It is a service from Microsoft that manages email, calendars, task lists, and address books. Cornell Information Technologies provides a campus-wide Exchange system for faculty and staff, and eventually retirees and graduate and professional students.
Unless your department specifies which email application to use, you can choose to continue using your current email application (Thunderbird, Eudora, etc.) with the new Exchange system, or switch to one of the email applications designed specifically for Exchange.
The applications designed for Exchange are:
These applications provide an all-in-one view of email, address book, task lists, and calendar. They also provide more powerful and flexible options for organizing messages, and for enabling other people to manage your email and calendar.
Faculty and staff who use Eudora may want to plan to switch to a different email client, because CIT will end support for Eudora on May 31, 2010.
For web-based access to email and calendar, a service called Outlook Web Access is replacing both Cornell WebMail and the uPortal.Cornell email channel.
Which campus units are using Exchange?
The campus will be transitioning to Exchange from September 2009 through April/May 2010. All Ithaca-campus colleges and administrative units that currently use CIT's email and calendaring service will be switching to the campus Exchange service, as well as Geneva, Cornell Cooperative Extension, and other non-central campus units.
Weill Cornell Medical College, the Johnson School, the School of Hotel Administration, and the Department of Computer Science will continue running their own, independent email systems for now.
What email applications does the CIT HelpDesk support for using with Exchange?
Windows:
Macintosh:
Before deciding on an email application, please ask the IT staff in your college, administrative unit, or department what email applications they support.
Note for Linux: CIT does not support Linux. At this time, Outlook Web Access appears to be the best choice for Linux.
How much email can I store in my Exchange email account?
You can store up to 7 GB (gigabytes) in your Exchange account. That's nearly 24 times more than the 300-MB accounts in the old postoffice system.
How can I find out how close I am to filling up my 7-GB account?
You can see how much storage you are using through Outlook, Entourage, Apple Mail 4, or Outlook Web Access (using Internet Explorer). These show your usage in KB (kilobytes) -- 7 GB equals 7,340,032 KB.
Here's what happens as your email account reaches its maximum capacity of 7 GB (7,168 MB or 7,340,032 KB):
How does Cornell protect my email account from spam or junk email?
A tool called PureMessage helps keep unwanted messages out of your email account. PureMessage scans all messages sent to addresses that end in @cornell.edu.
PureMessage automatically deletes virus-infected messages, and messages that have a greater than 80% probability of being spam, based on the messages' spam-like characteristics. Read more about Cornell's spam and virus filtering.
In addition, Outlook and Entourage offer junk-mail filters that can help you weed out anything that makes it past those initial defenses. See how to set up junk mail filters:
What is the biggest attachment I can send or receive?
The maximum size of a message, including any attachments, is 50 MB (megabytes). Encoding the attachment (making it part of the message) adds to its size, so if a file is almost 50 MB, it may be too large when encoded.
If you need to share files larger than 50 MB, you can use Cornell's DropBox service. This is also a university-approved, secure way to transfer confidential or sensitive data.
How many individual addresses can I send a single email message to?
300. That is the combined total of addresses on the To, Cc, and Bcc lines. If there are more than 300 addresses, Exchange will not send the message. This is controlled by the Exchange email system itself, so it applies regardless of the email application you're using.
If you need to send a message to more than 300 individual addresses, you have some alternatives:
Why is the Bulk Email Service better for large mailings than Mail Merge? The Bulk Email Service is designed to avoid unintended (and common) consequences of large mailings. Those consequences include disrupting network traffic and triggering spam filters, which can result in a message being incorrectly flagged as spam or all Cornell email being blocked as potential spam.
How can I access my special mailbox messages?
For now, the same way you always have. Unlike the email accounts of individual faculty and staff, special mailboxes are remaining on the old postoffice email system for the time being.
That means, if you normally access your special mailbox through Cornell WebMail, you'll still use Cornell WebMail for your special mailbox, even after your own email account has moved to the new Exchange system.
If you normally access your special mailbox through Eudora or Thunderbird, and will be switching to Outlook, Entourage, or Apple Mail once your email account has been moved to the new Exchange system, you'll need to set up your special mailboxes this way:
What level of availability can be expected from Exchange?
Better than the old postoffice email system. As part of the Exchange project, CIT implemented redundant email servers, so that if a hardware failure occurs in one system, we will be able to restore email services within minutes.
What architecture is being used?
A fully redundant architecture housed in two facilities. This architecture protects against both single-server failures and single data center loss, and enables CIT to do planned maintenance without interrupting email availability.
IMAP, POP, HTTPS, WebDAV, Exchange Web Services, and ActiveSync.
Not yet. SharePoint will probably be part of the next phase, after the campus migration to the Exchange services is complete.
Can I still use Eudora, Thunderbird, Apple Mail, or other email applications with Exchange?
That depends on what your college, administrative unit, or department says. If the choice is up to you, keep reading.
