Message-Id: 201704071220
Time: 23.04.2017
Affected: Users of Exchange
Impact: New webinterface

On Sunday, 23.04.2017, beginning at 09:30 am, a second attempt will be made to migrate Outlook Web Access (OWA – email.gwdg.de) to the Exchange 2016 front end servers.

The first attempt on 26.01.2017 had to be canceled due to load problems on the load balancers. The likely to be causes of the load problems have now been identified and eliminated. Therefore, the migration this time is planned on a Sunday to avoid side effects on the business as far as possible.

As Outlook users, please note that Exchange 2016 requires at least Outlook 2010 with KB2965295, Outlook Mac 2011, or newer clients. Older versions of Outlook can only be operated as IMAP clients.

You should also use the latest versions of IE, Chrome, Firefox or Safari browsers. For IMAP clients such as Thunderbird, Evolution, and other no significant changes are expected.

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. The migration of mailboxes will be done in batches. You will get an email notification, when the migration of your mailbox is started.

Here a screenshot the new GWDG Exchange 2016 Web access (email.gwdg.de):