay with Microsoft shitware. Even the International Space Station is on Linux.

      http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/open-source-insider/2013/05/international-space-station-adopts-debian-linux-drop-windows-red-hat-into-airlock.html

      I have a hunch they are not up there compiling software from source code so they can get work done. Linux on the desktop is awesome and of course Android on small devices is better than the rest too. Android... is Linux. How many times have you had to compile from source code on your Android device? It is nice though that you can if you want to. Try that shit on your iPhone or Windows phone. You will feel stupid for using an iPhone or Windows phone.

    15. Re: Integrated vs. interfaced. by TWX · · Score: 1

      How the hell would someone unfamiliar with a CLI even know which fucking man page to start looking at?

      I don't know about you, but I started with Packard Bell's Teach Yourself DOS on my 8088 back in 1986 or so and moved on to UNIX In A Nutshell dating to about 1990 sometime thereafter.

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    16. Re: Integrated vs. interfaced. by TWX · · Score: 1

      it means that people that only think they know what they're doing can really mess things up when they're incorrect.

      To be fair, it also means that people who pretty much know what they're doing (but might not be experts) figure out how to do things by browsing through the GUI. I think that's a point that often gets missed by the pro-CLI crowd. CLIs can be much easier and more powerful if you really know all the commands and syntax and intricacies of the shell language, but if not, it's easier to browse through a GUI, see all of your options, and check a few boxes.

      You know what I call those who click-through GUI interfaces only sort-of knowing what they're doing?

      Customers.

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    17. Re:Integrated vs. interfaced. by Jack+Griffin · · Score: 1

      The issue I have with Microsoft's approach to software is that they like to make large do everything software. vs smaller do one thing and do it well software.

      That doesn't even pass the first scratch and sniff test.
      Exchange does Email. SQL does DB. Windows is the OS. Sharepoint is a CMS. None of these things try to do anything more than what they are, and most of them are market leaders in their field (or at least up there).
      I know it's cool to hate on MS, but at least try to make sense when you do...

  6. Will it run on Linux? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Really what MS is shipping is the walled garden Windows+SQL+IIS+Exchange.

    Once you walk down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny.

    1. Re:Will it run on Linux? by Jack+Griffin · · Score: 1

      Once you walk down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny.

      Is that not also true of Linux, Apple, Google etc?
      Ecosystems are a fact of life and are nothing new. I work in mixed shop so tend not to get religious about it. MS does back office stuff well (Desktop, AD, Office, Email) and Linux does front of house stuff well (Web, DB, Apps, Integration). As someone with feet in both camps, we won't be changing either of these anytime soon, simply because each are both best at what they do.

  7. This software is still around? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Exchange == Blackberry of e-mail systems. I guess if you're a manager or lawyer-like person you decided you still need this for whatever reason. Kay brah.

    1. Re:This software is still around? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh that is just funny. No, as a home user you don't need Exchange. No, as a person working at a 15 person company you don't need Exchange. Try running a Fortune 500 without it though. Can it be done? Yes. Will the users miss a lot of features if you use something else? Yes. The other solutions out there just don't cut it, don't have the integration and features, and aren't going to replace Exchange any time soon.

    2. Re:This software is still around? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Have you actually worked in any company that has more than 50 employees? No? Then I would advise you to actually look at the market numbers before espousing bullshit.

    3. Re:This software is still around? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Features? Email and Calendar. Seriously, that's what 90% of the people on exchange use. I'm still amazed that no one has come up with something that does this as good as Exchange (in a private network setting).

    4. Re:This software is still around? by acoustix · · Score: 1

      Features: LDAP connectivity (global contacts, groups), email, calendaring, meeting resources, tasks lists, public/shared folders, office suite integration, etc. Almost every company on Exchange uses all of these features.

      It's ok to be a Microsoft hater. But get the facts right.

      --
      "A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
    5. Re: This software is still around? by cyber-vandal · · Score: 1

      Not to mention integration with videoconferencing systems.

    6. Re: This software is still around? by cbhacking · · Score: 1

      Also general availability information. Not just scheduled stuff like meetings, but knowing when somebody is available or not. Lync (now Skype for Business) ties deeply into Exchange.

      --
      There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
  8. Honest question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I've never used Microsoft software outside the desktop, so I am curious.

    What is the advantage of a Windows server vs, say, a Red Hat or Debian server?

