Message-Id: 201612161700
Time:  beginning on 12/20/2016
Affected: users of the Exchange evironment
Impact: new webinterface (OWA), migration of the mailbox

Dear users, dear colleagues,

we would like to announce the start of GWDG mail service migration from the Exchange 2010 environment to Exchange 2016. The migration process will take several steps. In this announcement we will highlight the important points and time lines of the migration process.

20.12.2016 – Switching the Outlook web access (or Outlook Web App (OWA)) from Exchange 2010 to the Exchange 2016 OWA (or Outlook on the web):

When you type in the browser email.gwdg.de, you will get the new OWA (Outlook on the web) of Exchange 2016. Login will be possible as usual by entering your access credentials. As long as your mailbox is not yet migrated to the Exchange 2016 environment, you will be redirected to the Exchange 2010 OWA. At the moment, all mailboxes are still in the Exchange 2010 environment.

09.01.2017 – Starting the migration of Exchange 2010 mailboxes:

The migration of mailboxes will be done in batches. You will get an e-mail notification, when the migration of your mailbox is started. During the migration of your mailbox you will still be able to access your e-mails right up the point where the completion occurs, when you will be disconnected briefly. To minimize the effect of such outages, we recommend you to set Outlook in cached mode. There will be no data loss, the e-mails that were sent in disconnection period will be hold in the Exchange Transport and delivered later. This is a screenshot of Exchange 2016 OWA:

Security Considerations:

We would also like to raise your attention about some security consideration, in particular, phishing e-mails. We have seen some phishing e-mails warn the users that their mailboxes are in maintenance and ask them to click a link in order to activate their mailboxes. In fact, the attackers read the GWDG News and service notifications. We expect that the attackers will utilize this migration and launch relevant phishing attacks with well designed sites in order to steal users’ credentials. Please be aware that GWDG never send such notifications. Please don’t open such links and give you credentials to other’s hands. Kindly, if you experience such attacks please inform us.

Here an example of such e-mails:

Supported Outlook Versions by Exchange 2016:

The following Outlook versions are supported by Exchange 2016:

• Outlook 2016
• Outlook 2013
• Outlook 2010 with KB2965295
• Outlook for Mac for Office 365/ Outlook for Mac 2016
• Outlook for Mac 2011

To get the best possible experience we recommend you to install the latest available service packs and updates. All Outlook clients earlier than Outlook 2010 are not supported. Other clients like Thunderbird can connect with Exchange 2016 with IMAP/POP3 too.

Kindly, notify us at support@gwdg.de if you experience any outage or other problems.