Having /hosting in the title of this post may look cryptic (or potentially a HTML goof), but to many of our hosting service providers (a/k/a hosters), this is a well understood setup switch to enable you to deploy Exchange Server 2010 in a multi-tenant fashion. In the words of our TechNet article on this SP1 capability, “multi-tenant support provides the core feature-set of Exchange Server in a manner that can be deployed to multiple customers in a single installation.”

However, as we learned from an earlier post by Michael van Dijken (my hosting partner guru and main advocate for Exchange hosters on the Exchange Partner Marketing team), while this option was welcomed it also presented some limitations (like not having support for Exchange Unified Messaging). As he covered in both the blog posting referenced above and his interactive session at WPC2011, there area a few things you can take under consideration when thinking about hosting Exchange in a multi-tenant fashion.

Since sharing this guidance, Michael has worked closely with our engineering team, members of the Operator Channel group, and even a bunch of partners to formulate the best strategy for hosters to host Exchange 2010 moving forward.  Today, we shared these details via “The Exchange Team Blog”, and I’ve (once again) asked Michael to provide his thoughts and perspective on the changes we are making:

This morning, Kevin Allison (general manager of Exchange Customer Experience) published a blog post this morning regarding the future of the /hosting mode switch in Exchange. If you are a hoster, or work with hosters, I highly encourage you to give this a read. From my perspective, this change represents excellent news for hosters in the long run.

In summary, the blog post articulates the evolution of our thinking around how hosters should host Exchange going forward. With Exchange 2010 SP1, we recommended that hosters use the /hosting mode switch when hosting multi-tenant Exchange. In fact, we required this for hosters to be supported by Microsoft. With the availability of Exchange 2010 SP2, this will change, and our recommendation to hosters will be to use the on-premises configuration when hosting multi-tenant Exchange. Hosters will be supported using this approach provided the Hosting Guidelines have been followed.

In my previous post on this topic, I outlined the fact that customers upgrading to Exchange 2010 are looking for many of the advanced features offered with Exchange. This was consistent with feedback we have heard from hosters, which made it clear to us that we needed to address concerns with /hosting mode, and do so quickly. Taking this new approach enables hosters to offer a wider set of features to their customers while streamlining deployment and ongoing management of their Exchange 2010 infrastructure – all good news for our partners.

As a result of this change, no further investment in /hosting mode will take place, and it will not be carried into the next version of Exchange. Reinforcing some important points from Kevin’s blog post, here are a few critical things you’ll need to know:

• /hosting mode will be supported through the standard support lifecycle for Exchange 2010. It will still be available in SP2 and any future service packs or roll-ups.
• Multi-tenant hosting on the next version of Exchange will be supported, in a similar fashion to the approach we will take with Exchange 2010 SP2.
• Microsoft will publish guidelines for hosting a multi-tenant environment using the on-premises configuration of Exchange. Microsoft will also publish a step-by-step process for upgrading from Exchange 2007 HMC or migrating from Exchange 2010 SP1 /hosting to Exchange 2010 SP2 using the on-premises configuration.

For hosters who are currently on Exchange 2007 using HMC, upgrading to Exchange 2010 will be a lot easier. You’ll want to do the following:

1. Wait until Exchange 2010 SP2 ships
2. Review the Hosting Guidelines and step-by-step upgrade guidance
3. Plan your upgrade to Exchange 2010 SP2 using the on-premises configuration as per the Hosting Guidelines. Engage with a control panel vendor for hosting automation software as you choose.
4. Deploy Exchange 2010 SP2 using the on-premises configuration.

For hosters on Exchange 2010 SP1 using the unsupported on-premises configuration, simply upgrade to SP2 following the Hosting Guidelines. The biggest change to your approach will be to use Address Book Policies to segment your GAL.

