Public Folders

Exchange Public Folders were at risk of decapitation some years ago. Successive Exchange releases didn't add much to the original Public Folders functionality. This is changing in Exchange 2013 however.

The first time we select the Public Folders category we are greeted with an error:

This alerts us that no active public folder mailbox was found. The error perfectly summarizes the key change Exchange 2013 is introducing. Public Folders no longer have their own database store. Instead everything is stored within a dedicated mailbox created specifically for this purpose.

We now only have one database type to manage, the Mailbox Database. This also means that the same High Availability functionality employed for mailboxes (DAGs) is now also applicable to Public Folders.

So after closing the error, we move to the Public Folders Mailboxes page and click Add to create our first public folder mailbox:

With that in place we can now go to the Public Folders page and start building the folder hierarchy. So I click Add to create a couple of folders under the root.

After creating a folder, we can go back and edit the various properties assigned by default. Here are the properties of the Support folder just created:

Unified Messaging

Under Unified Messaging we have the UM Dial Plans and UM IP Gateways property pages. This is what the configuration of a Dial Plan looks like at the EAC:

This is what creating a new IP Gateway looks like:

Servers

The Servers category is very crowded. Here we have Servers, Databases, Database Availability Groups, Virtual Directories, and Certificates. You will recognize many of these configuration elements so I will leave the screenshots to talk for them.

Servers | Servers

From the Servers configuration page we can edit various options for the currently selected server. Here are all the settings that can be configured:

Servers | Databases

Under Databases we can create and edit mailbox databases.

Servers | Database Availability Groups

Here we create Database Availability Groups:

Servers | Virtual Directories

Here is the Virtual Directories configuration page and the settings for the ECP web site:

Servers | Certificates

The Certificates category is initially populated with self-signed certificates:

Hybrid

The last EAC category is the one for Hybrid deployments.

Final Tips

Today we completed our visual tour of the Exchange 2013 Administration Center. Here we looked at the changes in Public Folders. We also looked at Unified Messaging, Servers, and Hybrid showing how many of the Exchange 2010 settings got relocated.

References

Exchange 2013 Administration Center in Pictures (Part 2)

Exchange 2013 Administration Center in Pictures (Part 1)

Exchange 2013 Preview Installation