Which version of Hosted Exchange to use for Cloud? Road-map now clarified.
Posted by Steve Schwartz on Tue, Nov 01, 2011
Microsoft has recently posted a blog that clarifies the road map for which version of Exchange 2010 SP2 to use (Enterprise or /Hosting) going forward. The Exchange Team EHLO Blog located here clearly states that the next version of Exchange, known as Wave 15, will not have the /Hosting feature. Microsoft will continue to support the SP2 version of /Hosting as per the usual support life cycle for Exchange 2010 SP2.
I won't repeat what is already in the EHLO blog, but at implement.com we generally view this as good news for service providers. It clarifies the roadmap, and solidifies a future with one version of Exchange for on premise and Partner Cloud (whether Private or Public).
Significantly, it also lays the groundwork for how we move forward with Hosted Lync when the Lync Hosting Pack releases later this year. The deployment testing we are doing shows that combing the Lync Hosting Pack with Exchange 2010 SP2 Enterprise in a single Active Directory Forest works very well and provides a great architecture for service providers to move forward with.
implement.com will be ready and able to complete deployments and migrations from Exchange 2007 or Exchange 2010 SP1 /Hosting to SP2. We will also be ready to include Lync 2010, SharePoint 2010, and Dynamics CRM 2011 along with these deployments.