Category Archives: Office 365

Exchange PST Capture Tool released

It took a while, but today the Exchange Team released the long awaited Microsoft Exchange PST Capture Tool (initial version 14.3.16.4). The tool can be used to discover and inject PST files in an Exchange 2010 Exchange Online mailbox or archive.

The tool was originally from Red Gate and known as PST Importer. It’s architecture consists of three components: the central service, (optional) agents for PST discovery, registration and collecting PST files and an administrative console (image by Red Gate):

The online documentation can be found here.

Note that although it’s only supported for Exchange 2010 and Exchange Online, you can use it with Exchange 2007; it’s only untested (and probably unsupported) with that product.

You can read the official announcement here; you can download the tool and the agents here.

Office 365 Generally Available

Today, Office 365 hit general availability in 40 countries, with more to come. The launch was accompanied by a Live Webcast with Steve Ballmer.

Microsoft has is offering Office 365, with accompanying plans, for:

  • Professionals and Small Businesses;
  • Midsize and Enterprise;
  • Education (formerly known as live@edu).

More information on the Office 365 service descriptions, plans and pricing, check here. Note that the information – and pricing – is localized and may vary from country to country. Tony Redmond wrote an interesting article on this, as well as some other interesting facts, here.

Also, and I can’t emphasize this enough, be aware of the limitations of any cloud solution. Not only will the provider set the terms and conditions to which you’ll be subjected, you’ll also need to plan for potential business continuity risks, such as downtime of the service or the patriot act. More on the latter here.