For hosters on Exchange 2010 /hosting mode, you have a choice. You could migrate to Exchange 2010 SP2 using the on-premises configuration, or you could continue to use /hosting mode throughout the product lifecycle of Exchange 2010. While migrating will have some impact to your business, it does mean that you can offer features like Exchange UM and Public Folders. It also means that you will not need to deploy Lync into a separate forest if you have plans to offer a hosted Lync solution. If you choose to migrate, you’d take the same steps I outlined above.

As part of this new approach, the Exchange team has partnered closely with many of the control panel vendors to ensure that their solutions support Exchange 2010 SP2. In the near future, the team will publish a list of validated solutions – solutions that follow the Hosting Guidelines and are therefore supported by Microsoft. Deploying a hosting automation solution or control panel can dramatically decrease your time to market, and is worth considering.

After careful considering, we found this to be the best approach to addressing the feedback we heard, and putting hosters on a path to success with Exchange. More information as it relates to the specifics will be forthcoming, so please do track both the Exchange Team and this blog.

Thanks
Michael van Dijken
Senior Product Manager
Exchange Partner Marketing

Sadly, I cannot remember which comedian who’s bit it was—although I suspect it was something the great George Carlin once said—but it goes something like this: saying "it’s always the last place you look” after someone shares they’ve located a missing item (like car keys or a wallet) after a long search is just plain silly.

Why?

Well, of course you’d find the missing thing in the last place you looked, because after you find it, you (should) stop looking.

Right?

Perhaps that was a long winded way to intro today’s post, but it was the first thing that came to mind after I’ve spent the last few weeks with a number of partners across a few big events, like our recent edition of Partner MS101 here in Redmond.

More specifically, there was a common theme each time we asked questions around the types, quality, and usefulness of the to- and through-partner content we produced to help support your Exchange businesses. Basically, we heard “it’s great stuff, when we can find it.”

Now, I am a big fan of giving you what you need to be successful and a big part of this strategy is our desire to treat our great partners like a true extension of our field. To do that, we need a centralized location and some controls in place to enable us to share a wide range of collateral.

Sounds straight forward, right?

Yes and no.

While we do have the infrastructure around our MPN competency (today that’s the Unified Communications competency, yet very shortly that one retires in favor of our new Messaging competency), I don’t believe we’ve done the best job at keeping you abreast of all the great stuff we’ve put up there.

I did try to get a little more color from the partners I was with about the best way to keep you informed.  In some cases there was a desire for regular email newsletter updates. Others would like something akin to a SharePoint alert. Just a small number liked Tweets.  RSS feeds were also mentioned.

At one point, I suggested we could use this blog, and I laughed when one of the partners in the room said, “why don’t you then just email us a link to the blog posting.”

As an Exchange guy, I love that email is the preferred mode of transportation here, however it can face some scale challenges in such a large eco-system of Exchange partners, i.e., my team doesn’t have all of your email addresses. Be that as it may, we are working with our partners in WPG to see how we can better integrate into the rhythm of weekly, monthly, and regionalized email blasts they drive.

However, we do own this blog and we can scale out more effectively (and you can subscribe to the blog via an RSS feed through Outlook – see, there’s an email-esque connection!).

As such, we are going to start a more regular cadence of blog posts around new content as it becomes available.

I see this helping meet two goals:

1. it seeks to improve the discoverability of the stuff we have on our portal page (and I am an equally huge fan of improving discoverability across the board), and
2. as evidenced by the examples I shall highlight below, some of this content is “locked” so that only holders of our competency (again that’s UC Competency today, and Messaging Competency in the near future – woo-hoo!) can access it, which means there’s yet another meaningful benefit for you to attain our competency.

Thoughts?

Before you answer, here is this week’s “featured content” plug.  Thanks to great partnership with our Exchange market insights guru, we now have two new Sales Cards posted on Novell GroupWise and IBM LotusLive.

In both cases, these Sales Cards offer you insights around the competitive solution, how Exchange stacks up, and some great guidance on addressing objections with best practices on how to start a conversation with these accounts.  And, as you likely recall from our discussions at WPC, migrating customers off of legacy platforms (like GroupWise and Notes) to Exchange or Exchange Online (part of the Office 365 suite) is a big area of focus and opportunity for you this fiscal year.