Keep in mind that colleges, units, and departments will be moving to the Exchange services starting in September 2009 and continuing into April/May 2010. Until your college, administrative unit, or department is scheduled to start using Exchange services, you'll keep using the same services you use now.
Eudora: If you currently use Eudora, you may want to plan to switch to a different email application, because CIT will end support for Eudora on May 31, 2010.
If you're comfortable configuring Eudora to use the Exchange service, and troubleshooting it yourself should anything go wrong, you can choose to continue using Eudora for your email. Starting in June 2010, if you also need to use the campus-wide calendar system, you will be able to get to it on the web through the new service, Outlook Web Access.
Cornell Information Technologies (CIT) is discontinuing support for Eudora because vendor development of Eudora as we at Cornell know it has been discontinued. The versions that have been distributed for use at Cornell are no longer supported by the vendor.
Thunderbird: If you prefer to continue using Thunderbird for your email, you can. CIT will continue supporting it. Starting in June 2010, if you also need to use the campus-wide calendar system, you will be able to get to it on the web through the new service, Outlook Web Access
Apple Mail: If you prefer to continue using Apple Mail, you should plan to upgrade to Mac OS 10.6 (Snow Leopard). You'll get Apple Mail 4, which, along with iCal and Address Book, is fully integrated with Exchange.
If you cannot upgrade to the Mac OS 10.6 (Snow Leopard), you can continue using Apple Mail version 3 as an email application. Starting in June 2010, if you also need to use the campus-wide calendar system, you will be able to get to it on the web through the new service, Outlook Web Access.
Other email applications: You should be able to use any email software that supports IMAP or POP with the Exchange system. You will need to be comfortable with configuring it and troubleshooting it yourself should anything go wrong. Starting in June 2010, if you also need to use the campus-wide calendar system, you will be able to get to it on the web through the new service, Outlook Web Access.
Can I still use Cornell WebMail or the uPortal.Cornell email channel with Exchange?
No. Once your email account is moved to the Exchange email system, you won't be able to use Cornell WebMail or the uPortal.Cornell email channel anymore.
Instead, you'll be using a new web-based service, Outlook Web Access. It is available from any computer with a web browser. In addition to email, Outlook Web Access lets you see your calendar and address book. If you use Internet Explorer, you can also see your task list.
Why was Exchange chosen for faculty and staff?
In short, because it's the best move for the Cornell community. A combination of factors made a convincing case for moving to Exchange to provide email and calendar services for Cornell faculty and staff.
First, a cross-campus group called the Task Force for Personal Productivity evaluated the current needs and estimated future needs of Cornell faculty and staff, and the products best suited to meet those needs. The finalists were Zimbra (an open-source suite) and Microsoft Exchange. The optimal fit was determined to be Exchange.
The Task Force for Personal Productivity's final recommendations report provides a detailed description of how these products were evaluated.
Second, many campus units have been asking Cornell Information Technologies (CIT) to provide an Exchange service. Several units -- among them, the Johnson School, the School of Hotel Administration, and the Department of Computer Science -- already deliver their own Exchange services independently.
Third, a small group of fairly large and complex campus units (including Alumni Affairs and Development and some Day Hall offices) were using a pilot implementation of Exchange from fall 2007 into 2009. The users reported overall good satisfaction with the software and services.
Taken together, these data points make the move to the Microsoft solution the best one for the university.
Are all faculty and staff switching to the new email system all at once?
No, it is a phased effort. CIT has worked with each college and administrative unit, and in some cases, departments, to determine when the accounts for their faculty and staff will be moved to the new Exchange-based system.
What's happening to Oracle Calendar?
In early June 2010, the campus-wide calendar service will be switched to an Exchange-based calendar system. Over a weekend (date to be determined), all Oracle Calendar data from January 2008 to the present will be copied to Exchange.
Until that happens, you'll keep using Oracle Calendar to schedule people and rooms.
Once the switch to the Exchange-based calendar system is done, if you want to start or continue using the campus-wide calendar system, you will need to view your calendar through new services. Your choices will be:
Oracle Calendar will be retired once the Exchange services are in place for all units at Cornell.
How will the migration from Oracle Calendar to the Exchange calendar work?
Oracle Calendar will remain the university calendar system until early June 2010. At that time, the new Exchange-based calendar system will replace Oracle Calendar.
Over a weekend (date to be determined), all Oracle Calendar data from January 2008 to the present will be copied to Exchange, and everyone's calendars will be switched, all at once, from Oracle Calendar to Exchange.
When the Oracle Calendar data is copied to the Exchange-based calendar system, it will be added to any information that is already in an individual's Exchange calendar. It will not delete anything.
To prepare for the switch, CIT will be working with each college and administrative unit to update information about meeting rooms, equipment, and other resources that need to be scheduled through a calendar, and to make plans for custom Oracle Calendars (calendars that aren't a person's individual calendar).
