Microsoft has finally outed some details on the next version of its popular Exchange mail service, which just released as a preview build.
First reported by The Register, the preview of Exchange Server 2016 will do away with client access servers (CAS).
CAS boxes was previously utilized to drive traffic to Mailbox servers, but Microsoft simply doesn't need them to do that anymore. Plus the move away from CAS will make things that bit more simpler for servers that can now operate either as CAS or Mailbox servers.
"Failovers in Exchange 2016 are 33% faster than Exchange Server 2013 due to the ability to read from the passive copy of the database," Microsoft added.
Outlook webmail is also getting a wealth of new features such as sweep, pin, undo, inline reply, the chance to propose new times for meeting invites, single-line inbox view, better HTML rendering, improved formatting controls, inline image pasting, themes and emojis. There will even be better search from within Outlook client because it now contains "server-side search".
How to get it
When it comes to on-premise Exchange Servers, admins will get ease of use as a result of the mostly unaltered management toolkit and a new feature that brings users more capacity without the intervention of the admin. Migration from Exchange 2013 will also be very simple.
The Preview is available here right now and comes with the caveat that you must be running Windows Server 2012 to be able to use it.