    Is it just a matter of integrating better with other Microsoft software, or are there other advantages in terms of administration, reliability, etc?

    Honest question, not trolling.

    1. Re:Honest question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The advantages are mostly right where you expected - better integration with other software. SharePoint workflows work really well with Exchange and Outlook. A new feature they have in Office / Outlook when used with OneDrive for Business is the ability to not actually attach an attachment, but to have it be a link that looks like an attachment and then Outlook taking care of the permissions so that the users you send it to get permissions to the file (the link). Stuff like that always makes it easier to use when you couple Outlook with Exchange and the more Microsoft services you add in (SharePoint, Skype for Business, OneDrive for Business, etc.) the more integration points there are to really work together. For small companies - no real need for any of this. But for large companies this stuff works pretty darn well.

    2. Re:Honest question by Anon-Admin · · Score: 2, Informative

      Ill give an honest response from my point of view. NOTE: I am a Unix/Linux admin and only use windows on the work desktop.

      Exchange does provide better integration between things like lync, office, calendar, etc. When talking to a homogeneous environment of windows desktops. I have not seen anything that suggests it is easier to administer, or that it is more stable. I also know that you require more exchange servers than Unix MTA servers for a given load. In that I mean, if you are handling 50,000 users and over 1,000,000 emails in a 24 hour period, you are looking at multiple exchange servers. Where as I have done the above in a single Unix MTA.

      So IMHO, when working with a homogeneous office environment of windows desktops. Sure go with exchange. When you have a heterogeneous environment you will have some issues. I would also not suggest that you put an exchange server on the Internet without a bunch of protection. In most cases the MTA in the DMZ is a sendmail or postfix server that is secured and relays through the DMZ to the exchange server.

    3. Re:Honest question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Where as I have done the above in a single Unix MTA."

      you can do a lot of things that are just plain dumb, least MS is kind enough to give you pointers

    4. Re:Honest question by peragrin · · Score: 1

      To be a bit fairer to exchange. Exchange also does things like calendaring, group calendars, tasks, journals, notes, etc and that is exchange and outlooks strong point merging the standard office communications and calendaring system together.

      Comparing exchange to just an MTA is wrong. Of course you can also run a Caldev server, and some kind of group note task server on the same hardware but your requirements go up.

      --
      i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
    5. Re:Honest question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Active Directory. That is it for all MS products server and desktop. Sure you could build other LDAP system or whatever but if you have to go through audits such as SOC 1 you will be screwed. If you use AD then the IT auditor will understand what you are doing and sign off on it. If you have a Linux box on the network or anything not controlled by AD they will scrutinize the hell out of it and probably not understand your explanations.

      That plus every CEO type of have worked with wants Microsoft only. If you use any product such as a Linux based mail server (which I have done for some projects) then every problem is because it is not MS Exchange and Outlook. It is normally an incompetent user making stupid mistakes, but they will always blame the software if it is non-MS.

    6. Re:Honest question by orlanz · · Score: 1

      Single MTA doesn't mean it doesn't have redundancy. The parent is right, I work in a global shop with 60k users per regional instance. There are a lot of Exchange, domain controllers, Sharepoint, and IIS servers facing production. Not including the few backups and fail over redundancies. Lets just say a regular DSL connection wouldn't be enough for the North American _sync_ traffic.

      As for pointers, MS does do a lot of testing inside their walls and covers about 70% of the real world scenarios. Well not really, they just say their way is THE way to do it. Go outside that and you are just in unsupported land. About half of those scenarios are written down by MS and it's just some admin not doing a Google for the whitepaper. The other 30%... good luck.

  9. an unexpected twist! by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 0

    so now the Exchange Server reads your emails and writes a fanfic where you and your boss are star-crossed lovers for 180 days? i certainly didn't see that coming.

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
  10. winmail.dat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    When is Microsoft going to release the specification for exchange-only winmail.dat email format, so the rest of the world gets a usable e-mail when companies miss-configure there exchange server to let these exchange-only e-mails outside there own LAN? Yes I know there is an old reverse-engineerd winmail.dat reader that can extract some of the attachments, and Thunderbird plugins can at least decode some of the outlook calender notices instead of showing a blank page.
    And some of the companies sending this crap to me even claim that there company is ISO-compient.