Check out the new items above (and note you will need to be a current UC competency holder to access), and if you’re looking for more you can find a whole bunch on our MPN portal page dedicated to Exchange 2010.

See, it really will be the last place you look. 

More importantly,  I’m also hoping you’ll make this first place you look.

Ian
Group Product Manager
Exchange Partner Marketing

Pop quiz: How many of you--especially those of you who have a PSP (a/k/a Partner Solution Plan) with Microsoft--were aware we publish a great set of content and tools to help solutions partners (like SIs) deliver on our joint go-to-market objectives?

Good to see all those hands raised!

Now, for the rest of you, I’d like to share a pointer to and an update on our latest rev of the Messaging PSP Activation Kit.

“What’s a PSP Activation Kit?” you ask.

Put simply: “PSP Activation Kits are the perfect companion to PSPs! These kits can help you (our great Exchange partners) achieve your FY12 targets by providing important sales, marketing, readiness and compete resources in a single, easy to use location.”

Good stuff, right?

I completely agree!

And, that’s why we’ve committed to not only do a better job making you aware of excellent partner resources like this one, but we’re also going to keep these key tools updated on a regular basis. For example, the Messaging PSP Activation Kit is on a quarterly update cadence and just a few days ago we published the Q1 (Microsoft fiscal year) release.

“Neat, So what’s in the Q1 update of the Messaging PSP Activation Kit?” would be your next questions, right?

Good stuff like several pieces of new content which I’ve summarized below. In addition, we added a new feature which highlights the new stuff in the kit. You can find this right on the (well) right side of each page making it even easier for you to locate the content you really need.

Here goes, the new content featured in the Q1 update includes:

• Spotlights on featured third party solutions from our Exchange ISV/IHV ecosystem that can help you drive your business. For example, we’ve included info on migration solutions from Quest and Binary Tree, as well as details on offerings like the HP E5000 Messaging System for Exchange.
• Updated compete materials, including links to the latest case studies on Why Microsoft and the latest GroupWise and LotusLive Sales Cards .
• Tools to help you sell Office 365, such as demos and sales discussion videos
• New readiness content to help you deploy Office 365

And, I’ve just scratched the surface of what we have for you today in the Messaging PSP Activation Kit, and what we’ll add over the next year.  Without a doubt, you are going to want to bookmark this site and keep an eye on this very blog for alerts when updates are published.

All good stuff and (as always) do let me know if you have feedback or suggestions on what else we could do for you!

Enjoy!

Ian
Group Product Manager
Exchange Partner Marketing

Great news, Office 365 fans!

Earlier this morning--very early for your humble blogger based here in Redmond, WA--Research in Motion (RIM) announced that an Open Beta (a/k/a public beta) has been launched for their new BlackBerry Business Cloud Services for Microsoft Office 365.

Can I get a “Woo-hoo!”?

This is great news for you, as I suspect you may have customers currently interested in moving to our cloud for business productivity yet they were curious about how they can get BlackBerry to access email, calendar, contacts, etc. with Office 365.

As we shared back in March, RIM and Microsoft have been working together to deliver a new type of services offering, that moved the “connective tissue” between Exchange Online and the world of BlackBerry wireless synchronization to a new RIM-hosted cloud service.

That new RIM-hosted cloud service is called RIM BlackBerry Business Cloud Services (or RIM BBCS to keep things simple).  BBCS is “is available at no additional cost to current enterprise subscribers of the Office 365 suite or standalone Exchange Online. The service works with BlackBerry smartphones on business or consumer data plans. The service offers BlackBerry access to Microsoft Exchange Online email, calendar, and contacts. And IT administrators can provision, manage, and secure their organization’s BlackBerry phones from a convenient web-based console.”

