New Exchange 2016 dev/test environment in Azure

If you are curious about the new features and functionality in Exchange 2016 or need to test your Exchange app, you can set up a single Exchange server in Azure infrastructure services. The new Exchange 2016 dev/test environment in Azure takes you step by step through building out the following:

EXAzure_Phase3

This resulting environment consists of:

  • A Windows Server Active Directory domain controller (adVM)
  • An Exchange 2016 server (exVM)

There are three phases to the build-out:

  • Phase 1: Create the virtual network and the adVM virtual machine
  • Phase 2: Create and configure exVM, a virtual machine running Windows Server 2012 R2
  • Phase 3: Install and configure a trial version of Exchange 2016 on exVM, create two mailboxes, and test sending and receiving email

You also create a network security group that exposes TCP port 443 so that you can access the mailboxes of exVM from the Internet. Note that exVM is not configured to receive Internet email.

If this is your first time using Azure infrastructure services, this build-out exposes you to using:

  • Azure PowerShell command blocks
  • The Azure portal
  • Remote desktop connections to Azure virtual machines
  • Internet access to services running on Azure virtual machines

Enjoy!

Joe Davies