  11. We'll see what Microsoft has planned by ErichTheRed · · Score: 2

    One thing about Microsoft these days is their relentless push to stop you using their software on-premises, or at least out of their control. "Cloud first" means local datacenter last, so I'm expecting that they're going to be slowly increasing prices to a point where the MBAs have every argument they need to move the company to Office 365. Their hosted email is admittedly very good, but it's still not "yours" and not reliable in the case of network failure, Azure hiccups, etc. I'm definitely not cloud-averse, but I do know that it really doesn't cost that much to run an Exchange server in house -- the architecture has changed enough such that it's not total black magic anymore, and the majority of the day to day admin can be done by regular help desk guys or automation tools. So, most normal-sized places with simple email requirements can get away with one guy who's good with Exchange, and it doesn't have to be their full time job until you get to a certain number of users.

    Management accounting is weird -- it makes more financial sense for a company to pay and pay for years on end for a service in a subscription format, rather than buy and hold onto a software license. Same thing goes for assets -- every big company is falling all over themselves to sell real estate only to pay someone else for the privilege of occupying what was their building...all because of accounting tricks. It's so strange because it's backwards compared to personal accounting. People usually want to pay off their cars or houses and live in them without a mortgage or car loan, for example. Businesses seem to want to go to software companies and say, "Please, let me pay you forever to use your software."

    1. Re:We'll see what Microsoft has planned by nine-times · · Score: 1

      One thing about Microsoft these days is their relentless push to stop you using their software on-premises, or at least out of their control.

      I don't think Microsoft is driving that trend. People want it. Microsoft has actually been slow to respond, because I think they'd actually prefer that you keep running their servers onsite. My sense is that their push toward "the cloud" is actually an attempt to prevent other cloud providers from drinking their milkshake, and in fact they've been too slow to react.

    2. Re:We'll see what Microsoft has planned by DigiShaman · · Score: 1

      For the SMB market, Office365 is a no brainer! Exchange is designed to be run on multiple servers with each one acting in dedicated role function. IN fact, so much so that SBS (Small Business Server) has been deprecated with Essentials acting only as a local domain controller / file server. Or to put it simple, Exchange is ENTERPRISE!!! That's not to say you can't run Exchange in the SMB (Small Medium Business) market, just that when you look at the cost of the hardware, licenses, and amortize it throughout its life before upgrade / replacement in the future, it's either break-even or cheaper to go with an Office365 hosted Exchange account. Just run the numbers and you'll see why.

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
    3. Re:We'll see what Microsoft has planned by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This!

      I work for a company that provides support to small non-profits. For our smallest clients, Office 365 is nearly always the best solution. It's free for them for the basic level and even the advanced features of E3 are 4 bucks per month per user (which includes 5 copies of Office). It's damned cheap. It's one less server they need on-site. Google Apps is a great option for some, but most of them still end up using MS Office anyways.

      For somewhat larger clients we often do a hybrid solution. An on-site server for certain programs that work better with a local server (which also allows for easier integration with Active Directory) and the close system for normal user mailboxes.

    4. Re:We'll see what Microsoft has planned by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Management accounting is weird -- it makes more financial sense for a company to pay and pay for years on end for a service in a subscription format, rather than buy and hold onto a software license. Same thing goes for assets -- every big company is falling all over themselves to sell real estate only to pay someone else for the privilege of occupying what was their building...all because of accounting tricks. It's so strange because it's backwards compared to personal accounting.

      The differences are nothing of the sort. It all comes down to cost benefit. The reason you think it's different to personal accounting is that most people are horrendous at accounting for the lifetime cost of things around them. The way management accounting works is that you take the current asset cost look at the asset life and the final value of the asset. In there you add the pros and cons of having to hold the asset in a steady state (i.e. the same reason I just rented an apartment even though can afford to buy one, I am not sure if I need to move in a few months). Also having an asset incurs a cost. Buying a licence for something does not mean there's no more to pay. There's license tracking and renewal issues that come into play. There's the unknown of when a replacement product will be release and what the service life is.

      A lot of people happily pay the cost for someone else to manage something in return for simply using the said thing and it actually works out cheaper for them.

