Multi-Tenant Support

Applies to: Exchange Server 2010 SP2

Topic Last Modified: 2011-12-01

A multi-tenant Exchange deployment is defined in this topic as one where the system has been configured to host multiple and discrete organizations or business units (the tenants) that ordinarily don’t share e-mail, data, users, global address lists (GALs), or any other commonly used Exchange objects.

In Exchange 2010 Service Pack 1 (SP1), Exchange introduced the ability to install in a hosting mode by using the /hosting switch when running the installation script. However, in Exchange 2010 SP2, we no longer recommend installing Exchange using the /hosting switch. To learn more, see the Exchange Team Blog article Future of /Hosting Mode.

In Exchange 2010 SP2, hosting is supported by using the on-premises Exchange installation. For guidance about configuring a multi-tenant organization with Exchange 2010 SP2, download the white paper Multi-Tenancy and Hosting Guidance for Exchange Server 2010 SP2. This paper doesn’t provide step-by-step instructions about how to achieve multi-tenancy with Exchange 2010 SP2. Instead, it provides information about the challenges and problems that must be solved, and offers advice and direction to ensure the Exchange environment you build can be supported by Microsoft.