Big thanks to Microsoft for getting MEC going again.  I started dealing with Exchange just before they held the last one of these, so I’ve always been a bit sad that I had never had the chance to attend.

So, the non-technical keynote highlights:

• Exchange 2013 is clean.  Very clean.  They purposefully cleaned it up to be easier to implement across all of the different platforms (both OS and hardware platform-wise)
• Exchange 2013 integrates well with SharePoint, to the point where SharePoint replacing Public Folders might *actually* be a realistic goal!
• Microsoft is running millions of mailboxes on Exchange 2013, and the stability and manageability is there and ready to go out of the box.

The technical keynote highlights:

First, a note:  Ross Smith was once again an astounding presenter, and you could tell he was trying to dial back the in-depth nature of his presentation to meet the needs of a keynote.

Now for the highlights:

• “Multiple roles on the same server good – single roles bad.”  This is mostly to do with the fact that the system is so efficient now that there’s no point in wasting hardware (CPU/RAM/HD) for the CAS role.
• Speaking of which, the Hub Transport role is no longer – it has been logically split between the CAS role and the MBX role.
• Edge role remains.
• Compared to 2000/2003, Exchange 2013 utilizes 99% less IOPS per mailbox transaction.  That is not a typo.  A staggering statistic.
• Hybrid deployments are very easy.
• Mailbox moves via batching them so that they are synced and you can ‘flip the switch’ to move everyone at once, instantly, even off of Exchange 2007?  Yup.  It looks like someone was reading my Christmas list.
• Did I mention that the IOPS are so low that you can run massive mailboxes, replicate them all around with site resiliency, and it’s cheap to do so?

More to follow.