Microsoft on Monday alerted users of its Exchange Server 2007 product that Service Pack 2 (SP2) will be coming sometime in the third quarter of this year.
For those who want to make Exchange Server 2007 work with Microsoft's newest e-mail server release -- namely, Exchange Server 2010 -- they will need to apply the SP2 upgrade first.
"Exchange Server 2007 SP2 is required to interoperate with Exchange Server 2010 and to enable the transition of services to the latest version of the product," according to Microsoft's announcement.
Exchange Server 2010 is currently available as a public beta, with product availability slated for sometime in the second half of this year.
IT pros who haven't even applied Service Pack 1 to Exchange Server 2007 have a bit of good news. SP1 isn't required before upgrading to SP2. Ultimately, though, Microsoft is recommending that IT pros install the SP2 upgrade because it will include update rollups with "hotfixes, security and critical updates for the product," the announcement explained.
SP2 will include all fixes in Microsoft's Update Rollup 8 release for Exchange Server 2007 SP1, which Microsoft plans to release "soon."
Microsoft described some new features that will be enabled by SP2. An enhanced auditing feature will create a dedicated log repository in Exchange Server 2007 to make it easier to monitor the server's activities. The Exchange Management Console will support diagnostic logging configurations. IT pros will also be able to create Exchange backups through the Windows Server 2008 backup tool.
There also will be some PowerShell enhancements with SP2. Organizational settings can be centralized using a "new PowerShell option," according to the announcement. SP2 will improve the current PowerShell cmdlets used for quota management. Named property usage per database can be monitored via cmdlets.
Lastly, SP2 will allow property updates to Active Directory schema "to be dynamically deployed."
Microsoft plans to announce additional information about SP2 at its Exchange Server Web site when the service pack is released. The announcement didn't specify an exact date for the release.
