Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 is now available but some businesses will be wondering whether the upgrade is worth it.  Many of the new features of Exchange 2010 can only be used with Outlook 2010, which is several months away from being released.

So if the new features can’t be used, should businesses wait to deploy Exchange 2010?  The new features of Exchange 2010 can be broken down into two categories.

Back-End Exchange 2010 Features

A lot of the attractive new features of Exchange 2010 are in the back-end.  This means that the features or improvements are server-side as opposed to client-side, and can be taken advantage of immediately.

These features include better high availability features to improve the reliability and resilience of the Exchange environment, and database performance improvements that lower the storage costs of deploying Exchange 2010.

A business can immediately take advantage of these features by deploying Exchange 2010 in their organization.  However they should also consider any reasons not to deploy Exchange 2010, and instead may consider deploying Exchange 2007 instead, or staying on Exchange 2007 if they are already there.

The reason for not moving to Exchange 2010 will mostly come down to the compatibility of third party integrated products, such as enterprise mobile messaging, backup, archiving, and email security.  Not all vendors for these products have updated their software to be compatible, and so if those systems are critical to the business then an Exchange 2010 deployment may not be appropriate.

Exchange 2010 also removed some legacy application programming interfaces in favour of the new Exchange Web Services that was introduced with Exchange 2007.  Again if a business has legacy Exchange-integrated applications that rely on those interfaces then an upgrade would be unwise until the legacy apps are themselves upgraded or replaced.

Client-Side Exchange 2010 Features

For all the back-end improvements it is the front-end, or the Outlook client by wich most people will judge Exchange server.

Although Exchange 2010 has many new client-side features such as Mail Tips, archiving, and the Exchange Control Panel for self-service administration, these are mostly only available when the end user has Outlook 2010.

Not being able to take immediate advantage of new client-side features may undermine the business case to move to Exchange 2010.   However if an Exchange upgrade must be performed (eg, the version the business is currently on is 2003 or earlier, which are either already unsupported or about to become unsupported) then it makes sense to consider the latest available version.The exception to this is for compatibility reasons as mentioned earlier in this article.

The new features are not entirely wasted of course.  All of them are available when using Outlook Web App (the renamed Outlook Web Access).  Outlook Web App is now closer to full Outlook functionality than ever before and is a solid replacement for purchasing Outlook licenses for most typical email users.

So for example if an organization wants to take advantage of the Exchange Control Panel to delegate out certain email administration tasks to power users throughout the business units then they can do so using Outlook Web App.

Is the Upgrade Worth It?

The answer is going to vary from business to business, so to summarise consider these questions:

• Do we have a need to upgrade now (eg using Exchange 2003 or earlier)?
• Are our integrated applications compatible with Exchange 2010?
• Will we have a more reliable and resilient Exchange environment with Exchange 2010?
• Will it make lower our deployment costs (eg storage hardware) to choose Exchange 2010?
• Will we benefit from new client-side features, even via OWA for now?

As long as there are no compatibility issues and the upgrade delivers improved reliability or resilience, cost savings, or improved functionality then it is certainly worth the upgrade.