Tony Redmond - Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 Inside Out: Mailbox and High Availability

This book is for experienced Exchange administrators who want to get inside the soul of Exchange Server 2013, the latest version of the Microsoft enterprise messaging server first released in October 2012 and updated on a frequent basis since. You might learn how to work with Exchange 2013 by reading this book, but I sincerely doubt that this will happen simply because I have written it with experience in mind.

The book does not cover every possible topic relating to Exchange 2013. In fact, it focuses primarily on the Mailbox server role. Let me explain why. After completing Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Inside Out (Microsoft Press, 2010), it became very clear that attempting to cover all of a complex product such as Exchange in any depth in just one book was a fools errand. There are too many details to master, too much work to do, too much information that can only be skimmed over to keep to a reasonable page count. The result would probably be a book that weighs 2 kilos, spanning 1,400 pages that takes 2 years to write. All in all, an unacceptable situation in both commercial and practical terms.

Paul Robichaux and I ran a number of Exchange 2010 Maestro seminars in the 20102011 period. Despite the infamous cockroach sandwich affair, the events were good fun, and we enjoyed discussing the technology in some depth, even if we tended to ramble on at times. Brian Desmond, an Active Directory MVP who did an excellent job of lab master and stand-in speaker when required, helped us. Because we worked well together and because Paul has an excellent record of writing both books and articles, it seemed like a good idea to consider a joint approach for Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 Inside Out . We arrived at the basic idea quicklywe would split coverage into the two server roles. Id write about the Mailbox role and Paul took on client access, including all the various clients Exchange supports, and unified messaging, which, strictly speaking, is part of an Exchange 2013 Mailbox server. However, Paul is an acknowledged expert in this space, and it would have made no sense to have me write about a subject of which Paul is the master.

Because Exchange 2013 is an evolution of Exchange 2010, we decided to use Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Inside Out as the base for the new book. An evolution it might be, but an extensive level of change at the detail level exists in Exchange 2013. The upshot is that Im not sure how much of that book remains in the current textmaybe 20 percent. One thing I am glad of is that we did not rush to press after Exchange 2013 first appeared. Given the amount of change that has occurred in updates from Microsoft since, a book that describes the release to manufacturing (RTM) version of Exchange 2013 would have been obsolete very soon after publication. We hope that these volumes will last longer.

I hope that you enjoy this book and that youll read it alongside Pauls Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 Inside Out: Clients, Connectivity, and UM . The two books really do go together. Paul has scrutinized every word in this book and I have done the same for his. We therefore share the blame for any error you might find.