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CGI's avatar
CGI
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Jan 16, 2014

Microsoft CRM 2013 and Solution Guide

Hi we are in the process of setting up Microsoft CRM 2013 on site and will be accessing the site through a F5 cluster running 11.4.1, the CRM product has changed a bit from the old version and iam looking for a solution guide for how to setup the F5 configuration for publishing CRM 2013, has anyone any information ? One of the changes i know about is that in the 2013 version the email router function is now restricted to a https only configuration, making us use end to end ssl when we would have prefered using ssl termination in the Bigip. Any tips or information appreciated.

 

Regards Craig

 

4 Replies

  • mikeshimkus_111's avatar
    mikeshimkus_111
    Historic F5 Account

    HI Craigg, we're currently working on a solution for CRM 2013. It may take the form of an addendum to the 2011 guide initially. I'll post back here when it's available.

     

    thanks

     

    Mike

     

  • mikeshimkus_111's avatar
    mikeshimkus_111
    Historic F5 Account

    Hi Craig, having done a bit of testing, it seems like our basic 2011 guidance still works for CRM 2013. However, I've only been able to test server-side synchronization because the email router doesn't want to work (even when bypassing LTM).

     

    Can you give me some more detail about your environment, specifically which version of Exchange you are using, which server OS, what kind of authentication you're using in your email profile, and whether or not you're using a forwarding mailbox?

     

    thanks

     

  • CGI's avatar
    CGI
    Icon for Altostratus rankAltostratus

    Hi Mike there are three ways for mail to be used together with the CRM 1: Using Outlook 2: Using an external tool the Email Router 3: Using internal “Server Side Sync” (between CRM and Exchange)

     

    Option 1 is used for personally received emails, and require that the user have an active outlook session and CRM connection simultaneously. Option 2 & 3 are mutually exclusive and basically cover the same functionality, as they provide either direct or indirect server to server synchronization of emails. Option 3 further includes task and appointment synchronization, which is a requirement in coming CRM updates.

     

    Where Option 1 is protocol independent, option 2 & 3 both require HTTPS. This is a security decision deployed by Microsoft. Put to the point the Email Router will refuse to connect to the CRM server if its not running HTTPS, and the Server Side Sync is locked in regards to configuration of mail accounts unless HTTPS is used.

     

    Now we are using Windows authentication with our mail profiles and using forwarding mailboxes,the OS is windows 2012 (not R2) for the CRM servers and Windows 2008 R2 for the Exchange 2010 at the moment, the goal would have been to offload the ssl from the CRM servers, but now we are looking at end to end ssl if there is not another way around the communication problems.

     

    /Regards Craig

     

  • mikeshimkus_111's avatar
    mikeshimkus_111
    Historic F5 Account

    I am currently offloading SSL from the CRM servers, and I can add users and configure their mailboxes so they receive mail from CRM (using server-side sync).

     

    When you say that mail account configuration is locked, which settings are unavailable?