    5. Re:We'll see what Microsoft has planned by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think it depends on the refresh cycle and whether your company does SA. We were on Exchange 2003 until last year, 2013 now, on prem, so 9 or 10 years out of those licenses is a good deal cheaper than subscription or SA. Exchange servers are Hyper-V VM's so they use a fraction of a clustered/fail-over/SAN physical server, clusters are 4 years old, due to be replaced next year, we get a long time out of software licenses and hardware. I gather the 2003-2007-2010-2013 MS ballooned the roles and then scaled them back, 2013 was an easy migration even though I had to go through 2007, no direct upgrade path 2003-2013. I don't think we will ever switch to O365 on cost alone, it will be driven by off-site reliability and DR situations. For us Exchange 2013 management is basically .1 or .05 of a position, not a labor intensive task on-prem.

    6. Re:We'll see what Microsoft has planned by Tharkkun · · Score: 1

      One thing about Microsoft these days is their relentless push to stop you using their software on-premises, or at least out of their control. "Cloud first" means local datacenter last, so I'm expecting that they're going to be slowly increasing prices to a point where the MBAs have every argument they need to move the company to Office 365. Their hosted email is admittedly very good, but it's still not "yours" and not reliable in the case of network failure, Azure hiccups, etc. I'm definitely not cloud-averse, but I do know that it really doesn't cost that much to run an Exchange server in house -- the architecture has changed enough such that it's not total black magic anymore, and the majority of the day to day admin can be done by regular help desk guys or automation tools. So, most normal-sized places with simple email requirements can get away with one guy who's good with Exchange, and it doesn't have to be their full time job until you get to a certain number of users.

      Management accounting is weird -- it makes more financial sense for a company to pay and pay for years on end for a service in a subscription format, rather than buy and hold onto a software license. Same thing goes for assets -- every big company is falling all over themselves to sell real estate only to pay someone else for the privilege of occupying what was their building...all because of accounting tricks. It's so strange because it's backwards compared to personal accounting. People usually want to pay off their cars or houses and live in them without a mortgage or car loan, for example. Businesses seem to want to go to software companies and say, "Please, let me pay you forever to use your software."

      Unless you need to customize your software on the database level it's going to be cheaper to host your products in a cloud environment, long term. These cloud companies can offer it cheaper based on existing infrastructure than what most small or even large companies would need to purchase in house.

    7. Re:We'll see what Microsoft has planned by drsmithy · · Score: 1

      It's so strange because it's backwards compared to personal accounting. People usually want to pay off their cars or houses and live in them without a mortgage or car loan, for example. Businesses seem to want to go to software companies and say, "Please, let me pay you forever to use your software."

      (In the general case...)

      As an individual, you have to consider the last 10-20 years of your life where you will need to survive without an income.

      As a business, you do not.

      Specific to hosted vs local systems, generally speaking keeping people on staff to manage systems is expensive, with nearly no benefit vs paying for a functionally equivalent hosted system. This is simply a product of technological advancement that has made hardware incredibly cheap, internet connections cheap, fast and reliable, and people expensive.

    8. Re:We'll see what Microsoft has planned by jez9999 · · Score: 1

      Their hosted email is admittedly very good, but it's still not "yours" and not reliable in the case of network failure, Azure hiccups, etc.

      And I still don't know what their recommended solution is for accessing O365 on that day every leap year.

      --
      == Jez ==
      Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
  12. I used to care by AndyKron · · Score: 1

    I used to care, but over the years software has become so shitty and buggy I don't give a rat's ass anymore.

  13. Who is going to use it? by Sir_Eptishous · · Score: 1

    With the vast migration away from Exchange toward O365, what Enterprises that run on a "traditional" AD/Exchange environment will use this?
    Am I missing something?

    --
    We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
    1. Re:Who is going to use it? by HerculesMO · · Score: 1

      Regulated ones. Archaic ones. Ones with a lot of legal issues. There are plenty of use cases, though most of them will be solved through contractual obligations at some point and everybody will migrate to the cloud.

      There really isn't a market for IT Pros as much any more... everybody is turning more and more into a developer, and that's what will be needed to manage this type of stuff; DevOps and Developers. IT Admins are now a commodity.

      --
      The price is always right if someone else is paying.
    2. Re:Who is going to use it? by nine-times · · Score: 1

      Well there are still some non-O365 hosted Exchange companies, e.g. Backspace and Intermedia, who will use this. There are also quite a few companies who are not following the trend toward cloud-hosted email. Besides, I'd bet that a lot of the improvements are being developed for O365 anyway, so I'd bet they continue developing a non-hosted version of Exchange for as long as the cost of porting those O365 updates to the stand-alone version of Exchange is outweighed by the profits of selling licenses to those companies that will buy a stand-alone version.

