What makes Microsoft Exchange 2019 faster and more secure?

Microsoft Exchange is a professional email and groupware solution for businesses, offering centralized email, calendar, contact, and task management. The Exchange Server enables secure and efficient communication and collaboration.

Key Exchange 2019 features

Many changes in Exchange Server 2019 take place behind the scenes and are therefore not immediately visible to users. Other updates, however, directly affect the workflow of employees whose companies rely on Microsoft Exchange Server 2019. Some features are particularly interesting for administrators.

Meta Cache Database (MCDB)

If you operate your own physical server and equip it with SSDdrives, Exchange 2019 gives you the option to use the Meta Cache Database (MCDB). This technology is already used in Microsoft 365. With this approach, meta information related to the mailbox (e.g., the folder structure) is stored. This speeds up access and searches while allowing administrators to host more users on a single server instance. In turn, this can help reduce costs.

Dynamic Database Cache (DDC)

The Dynamic Database Cache (DDC) also improves Exchange Server performance. In earlier versions, administrators assigned a fixed amount of memory to each database. When the number of active databases changed, memory was often left underutilized. In Exchange 2019, the DDC allows memory allocation to adjust dynamically depending on the situation.

Search Index

Microsoft completely redesigned the search index in Exchange 2019. Previously, the index was stored separately from the mailbox database. In the new version, the search index is now integrated directly into the mailbox database, simplifying management and boosting search speed.

Windows Server Core

Microsoft now offers administrators a minimalist version of the server operating system with Windows Server Core. In the past, however, this could not be used in combination with an Exchange Server. Exchange 2019 now provides this option. Because Server Core is much simpler than the standard version, it reduces configuration work and eliminates unnecessary services that only consume resources. In addition to saving time, Windows Server Core also promises greater security because its streamlined structure gives criminals fewer attack points, and administrators are less likely to introduce security-related errors.

Calendar enhancements

Exchange 2019 also provides end users with new features, all related to the calendar. With the Do Not Forward function, users who create a meeting can specify that attendees are not allowed to forward the invitation. This way, the event organizer maintains control over who can participate in the meeting. In addition, Exchange Server 2019 gives users more options when creating an Out of Office message. If you are out of the office for a certain period, you can block your calendar for that time. Meeting requests for that period will then be automatically declined.

Another calendar-related feature focuses on administrators: they now have access to a brand-new and enhanced Cmdlet (“command-let”). This newly added command lets administrators remove events (such as meetings) from calendars. Previously, events created by employees who had left the company stayed in other users’ calendars indefinitely. With Remove-CalendarEvents, admins can finally delete these entries. In addition, the Add-FolderPermissions Cmdlet has been upgraded, allowing administrators to assign delegate permissions directly through PowerShell.

Email Address Internationalization (EAI)

Also interesting for end users is Email Address Internationalization (EAI), which helps reduce issues when sending emails in a global context. International email users are no longer limited to the ASCII code, which is restricted to the English alphabet. Instead, the extended UTF-8 standard can be used. In previous versions of Exchange, email addresses had to be converted to support this, but that is no longer necessary. EAI in Exchange 2019 allows email addresses with international characters to be used directly.

Unified messaging removed in Exchange 2019

For some companies, this could be a moderate issue: Starting with Exchange Server 2019, Microsoft has discontinued the Unified Messaging (UM) service. In previous versions, the service offered extensive voicemail features. Companies that want to keep these capabilities in the future will need to switch to another service. Microsoft itself is retiring UM in favor of Cloud Voicemail. The latter is provided through Microsoft Teams and is therefore part of Microsoft 365, Microsoft’s SaaS solution.

Additional improvements in Exchange 2019

Alongside the more visible updates, Microsoft has also built a range of behind-the-scenes enhancements into Exchange Server 2019. These focus primarily on security and performance. To better protect against attacks, Microsoft now supports running Exchange in combination with Windows Server Core. At the same time, the new version introduces stricter security requirements: beginning with Exchange 2019, only the TLS protocol version 1.2 or higher is supported. Older, less secure versions are no longer compatible, effectively requiring administrators to meet stronger security standards.

Additionally, the new Exchange version gives administrators more options with Client Access Rules to restrict access to the configuration area (Admin Center & PowerShell) of the servers. This also increases security: administrators can now allow only specific IP addresses and block external access directly on the server without relying on an additional firewall.

More has also been done to improve the performance of Exchange Server. Major innovations such as MCDB, DDC, and the redesigned search index have already been highlighted above. But Exchange Server 2019 includes even more enhancements: switching from Workstation Garbage Collection (GC) to Server GC allows available processing power to be distributed more efficiently. Server GC handles more requests per second than the Workstation version. However, this efficiency boost only applies when multiple processor cores are used. That’s why Exchange 2019 supports up to 48 processor cores running in parallel.

Since memory improvements were also a key focus of the Exchange 2019 changes, Microsoft has ensured better support for modern hardware in this context as well. In addition to traditional HDDs, SSD storage can now be used in your Exchange Server—together with standard hard drives. A total of 256 GB of memory is now supported.

Exchange 2019 requirements

The release of the new version also brings updated Exchange 2019 requirements for server environments, especially when it comes to hardware:

• Processor: 64-bit Intel or AMD processors
• Memory: 128 GB for the Mailbox role and 64 GB for the Edge Transport role
• Storage: 20 GB for installation, plus 200 MB free on the system drive and 500 MB free on the drive hosting the Message Queue Database

Microsoft’s published figures for the minimum memory requirements have caused some uncertainty among administrators because they are relatively high. However, what the vendor actually means is that for optimal performance, you should have at least 128 GB of memory available. That said, it is still possible to implement Exchange 2019 with less memory if needed.

Also important: the required software. To use Exchange 2019, Windows Server 2019 or a newer version is required. For many organizations, this means upgrading the operating system as well. The management tools are also designed for Windows 10. Exchange 2019 requires .NET Framework version 4.7.2. Users can access Exchange Server starting with Outlook 2013 or newer.