The Microsoft Online Services Service Update for August 2009 begins deployment into production data centers this week and is scheduled to be available to all customers by the end of August; updates to the release deployment status will be posted to the comment section of this blog post.

No scheduled downtime is planned for the Microsoft Online Administration Center or the availability of the services in the Business Productivity Online Suite.

The following features are included in this Service Update: 

New Language Options for Microsoft Online Administration Center (MOAC)

The Microsoft Online Administration Center is adding eight new language options: Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Italian, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Norwegian, and Swedish.

SMTP Relay Support

Exchange Online is enabled to support for SMTP relay, allowing SMTP-enabled applications to send e-mail via Exchange Online.

Exchange Online Journaling

Exchange Online journaling is enabled, allowing email to be journaled to third-party archiving solutions, including Exchange Hosted Archive. Journaling can be enabled by contacting Microsoft Online Services support and opening a Service Request.

While Exchange Online journaling allows email to be journaled to third-party archiving solutions, Microsoft Online Services does not support or certify these third-party solutions. It is the customer’s responsibility to configure their archiving solution to work with Exchange Online journaling.