Message-Id: 201705121500
Time: May 21st, 2017, 9:30 a.m. till 3:30 p.m.
Affected: all Exchange users
Impact: new logon page, potential Outlook connection problems

On Sunday, May 21st, 2017, the final migration of the Outlook Web Access (OWA – email.gwdg.de) to the Exchange 2016 front end servers will take place.

The load-balancer overload of the first attempt has been resolved. To minimize any side effects like the autodiscover-problems of the second attempt, our whole Exchange was analyzed with the help of Microsoft and a field engineer will support us during the migration.

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.

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. 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 – so consider upgrading your clients before the mailbox migration starts.