I need assistance on incorporating an Exchange 2013 server WITH an Essentials server. Yes, they are two different servers! I need some answers on certs and OWA and how we incorporate Exchange like SBS used to do. I cannot find an Essentials forum. Can an

If your questions are Exchange based, then you're in the right area. What exactly are your questions?

With the old SBS installs, we would point port 25 to the SBS server and use one URL to access OWA.  With Server Essentials, we now have a second server to house Exchange 2013 on Server 2012 R2.  so the questions are:

1.  If we integrate the Exchange server to Essentials server, do we still point port 25 to the Exchange server?

2. If we integrate the servers, do we need to have a separate URL to access OWA and does that have to be on a separate public IP.  Ex: I have a client who has SBS and we are moving them to Essentials with an Exchange server.  Presently, they can get to remote desktop by going to https://remote.domain.com/remote.  They can get to OWA by going to https://remote.domain.com/owa.  There is only one public IP.  I've opened port 25, 80, and 443 to remote and everything goes to internal ip 192.168.1.1. Now, with the new configuration, must I have two public IP addresses to do this same thing - one pointing to the exchange server and one pointing to the Essentials server, OR, will integrating the Exchange with Essentials allow this access as it had been with SBS?

The answers to these questions might prompt more questions.

I hope this forum can answer this question.  Others don't seem to be able.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Stu

1.  If we integrate the Exchange server to Essentials server, do we still point port 25 to the Exchange server?

Answer: Yes, regardless of the external IP, you need to configure the firewall to send all port 25 traffic to the internal IP of your client's Exchange server (and configure a receive connector in Exchange to accept that traffic).

2. If we integrate the servers, do we need to have a separate URL to access OWA and does that have to be on a separate public IP.  Ex: I have a client who has SBS and we are moving them to Essentials with an Exchange server.  Presently, they can get to remote desktop by going to https://remote.domain.com/remote.  They can get to OWA by going to https://remote.domain.com/owa.  There is only one public IP.  I've opened port 25, 80, and 443 to remote and everything goes to internal ip 192.168.1.1. Now, with the new configuration, must I have two public IP addresses to do this same thing - one pointing to the exchange server and one pointing to the Essentials server, OR, will integrating the Exchange with Essentials allow this access as it had been with SBS?

Answer: RWW or RWA (depending on SBS version) uses ports 443 and 987; according to https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj635096.aspx Remote Web Access (RWA) for Server 2012 (or R2) Essentials, it's just using ports 80 and 443.  Making an assumption your clients will continue to use this feature, you will seem to need two public IPs (with corresponding "A" records) in order to have RWA and OWA (& ActiveSync) working simultaneously.  The DNS record for RWA could still be "remote.domain.com" and the DNS record for SMTP, OWA, ActiveSync, etc. could be something like "mail.domain.com".  The IP on the firewall for "remote" will port forward 80 & 443 to the Essentials server, and the 2nd IP on the firewall for "mail" will port forward 25, 80 & 443 to the Exchange server.  I hope that answers your question, but if not or you now have more questions please ask.

Hallelujah!!! Someone who understands!  This is exactly what I thought.  Thank you so much.