UW Exchange
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Alert: UW-IT is currently in the process of upgrading the UW Exchange service from Exchange 2007 to Exchange 2010. Find more information about the upgrade and what you may need to do on the Transition to Exchange 2010 page.
- On This Page
- What Is UW Exchange
- Future Directions: UW Exchange and The Cloud
- Who to Contact for UW Exchange Support
Summary: This site describes the features of UW Exchange and its client software, some introductory technical information, how to obtain the service, and how to get support.
What Is UW Exchange?
UW Exchange is the University of Washington's centralized service providing email, calendar, contacts, and task management using Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 (note: UW-IT is currently upgrading the UW Exchange service from Exchange 2007 to Exchange 2010). Powerful features and tight integration with Microsoft Office products offer many benefits for productivity and collaboration, such as:
- Access to email, calendar, and other data from Windows, Macintosh, or Linux computers.
- Easy remote access to email, calendar, and other data from a Web browser or mobile device.
- Integration of email and calendaring with Microsoft applications. For example, if you are reading your email remotely through a Web browser, you can view an attachment such as an Excel file, even if you don't have Excel installed on the computer that you are using.
- Users of Microsoft Office products can easily learn to use Exchange features through a familiar graphical user interface.
UW Exchange is offered as a Self-Sustaining fee-based service available to UW departments and schools on request for use by their faculty and staff. It is not covered by the Technology Recharge Rate. Please reference the UW-IT Service Catalog for current per user mailbox and per resource monthly rates.
Getting Started With UW Exchange
Get Familiar With UW Exchange:
If you are not familiar with Exchange, you might want read about what UW Exchange is.
Subscribe to UW Exchange
If you are interested in using UW Exchange, contact your department's IT support staff. If your department is already using UW Exchange, authorized support staff can add new accounts (reminder to support staff: by using the Exchange Service Request page).
A department can arrange for UW Exchange services in two ways:
- Where the department IT support staff will be providing technical support for UW Exchange users, departmental computing support management should contact UW-IT at ms-contact@u.washington.edu to arrange having the department "enrolled" for use of the service.
- Where the departmental IT support for UW Exchange
users is not available, ala carte support may be
arranged by contacting:
- Nebula Support at nebula@uw.edu
- Health Science Academic Services
Connect to UW Exchange:
The UW Exchange service can be used with a variety of client software programs. See an overview of client software options and links to sample configurations to access UW Exchange for recommended client software programs.
Future Directions: UW Exchange and The Cloud
Microsoft Hosted Services Rapidly Evolving
The Microsoft services road map has been evolving quickly. Since summer of 2010, MS has decided to combine their Live@edu and BPOS offerings into a single service, called Office365. This new service will allow additional features beyond the basic Exchange email/calendar service, but the exact mix is not yet determined. It is expected that the basic Exchange service will still be free. The timetable for conversion has slipped, however. Conversion of the UW's Live@edu domain is not expected until 2012.
So for now, there is no MS-hosted service on the horizon with features needed by many of our UW Exchange users (e.g., HIPAA, Blackberry access, public folders).
UW Exchange Not Going Away
UW-IT will continue to host UW Exchange (and SharePoint) for some time for some number of users, and there will continue to be a charge for that service. Still, many others can take advantage of the current free Live@edu offering. A major reason why UW-IT has not yet encouraged departments to do so is that the "remote mailbox move" tools from MS needed for seamless migration are not quite ready. Also, the interoperability between on-premise Exchange and Live@edu for calendar scheduling is lacking.
Cost Structure of UW Exchange Is Being Reviewed
Given all of this, UW-IT is also evaluating the cost structure and service offerings for UW Exchange and SharePoint. There will be a lot of discussion and outreach to the user community as UW-IT tries to shape the on-premise offerings to best meet the needs of UW users.
Who to Contact for UW Exchange Support
How you get support for UW Exchange depends on how you subscribe:
- If your Exchange service is provided through your department's IT organization, contact your department's IT staff.
- If your Exchange service is provided through Nebula, contact Nebula for UW Exchange support.
- If you are part of your department's IT organization, contact the UW-IT Service Center at help@uw.edu or 206-221-5000 for support with UW Exchange issue escalation.
