When I get asked this question I look at one of two scenarios and every other decision is based on this question: will my organisation keep Exchange Server Hybrid in-place on-premises for long term, either for feature requirements or to be the last Exchange Server required for cloud resource management? There isn’t any real or specialised version of Exchange Server Hybrid at all! Now that I understand Exchange Hybrid, should I upgrade my Exchange Server 2010 or 2013 to Exchange Server 2016 Hybrid?ĭifferent consultants or professionals look at this in several ways and usually come up with answers like “it depends” or its on a “per circumstance basis”. Therefore the Exchange Hybrid server is nothing more than a standard Exchange server with some select roles required and installed (usually HUB+CAS multi-role deployment in Exchange 2010, CAS+MBX multi-role deployment in Exchange 2013 and MBX in Exchange 2016).
Selecting those servers is not selecting your “Hybrid” servers as such, rather, it is just for mail flow control as well as management tools and integration with Office 365 / Exchange Online. Then the reason it asks for the Mailbox is to ensure that we properly configure the send connectors. The reason that it asks for the CAS is so that the receive connectors on these servers can be configured. What this simply did, and has always done on all version of Exchange Server “Hybrid” (2010, 2013 and now 2016), is run a wizard (the Hybrid Configuration Wizard or HCW) which ask users for CAS and Mailbox servers to run some magic background config wizardry on. The second confusing part about Exchange Server Hybrid Edition is that in Exchange 2010 there was a EMC checkbox to enable “Exchange Server Hybrid” on that server.
#DOES O365 UPGRADE FROM 2013 TO 2016 FREE#
It’s simply a special and FREE key that the Office 365 team provide to allow for hybrid connectivity to Office 365 / Exchange Online. This special key does not mean that you need any additional licenses. This is the first confusing part of the Exchange Server Hybrid world.
#DOES O365 UPGRADE FROM 2013 TO 2016 LICENSE#
There is an unwritten assumption that is made in our hybrid guidance that you have already properly deployed and completed the coexistence process with the current versions of Exchange in your on-premises environment.īack when Exchange Server Hybrid was first introduced in Exchange Server 2010, there is a special Office 365 Hybrid key that is required to license the server. With anything new there is a learning curve as to how the new product now works (not that dissimilar from previous versions of Exchange Server) and what will work with the existing environment to not compromise service. Two recent projects that I’ve worked on have required me to consider deploying it as the “Hybrid” server (not an actual role- I’ll get to that later) for integration and coexistence with Office 365 Exchange Online. Exchange Server 2016, RTM as of October 2015, is still very much freshly baked having just come out of the oven from Redmond.