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Synchronizing folders between Microsoft Exchange mailboxes can be a pain, While there are more than a handful of solutions for outlook folder synchronization, when Exchange server is thrown into the equation the number of available solutions is dramatically reduced.

This post is aimed to review a product that I find to be the most comprehensive solution to the problem of synchronizing Microsoft Exchange folders called Exchange Sync by CodeTwo. I will also point out some of the differences between  Exchange Sync and Add2Exchange by DidITBetter and why I think (based on my own personal experience) that Exchange Sync is better.

There are many reasons for synchronizing Exchange folders. For me, it was the need to allow two of my Blackberry users to have their Calendar, Contacts, Notes and Tasks folders synchronized at all times. Another scenario is pointed out in this Spiceworks Community topic (synchronizing data between calendars). CodeTwo Exchange Sync provides a solution for these two scenarios (and many others) simply because it offers a variety of relationship types.

CodeTwo Exchange sync can be installed on both Windows Server (2000 to 2008) and Client (2000 to Vista) platforms, and it supports both 32 and 64 bit OS. Note that there is no need to install it on your end-user stations (Exchange sync is “client-less”), it only means that it is not mandatory to install it on a server platform.

• For the purpose of the review I have used Windows Server 2008R2 “out of the box”.
• Best Practice is to login to the system and make the installation with the account that will be used as the synchronization service (I’ll cover that later).

As soon as I obtained the setup file, I started the installation process. Since I used “out of the box” server, I a warning message showed up saying I don’t have any mail client installed (figure 1). That’s because Exchange Sync uses the “MAPI Client” library to connect to the Exchange Server, similar to RIM’s Blackberry. I clicked OK to confirm I got the message and immediately presented with a suggestion to install the “MAPI Client” automatically (figure 2). I clicked OK to confirm the installation.

As soon as the “MAPI Client” installation was completed, the “CodeTwo Exchange Sync Setup wizard welcome message” showed up. The installation itself is straight forward “next, next, next” process, so I will skip it in this review.

As the setup completes the Admin Console will show up with a notification that the synchronization service needs to be configured (see figure 3). Clicking yes will bring up the configuration wizard. In this wizard, you will choose the service account that will be used for the synchronization process, by default the currently logged in account will be selected (see figure 4). The last thing left for us to configure now is the Mailbox that will be used to “listen” to the server and be responsible for the synchronization (again, the concept is very similar to the way Blackberry works to push data to devices), the selected user must have admin rights on the selected mailbox and must be a member of the domain admins and domain users groups (see figure 5).

Congrats! At this point Exchange Sync is installed, all you have to do now is to set up sync relationships.

Unlike Add2Exchange by DiditBetter CodeTwo Exchange Sync doesn’t have limitations on the amount of relationships you can setup. While Add2Exchnage is based on license per relationship, Exchange Sync is sold as “site license”, once you purchased there are no limitations on the relationships you can setup, nor mailboxes you can use.

Similar to the installation process itself, setting up new relationships with Exchange Sync is easy, extremely easy to be accurate.

• At the Admin Console, click on new to launch the new relationship wizard and select the synchronization type (See Figure 6).  As said before there are many options
  • One-to-One – Will copy the data from a single source to a single target only. This is a one way relationship.
  • One-to-Many – Will copy the data from a single source to multiple target folders.
  • Many-to-One – Will aggregate data from multiple sources into a single target folder (useful for resource scheduling).
  • Folder-Ring – Two way folder synchronization.

In this review, I have used One-to-One (one way Source to Target) relationship.

• Once a synchronization type has been selected, you will be asked to choose the source and target folders,  the folders must be from the same type (you cannot sync contacts with calendar), see figure 7.
• Once the folders have been selected, we are giving the option to select additional options for this relationship. By clicking on the “option” button we are presented with two options to rebuild items in the target folder (see figure 8).
  • The first option (rebuild changed items ) will make sure that in case the end-users changed the item in the target folder (title, name, location, etc.) the changes will be overwritten from the source.
  • The second option (rebuild deleted items) will make sure that in case the end user deletes an item in the target folder, it will be copied again from the source, thus preventing accidental deletions.

Now that we have configured the basic relationship settings it is time to explore some of the advanced ones provided by Exchange sync.

• Item filters – Provides the option to replicate only subset of the items in the source folders based on a variety of attributes. In figure 9 you can see the option to filter out all the non-private items.
• Item modifications – Provides the options to modify the items in the destination folder as part of the replication process. In this review, I have decided to add the string “Synced by CodeTwo” before the original item name in the target folder (See figure 10).

As soon as we have completed setting up our new relationship, we should click “Save” in the Admin console. In order to save the relationship and put it into effect the  synchronization service must be restarted (See figures 11-1 and 11-2), once the service has been restarted the relationship is active.

Now it is the time to put our settings into a test, as the next image (figure 12) will show I have created an item called “test meeting” in my calendar. It took Exchange Sync 3 seconds to replicate it to the target folder along with the added string “Synced by CodeTwo”. This is the time to point out an additional advantage of Exchange Sync. Unlike Add2Exchange Exchange Sync doesn’t use a scheduler to sync items between folders. The synchronization occurs in real time. This is very useful in tracking down changes and synchronization problems.

Consider a secretary scheduling a meeting in her boss calendar. She can track down in seconds if a meeting update from her boss calendar has been replicated to hers instead of waiting for the next synchronization interval.

I’ve used Add2Exchnage for more than three years. Don’t get me wrong, it will get the job done, but sometime it will make you want to pull your hair off simply because items are not replicating, and you may find yourself spending a lot of time troubleshooting why. After the 3rd incident, I have decided to look for alternatives, and after digging up the net for a while, I found CodeTwo Exchange Sync.

CodeTwo Exchange Sync offers two type of licenses:

• SBS ($390)
• Standard and Enterprise ($490)

Exchange sync review – The gallery

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