In this article we are going to see about the introduction of the Exchange management console and some of the primary differences from the previous version.
Introduction:
In Exchange Server 2007, Microsoft introduced Exchange management console (EMC). Prior to that, it got Exchange System Manager for Server 2003. They have continued the Exchange management console in Exchange 2010 also but with an upgraded version. Now it got its own virtual directory!!
To access the Exchange management console, please navigate to “Start Menu” -> “All Programs” -> “Microsoft Exchange 2010 server” and you can see “Exchange management console” and “Exchange management Shell” there. Please click “Exchange management console” to open it. It will contact all virtual directories and will take a minute to show all the roles. Initially the Organization health will show as unknown. You need to click on “Collect Organizational Health Data…” to collect all the information and then you can see the organization summary in the home page. It will be useful to check all information at one place!!
Organization Configuration:
As per its name, whatever changes we are making in this section, applicable for organization wide, meaning if you have multiple Exchange servers, then these configuration will be applicable for all Exchange servers regardless of their locations and AD sites.
By default it will show all four roles. We did not have Unified Messaging role server in place but it will still display, however all the configuration inside this section will be empty, as we do not have that server yet. Also you will not be able to see or manage Edge server here because it is not a domain joined computer. You will have a dedicated Exchange management console to manage it in the same machine where you got Edge role installed.
In Exchange 2007 server, you might have seen the databases are listed under “Server configuration”. In 2010, the architecture got changed and now database is at organization level. Also one more big change in this version is there is no more concept called “Storage Groups”
I strongly recommend you to explore all these tabs one by one to understand all the options available in there to get used to it.
Server Configuration:
As the name suggest, the configuration in this section applicable to the server level. So if you have multiple servers, you need to configure by navigating to that server inside the Exchange management console and configure separately as per your need.
All client level settings will be configured in this section such as Outlook Anywhere, ActiveSync, IMAP, and POP. In general almost all Virtual directories configuration can be done here, however for Auto discover you need to rely only on Exchange Management Shell (EMS). Also you can notice Exchange control panel tab which is a dedicated virtual directory for Exchange management console. So if there are any issues with opening your Exchange management console you can troubleshoot in Exchange Control Panel virtual directory or just recreate it (purely depends on what error we are getting).
Recipient Configuration:
In this section, you can manage all the configuration which is applicable to recipient level like Users, Groups, Contact, User Migration, etc.
By default, the account which is used to install the Exchange server will have a mailbox there. The screenshot that you are looking at here got a default mailbox. We are yet to create user mailboxes and other objects.
If you wanted to understand more about Exchange management console before you get your hands on to it, you can find more details in the TechNet article – https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/office/exchange-server-2010/bb123762(v=exchg.141)
Conclusion:
Exchange management console will be very helpful for you do many tasks, however if you wanted to do any tasks that is similar and needed to be in bulk, then the best way to do it is by exploring Exchange Management Shell (EMS). It is like a Windows PowerShell but dedicatedly for Exchange. You can also do some disaster recovery with EMS, for instance user mailbox recovery, however if you need to do an Exchange recovery then there some great tool out there that you might want to check it out!!
Author Introduction:
Sophia Mao is a data recovery expert in DataNumen, Inc., which is the world leader in data recovery technologies, including outlook recovery and word recovery software products. For more information visit www.datanumen.com
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