As the partner guy, I am pretty excited about the approach RIM has taken. It certainly serves as a great role model for other partners that wish to deliver value add enhancements to Office 365 while preserving the cost and business agility benefits the cloud offers.  More specifically, RIM is delivering BlackBerry Enterprise Server capabilities  without having to have those servers installed in our datacenter.  Instead, RIM is tapping into the scale and cost efficiencies the cloud enables and has built this new service utilizing familiar underlying RIM technology enhanced to connect via “cloud-ready” interfaces into Exchange Online (i.e., Exchange Web Services) to extend Exchange Online goodness to BlackBerry smartphones.

Good stuff.

Now, you can find more info about this new service by visiting our Microsoft Office 365 Blog and the new Office 365 Wiki article we posted right after the RIM open beta announcement. There’s also a new comparison chart RIM posted to help you understand how the feature set of BBCS stacks up to BES, BES Express or just good ol’ BlackBerry service from your Wireless Provider.

As for your call to action, it’s pretty simple:  If you have customers evaluating Office 365 (or Exchange Online) and seeking guidance around how BlackBerry fits into our mobility story, just point them to http://www.blackberry.com/cloudservices to learn more about BBCS.

You can even let them kick the tires (and I encourage you to do the same) by signing up for an Office 365 trial (NOTE: This needs to be an Enterprise Plan Microsoft Office 365 Trial (Plan E3)) and enabling the service under “Setting up email on mobile phones” in the Admin console (see right for a screenshot from my tenant).

And, you should also have your customers sign-up for the BlackBerry Beta Zone to ensure they get access to all of the additional resources RIM is providing, and perhaps more importantly, your customers can provide valuable feedback into RIM on how to get this from open beta to general availability.

Stay tuned for more details as we progress from today’s open beta (which is available in “over 30 countries” starting today) to the expected general availability milestone planned for January 2012.

Ian
Group Product Manager
Exchange Partner Marketing

What a week for the blog, eh?

It’s a blog post three-peat week for me!

I must admit, I do feel a bit like my beloved Seattle Sounders FC (our local Major League Soccer franchise), who just a few weeks back won their third Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup in a row (a three-peat feat that had not been witnessed since the 1967-69 Greek American AA last snatched the silverware hat trick).

Okay, that may have been a longwinded and deliberate way of mentioning my Sounders in an Exchange partner community facing blog, but it worked, though, right?

Nevertheless…on to business!

I’m not sure you noticed this or not, but we’re all over the Microsoft Partner Network’s portal’s homepage this week:

More specifically, our two recent UC Partner of the Year award winners (InfoWAN and Polycom) are featured on the main stage as part of our ramp to next week’s official launch of our two new competencies: Messaging (for Exchange partners) and Communications (for Lync partners).  And, as you’ve likely gathered the current Unified Communications competency (known around these parts as the UC competency) is set to retire at the same time.

Now, I’m not just sharing this with you because we’re impressed with our own graphic design, but that we also have a new (and pretty neat) page for you to learn the latest about how these two new competencies will help you “Broaden your business portfolio and meet customer demand.”

You can check that out by visiting: http://mpncompetencies.com/unifiedcomms/

As you’ll learn by clicking on the aforementioned link, we are extremely bullish that the new Messaging competency will give you a competitive advantage through such benefits as access to Exchange training resources, even more Internal Use Rights for Exchange Server 2010, exclusive access to compete resources, and much more. 

Doing the math here, we also believe this means you’ll experience increased opportunities with shorten sales cycles thanks to the brand, resources and support you’ll gain after attaining the Messaging competency.

BUT WAIT!

There’s more!

Even though the Messaging competency isn’t live just yet, there’s a really good call to action for you.

It’s simple: just read up on the changes that are coming through this great “Evolution of the UC Competency” guide the team has put together.

It’s a good read and something that will keep you busy until my next post. Well, at least it will get you ready for next week’s launch.

I can’t wait, can you?

Ian
Group Product Manager
Exchange Partner Marketing