Installing Exchange 2013 : Versions, cumulative updates, and service packs (part 2) - Object versions, Reporting licenses

When you install a server, it is in an unlicensed or trial state. In other words, you’ve installed Exchange to kick the tires and see what the server can do. Servers in trial status are not eligible to receive support from Microsoft and are limited to the functionality available in the Standard edition of Exchange 2013. The major consequence of this is that although you can create a DAG, you can mount only five databases on a server. To move a server to full functionality, you have to install a valid license.

You can view the current licensing situation for a server by opening the Servers section of EAC and reviewing the list of servers for the organization. Unlike Exchange Management Console (EMC), EAC does not use different icons to mark licensed and unlicensed servers. Instead, it indicates the current license status for a server in the action pane (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Viewing license status for a server

Scrolling through a list of servers is a reasonable way to proceed when you have only a small number of servers to manage. It is much more efficient to identify any unlicensed servers in the organization using EMS by running the following command:

Get-ExchangeServer | Where {$_.IsExchangeTrialEdition –eq $True} | Format-Table Name, RemainingTrialPeriod – AutoSize
Name      RemainingTrialPeriod
----      --------------------
EXSERVER2 177.10:40:53.0863341

In this instance, you can see that one unlicensed server exists in the organization and that it was installed just a few days ago (177 days remain of its 180-day trial period). To resolve this problem, select the unlicensed server in EAC and then select the Enter Product Key option in the action pane. This displays the general properties of the server and where you can enter a valid product key. Alternatively, you can input the product key through EMS by using a command like this:

Set-ExchangeServer –Identity 'ExServer6' –ProductKey '25-Char-Product-Key-Value'

You do not need to be connected to the Internet to enable Exchange to validate the entered key. If the key is acceptable, Exchange generates a product identifier for the server. You can discover the product identifier for a server by looking at its properties with EAC or by running this command:

Get-ExchangeServer –Identity ExServer1 | Select Productid
ProductID
---------
02064-004-0073112-02145

The change in licensing status will not be active until the next time the Information Store service is restarted. You can enter a new product key for a licensed server if you want to upgrade it from Exchange 2013 Standard edition to Exchange 2013 Enterprise edition. However, you cannot downgrade a server licensed to run the Enterprise edition to run the Standard edition.

Apart from server licenses, you also need Client Access Licenses (CALs) for every client device that connects to Exchange. Two forms of CALs are available—standard and enterprise. The licenses are cumulative. The enterprise CAL adds to the functionality already licensed through the standard CAL. Table 1 lists the different areas of functionality that are licensed through the two types of CALs.