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References

References: migrations, mail gateways and Microsoft 365 Reference projects from regulated industries

Eight projects from recent years, anonymised by industry and size, plus the most-read technical articles that grew out of projects like these, all publicly available.

Health insurer 4,500+ users

Simplified mail routing: four Edge Transport servers replaced

  • Four Edge Transport servers replaced by a cloud-oriented routing design
  • Less complexity and no more single points of failure in the mail flow
  • Hybrid mail flow between Exchange Online and on-premises optimised
  • Simplified secure relay and inbound/outbound concept implemented

Microsoft 365 & ExchangeExchange Online migration

Healthcare 2,000+ users

Exchange on-premises migrated to a hybrid environment

  • Complex mail routing scenarios with split-domain routing and several MTAs
  • Mailbox migration with AvePoint Fly and MRS
  • Consistent mail flow architecture throughout the coexistence phase

Exchange migrationsExchange Online migration

Health insurer 6 servers in the cluster

Secure messaging platform: in-place upgrade of totemomail

  • Planning and reconfiguration of a 6-server cluster on Red Hat Enterprise Linux
  • Cluster topology adapted for high availability, load balancing and failover
  • Database, web server and network components reconnected
  • totemomail rule set optimised and HIN connected

Totemomail migrationSecure email & gateways

Energy service provider ≈ 1 m invoices per year

Mail hub and bulk mail infrastructure for SAP invoice delivery

  • Central shared platform with connections to HIN, SEPPmail, SMS and fax gateways
  • All mail gateways consolidated, mail flow simplified
  • Bulk mailing infrastructure built for growing volumes
  • Highly available mail server clusters with load balancing and failover

Mail gateway migrationsLoad testing & sizing

HR service provider 200 users

Exchange Online tenant-to-tenant migration

  • Mailboxes, shared mailboxes, calendars and contacts with Quest On Demand Migration
  • Policies and compliance settings transferred between the tenants

Exchange migrations

Staffing services 5 locations in four countries

IT consolidation after a cross-border merger

  • Unified Microsoft 365 and identity architecture for Zurich, Vaduz, Frankfurt, Brussels and Singapore
  • Exchange on-premises migrated to a hybrid architecture, tenants and identities harmonised
  • Telephony moved to Microsoft Teams Phone with Direct Routing
  • Backup and disaster recovery strategy and IT governance for international growth

Architecture & Project LeadershipExchange migrations

Public administration and emergency services 30,000+ users

Highly available messaging platform for the public sector

  • Operation and architecture of Exchange, Skype for Business and Teams in security-critical environments
  • Hardened messaging architectures with increased compliance and data protection requirements
  • Technical lead for building a dedicated Exchange infrastructure for a federal authority
  • Main responsibility for encryption gateways (SEPPmail, HIN) including incident handling

Secure email & gatewaysEmail incident response

Enterprise clients ≈ 50,000 end users

Messaging service portfolio of an IT service provider

  • Overall technical lead of the messaging portfolio: Exchange, Microsoft 365, hybrid, identity
  • Migrations on-premises, hybrid, cloud, multi-forest and cross-tenant
  • Operating models standardised, automation with PowerShell and Microsoft 365 APIs
  • Solution design and concepts in tenders (RFP/RFI)

Architecture & Project LeadershipMessaging freelancer

Technical articles

The most-read technical articles

For each area the 12 articles with the most readers in the last 30 days. The articles open on rafaelpfister.ch.