    3. Re:Who is going to use it? by Sir_Eptishous · · Score: 1

      There really isn't a market for IT Pros as much any more... everybody is turning more and more into a developer, and that's what will be needed to manage this type of stuff; DevOps and Developers. IT Admins are now a commodity.

      I think it depends on the type of business. I'm a SysAdmin and I've been involved in a very specific, "niche" industry for over ten years, which in hindsight was a GodSend... I would completely agree regarding IT in traditional Enterprise Operations where it's an AD/Exchange environment with all the usual departments doing the traditional tasks. I would assume that is about 80% of the market.

      In reality, managing O365 is much more of a PITA and time consuming, from a "hand holding" perspective than local Exchange ever was. And don't get me started on the migration...

      --
      We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
    4. Re:Who is going to use it? by DogDude · · Score: 1

      Our company rents our Exchange from a big ISP that runs Exchange Server. A lot cheaper than Office 365 from Microsoft.

      --
      I don't respond to AC's.
    5. Re:Who is going to use it? by ledow · · Score: 1

      Wait until the first 365 compromise, where you find out that all your documents, email and everything else that you use to communicate with customers and internally just became public.

      Then see the sudden rush of realisation that just because Microsoft were hosting it for you, doesn't excuse you of your data protection obligations (at least for the entire EU), and you can't put the blame on them either.

    6. Re:Who is going to use it? by mu51c10rd · · Score: 1

      We still use Exchange on premise. It is far cheaper to purchase the Windows and Exchange license with the appropriate CALs when we already have the virtual infrastructure in place to handle it. Why pay for a permanent subscription when we can host for a fraction of the cost.

    7. Re:Who is going to use it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Regulated ones. Archaic ones. Ones with a lot of legal issues. There are plenty of use cases, though most of them will be solved through contractual obligations at some point and everybody will migrate to the cloud.

      Having worked for security cleared govt depts, this is no longer an issue. MS know that govts are a huge chunk of revenue and are bending over backwards to ensure compliance with cloud solutions. The dept I work for right now uses O365 and we've had less issues than when we we're in-house. The cloud is the future, even with all it's risks.

      There really isn't a market for IT Pros as much any more... everybody is turning more and more into a developer, and that's what will be needed to manage this type of stuff; DevOps and Developers. IT Admins are now a commodity.

      Absolutely correct which is why I got out of that game. Infrastructure is dead except for the few giant cloud providers. If you're still doing Sysadmin/Engineer type work, it's time to make the move to Dev, Architecture or Project Management, because your career is over.

  14. Exchange Server(s)... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yeah, I have been getting barraged by the same emails to try out Exchange 2016. Years ago, when Small Business Server was a real product, I ran my own mail system. Made a lot of sense... still does. But we use gmail like many... Its no longer one server with a bunch of useful products on it. Its multiple servers for each -- so instead of one box under my desk its a whole data center... aarrgghhh. Dont care how much MS wants to drag everything into the (highly secure..?) cloud. Thats only viable if you have a reliable and affordable high data rate Internet connection. Maybe in Redmond... but out here in the wilds of rural Ontario that is just an unaffordable dream. Going backwards... With my smartphone providing more and more (ignoring the MS efforts in that area) the whole desktop ecosystem is becoming increasingly irrelevant. Have enough vendors already spying on us...

  15. Exchange, Zimbra, GroupWise, Postifx Admin Here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Exchange is FAR more feature rich (it's not an MTA it's a groupware suite) and is easier to administer in most ways than Postifx or the Postfix based suites, including Zimbra. This is generally true even for non-Windows clients. However, when looking at Windows clients there is nothing even vaguely close to compare to Exchange in terms of features, administrative capability and ease...

    Here's just one simple example that has been present in Exchange since the beginning. What does it take to move a user's multi-gigabyte mailbox to another server internationally with Postfix, Dovecot or Zimbra or some such? Can you do it live without interruption to the user? Do you have to reconfigure that client(MUA) afterwards? Does it suck? With Exchange such a move is completely seamless and requires only three or four clicks to kick it off and forget about it.

