Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 2 (SP2) Release Set for Second Half of 2011

The second service pack for Exchange Server 2010 will be provided by the end of 2011, announced Kevin Allison, General Manager Exchange Customer Experience.

Microsoft is currently hard at work on the upgrade which is right on track to being provided to customers in the second half of this year, although the company has yet to announce a specific availability deadline.

With Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 2 (SP2), the software giant will introduce new features and capabilities, as well as customer requested fixes.

The second upgrade to Exchange 2010 will bring to the table all the fixes that Microsoft will pack into update rollups offered ahead of SP2.

Enhancements will be introduced to the features, functionality and security of Exchange Server 2010, and Allison stressed that improvements will reflect customer feedback.

Although some details on the evolution of Exchange Server 2010 to SP2 have already been provided, fact is that the upgrade is still in development and as such, additional changes could be introduced ahead of RTM.

Here are some new features and capabilities in Exchange Server 2010 SP2 highlighted by Allison:

“•Outlook Web App (OWA) Mini: A browse-only version of OWA designed for low bandwidth and resolution devices. Based on the existing Exchange 2010 SP1 OWA infrastructure, this feature provides a simple text based interface to navigate the user’s mailbox and access to the global address list from a plurality of mobile devices.

•Cross-Site Silent Redirection for Outlook Web App: With Service Pack 2, you will have the ability to enable silent redirection when CAS must redirect an OWA request to CAS infrastructure located in another Active Directory site.

•Hybrid Configuration Wizard: Organizations can choose to deploy a hybrid scenario where some mailboxes are on-premises and some are in Exchange Online with Microsoft Office 365.

•Address Book Policies: Allows organizations to segment their address books into smaller scoped subsets of users providing a more refined user experience than the previous manual configuration approach.”

Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 1 (SP1) RTM is available for download here.