16 Oct 2026 · Exchange On-Prem / Hybrid Exchange outages after the October 2026 Windows Server updates: MapiExceptionMdbOffline (ec=1142) After the October 13, 2026 Windows Server updates, Exchange servers report MapiExceptionMdbOffline (ec=1142) after around 24 hours: OWA fails, queues grow, and DAG copies stop replicating. The cause is a new limit in the RPC Endpoint Mapper; since October 17, 2026, Microsoft has recommended the EpmapSavedContextCap registry value, but a fix is still unavailable. Symptoms, affected KBs, verification commands, and procedure. 3 Sep 2026 · Outlook New Outlook: S/MIME signature cannot be verified in secondary account, attachments missing The new Outlook reports that the S/MIME signature cannot be verified in a secondary account for a shared mailbox and does not display attachments. This article explains the difference between Clear Signing and Opaque Signing, why attachments disappear from opaque-signed messages, why the new Outlook processes S/MIME only in the primary account, and what workarounds are available, including unpacking smime.p7m with PowerShell or OpenSSL. 24 Sep 2026 · SMTP & Mail Flow MailHeaderAnalyzer: Analyze Email Headers in PowerShell Without Network Access Reference for the MailHeaderAnalyzer PowerShell module: parameter overview, syntax, description, examples, and parameter properties for Get-MailHeaderAnalysis and ConvertTo-MailHeaderReport, plus the output object with delivery chain, authentication results, Exchange Online classification, and all finding codes. 27 Aug 2026 · OpenAI API Up to 10 Million Free Tokens per Day: Using OpenAI’s Data-Sharing Program with Cost Guardrails OpenAI gives organizations that share their API traffic for training a daily free allowance: depending on the tier, up to 10 million tokens. With prepaid credit, project limits, and a token budget in the code, usage remains free indefinitely. 7 Sep 2026 · Exchange On-Premises / Hybrid Exchange Online throttles and blocks outdated Exchange 2016 and 2019 servers starting in September 2026: How transport enforcement works Starting in the second week of September 2026, Exchange Online requires hybrid servers to have at least the October 2025 SU; otherwise, mail flow is throttled and later blocked. Background on transport enforcement since 2023, escalation stages with SMTP codes, the report in the Admin Center, the 90-day pause via PowerShell, and why the next increase will only allow ESU customers and Exchange SE. 14 Jul 2026 · Exchange On-Premises / Hybrid Properly follow up on the July 2026 Exchange security updates Two cleanup tasks are needed after installation: safely remove the old CVE-2026-42897 mitigation and review overprivileged legacy groups in Active Directory. 22 Jul 2026 · Cloudflare Workers Run your own newsletter with Cloudflare Workers and D1 The open template provides signup, unsubscribe, queue, and database in your own Cloudflare account. A deploy button sets up Worker, D1, and CI without a local server. 26 Aug 2026 · Microsoft Teams VPN Split Tunneling for Microsoft Teams: Routing Media Traffic Around the Tunnel Teams calls over a VPN suffer from latency, jitter, and the detour through the VPN gateway. This article explains which Microsoft networks and ports handle media traffic, why IP-based split tunneling is superior to app exclusions, and how to implement it in consumer VPNs, WireGuard, OpenVPN, and enterprise clients. 11 Aug 2026 · Exchange On-Premises / Hybrid Analyzing Exchange Mail Flow: Message Tracking, SMTP Logs, and Receive Connectors How to systematically determine where a message ended up in Exchange On-Premises, Hybrid, and Exchange Online: queries with sample output, how to read the SMTP log correctly, and the issues that regularly lead to incorrect conclusions. 23 Sep 2026 · Mail flow and SMTP Mail loop with encryption gateway behind EXO - Prevent spoofing issues If the encryption gateway (HIN in this example) is behind Exchange Online, every incoming message reaches EOP a second time: with a foreign sender domain, an invalid DKIM signature, and the gateway IP as the source. The result is a spoof verdict and junk. Four settings prevent this without disabling filtering using SCL -1: a PTR record, Enhanced Filtering disabled, a spoof exception for the gateway infrastructure, and CloudServicesMailEnabled on both connectors. 7 Aug 2026 · Exchange On-Premises / Hybrid EXO Migration Without a Remote Move How to provision on-premises Exchange mailboxes in a controlled manner as new, empty Exchange Online mailboxes: PST backup, CSV approval, RemoteMailbox, synchronization, validation, and rollback. 11 Jul 2026 · TotemoMail Access Exchange Online with PowerShell: Replace EWS with Microsoft Graph EWS ends in Exchange Online on October 1, 2026. Learn how to register an app, authenticate a PowerShell script using a certificate, restrict access to individual mailboxes, and process messages and attachments through Microsoft Graph.

List as of: 19 Oct 2026. All technical articles on rafaelpfister.ch