    Anyone, ANYONE that argues to the contrary of Exchange's ease of use, has not administered Exchange. This from someone that loves Postfix and sometimes puts Postfix in front of Exchange for free spam/virus filtering or special routing needs.

    Powershell does suck HUGE HAIRY BALLS! Jesus what a verbose mess! But, I digress...

    Exchange does require more hardware than a Unix MTA solution, but I suppose that everything in life is a trade off. On the user facing side, Exchange wins by a country mile.

    1. Re:Exchange, Zimbra, GroupWise, Postifx Admin Here by WaffleMonster · · Score: 1

      Anyone, ANYONE that argues to the contrary of Exchange's ease of use, has not administered Exchange. This from someone that loves Postfix and sometimes puts Postfix in front of Exchange for free spam/virus filtering or special routing needs.

      Exchange is something I never understood. The first version I screwed with was about 20 years ago before an official SMTP connector even existed. Since that time I've tried some of the new releases and it is always the same crap. Runs for a while and then something gets stuck in a queue some process gets a memory leak or crashes constantly, a datastore (f'ing Jet) gets corrupted, syncs mysteriously failing. It was an endless parade of failure and this was only a few people screwing around. There was always SOMETHING wrong with exchange and always someone complaining about it ... I can understand the feature set and appeal for business users yet something just doesn't add up.

      To anyone who manages exchange in a serious environment is exchange reliable for you or are you constantly having to deal with bullshit? To contrast also used Zimbra and never had even a single problem with shit breaking.

    2. Re:Exchange, Zimbra, GroupWise, Postifx Admin Here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've yet to have a server of anything more than 50 users, let alone a system of servers, run without any issue. That includes Exchange, Zimbra, Postfix...

      They all have their own issues. Once you are accustomed to those issues, they are no problem to handle them. Your unfamiliarity does not indicate an abnormal operational failure. The failure is your unfamiliarity with the product.

      Tell me you've never had Postfix queue issues, especially when a content_filter process died or some douche upstream decided to change the listening port. If you don't understand how the system works its a major outage. If you understand how Exchange works, the rare stuck queue (also most commonly due to content filters(fuck you Symantec! Fuck you!)) is fixed in a couple of minutes and most of that time is waiting for the .Net based management interface to load.

    3. Re:Exchange, Zimbra, GroupWise, Postifx Admin Here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've been working with Exchange since 5.5 (btw, never had much of an issue with various iterations). I currently manage a smallish environment of ~2600 mailboxes. It absolutely hums. Add DAG for HA and our DR component and I sleep very well at night. My problem is people think Outlook and Exchange are the same thing when in fact the vast majority or issues are client side (software or user driven.)

    4. Re:Exchange, Zimbra, GroupWise, Postifx Admin Here by cyberchondriac · · Score: 1

      That sounds like Novell GroupWise. We using that, but the admin office over us is pushing us to go Exchange soon. Frankly, I think I'll fine with that. GroupWise chokes all the time.

      --

      Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
    5. Re:Exchange, Zimbra, GroupWise, Postifx Admin Here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are the problem there, buddy.

      We've had Exchange running for years with no real issues.

      Obviously some things go wrong like hardware failure and what-not, but those problems are not specific to Exchange servers.

      The closest we had was when it shut down mail routing because the hard drive was full. And why was the drive full? Because some knucklehead had configured the server with one large partition instead of separate ones for OS/apps/data/logs, and a spate of malware probes created gigs and gigs of security logs in a short period of time.

    6. Re:Exchange, Zimbra, GroupWise, Postifx Admin Here by orlanz · · Score: 1

      With Exchange such a move is completely seamless and requires only

      I am sorry. I agree with your post in general. But this is a peeve of mine. I want to slap anyone who throws up this regurgitated MS dribble about any MS product and punch any MS Consultant that states the same. We have done exactly what you said for MEGABYTE mailboxes for 20k+ instances. The project plan didn't even have a manager & service desk communication, let alone end user communications. It was all supposed to be seamless back end stuff driven by MS tools and MS environment, off hours. Our users noticed (not one offs), the SD freaked out, and we spent a good 2-3 days wasting time on "nothing broke" meetings with management.

      I had to halt the project to the dismay of the head PM and MS consultants who kept telling me "No, that can't be right. Its seamless." In the end, the project was fine, communications went out, expectations set, we lost like 2% of the mailboxes and they were recoverable. We may have lost a handful of random emails, but we never know, who cares. As you said, this is all very impressive, but seamless isn't a word I would ever use again with MS products.

