Overview

The Hosted Exchange application can be integrated with the External Directory Synchronization (EDS) service that provides you with the following features:

• Instant user provisioning. Users created in your on-premise Active Directory domain are instantly created in CloudBlue Commerce in your Hosted Exchange organization.
• Instant mailbox provisioning. You can configure the EDS service so that newly synchronized users are instantly provided with mailboxes in your Hosted Exchange organization.
• User account synchronization. All changes to user properties such as names, contact info, and group membership made in your on-premise Active Directory domain are automatically propagated to the respective users in your Hosted Exchange organization.

• (Optional) User password change synchronization. When the password of a user is changed in your on-premise Active Directory domain, the password of the respective user is updated in CloudBlue Commerce, which ensures a unified sign-in experience.

  Note: During the initial synchronization of users from an on-premise Active Directory domain, the passwords of these users are not delivered to CloudBlue Commerce. In CloudBlue Commerce, the passwords of these newly synchronized users are auto-generated.

• Address book synchronization. Contacts created in your on-premise Active Directory domain and their properties are automatically propagated to your Hosted Exchange organization.

• Partial domain synchronization. You can choose a set of Active Directory Organization Units to be synchronized to your Hosted Exchange organization and apply additional filter conditions for users and contacts.
• Selective attribute synchronization. You can limit the set of attributes to be synchronized.

• Security

  • All information is delivered to CloudBlue Commerce in an encrypted form from the client EDS components installed in an on-premise Active Directory domain.
  • Within an on-premise Active Directory domain, passwords are delivered in an encrypted form between the client EDS components installed in the on-premise Active Directory domain.

• Platforms Supported. You can install the client EDS components on the following operating systems:

  • Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition (x64)
  • Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition (x64)
  • Windows Server 2008 Datacenter Edition (x64)
  • Windows Small Business Server 2008 Standard Edition (x64)
  • Windows Server 2012 Standard Edition (x64)
  • Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard Edition (x64)

If your Hosted Exchange application subscription includes this service, you can set it up by following these steps:

1. Activate the service. See Activating External Directory Synchronization for details.
2. Install the EDS client components within your on-premise Active Directory domain. See Installing the EDS Components for details.