      The situation was made worse by the fact that pilots were done, we were the 3rd batch, and 2nd largest. Just no one believed the instances that broke the "seamless" concept as real in the prior batches and no lessons learned were noted. I am sure nothing is still noted.

    7. Re:Exchange, Zimbra, GroupWise, Postifx Admin Here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Anyone, ANYONE that argues to the contrary of Exchange's ease of use, has not administered Exchange. This from someone that loves Postfix and sometimes puts Postfix in front of Exchange for free spam/virus filtering or special routing needs.

      Exchange is something I never understood. The first version I screwed with was about 20 years ago before an official SMTP connector even existed. Since that time I've tried some of the new releases and it is always the same crap. Runs for a while and then something gets stuck in a queue some process gets a memory leak or crashes constantly, a datastore (f'ing Jet) gets corrupted, syncs mysteriously failing. It was an endless parade of failure and this was only a few people screwing around. There was always SOMETHING wrong with exchange and always someone complaining about it ... I can understand the feature set and appeal for business users yet something just doesn't add up.

      To anyone who manages exchange in a serious environment is exchange reliable for you or are you constantly having to deal with bullshit? To contrast also used Zimbra and never had even a single problem with shit breaking.

      I run a cluster of 2013 servers. They haven't had a single issue in the two years of operation. This really sounds like incompetence over the software. Perhaps you need to examine the real issue: PEBKAC.

    8. Re:Exchange, Zimbra, GroupWise, Postifx Admin Here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sorry for your luck. I've been doing these for about 15 years, with Exchange. There have be some problems. But, the majority have been no problem at all. Certainly it's no problem to pick any individual mailbox and choose Move Mailbox.

      It is my opinion that the mass migration issues most frequently arise when PMs, consultants and admins overestimate the capability of the hardware and links. I've been guilty of it too.

      Using your 20k mailboxes as an example, that's ~20GB of data. On a 10Mbps link that should only take about four hours, right?

      No! The disks won't sustain that throughput for 4 hours straight, you forgot to account of the off-site backup kicking in at midnight adding to the I/O and bandwidth demand. Then at 8am users are logging in and complaining that the server is slow or that mailboxes are inaccessible, further adding to the load and someone tries to "fix" it. Boom! failed migration.

      Planning and small chunks, no problem.

    9. Re:Exchange, Zimbra, GroupWise, Postifx Admin Here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I suggest you hire someone who actually knows how to install and configure Exchange properly. Both MS Windows and Linux have issues but you hear all the complaints about Windows from people who really do not know what they are doing. The complaints you hear about Linux are also the result of people who don't know what they are really doing when they first try to evaluate the OS.

    10. Re:Exchange, Zimbra, GroupWise, Postifx Admin Here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I tend to agree with this statement but do have an observation that to me says it all.

      When a Windows admin says that have had a server running 2 years with out an issue it means they have had the server up and running a month or two at a time without a reboot.

      When a Unix/Linux admin says that have had a server running 2 years it means that the server has been running 2 years without a reboot and had no issues.

      [root@smtp.xxxxxxx.com /root]# uptime
        06:25:30 up 853 days, 11:37, 937 users, load average: 1.18, 1.15, 1.10

      Our windows Exchange server gets rebooted every two weeks on schedule.

  16. Mac User! Hahaha. - Here It Is. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    All the Linux clients handle winmail.dat without issue. Mac and AOL users are the only ones that have that problem. (I think AOL might have solved it by now.)

    Here's the Transport Encapsulation Format(TNEF) that produces winmail.dat. You really ought to get a modern MUA. Winmail.dat hasn't been an issue for over 10 years, except for Apple. LOL

  17. Just deployed 2013! by antdude · · Score: 1

    Hahaha. My employer just deployed 2013. At least older versions are more stable! :P

    --
    Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
    1. Re:Just deployed 2013! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you believe that you are as inept and brain dead as the inbred morons above. Not a single crash since day 1 deployment. Not a single day of unscheduled downtime. If you see otherwise, it is due to your admins being massive fuck ups. If it was 2007 and below, yes, extremely valid. They had a lot more issues but going to 2013 has made my life massively easier. In conclusion: You are a fucking moron.