[German]Microsoft introduced the "Exchange Online Delicensing Resiliency" feature in Exchange Online at the beginning of November 2024. This allows administrators to protect Exchange Online mailboxes from unintentional de-licensing by granting a 30-day grace period for license removal. Here is some information about this new feature.
Advertising
The "Exchange Online Delicensing Resiliency" feature in Exchange Online was already introduced on November 5, 2024 via the following tweet and the Techcommunity post Introducing Exchange Online Delicensing Resiliency to protect against unintended delicensing actions.
The background to this is that with Exchange Online, access to Exchange Online user mailboxes is tied to the existence of a license. If the license is removed, the mailbox is no longer available to the user. This impairs the exchange of emails and leads to NDRs (non-delivery reports) or misdirected emails.
Microsoft writes that there have been incidents in the past where customers using group-based licensing have inadvertently de-licensed a large number of their users. This then cut the users off from their mail.
With the new "Exchange Online Delicensing Resiliency" function, Microsoft wants to prevent this mishap in future. If the administrator of a tenant initiates the de-licensing of an Exchange Online user mailbox, a 30-day grace period starts.
Advertising
During this period, the mailboxes retain their functionality so that the administrators have the necessary time to correct errors during license removal. During this grace period, the administrator also has the option to accelerate the de-licensing of users, re-license the users or leave them unlicensed until the end of the grace period.
If the 30-day grace period of the Exchange Online Delicensing function has expired without the administrator intervening, the license is removed. The user can then no longer access their user mailbox. However, there is another 30-day grace period during which an administrator can add the license again. Access is then restored for the user and the mailbox is activated. After the 30-day grace period expires, the data is deleted and cannot be restored.
The new Exchange Online feature also provides options to notify administrators and users to proactively avoid the consequences of unintentional deactivation. This feature is available for tenants with more than 10,000 Exchange Online licenses (without trial version). Details can be found in the linked Techcommunity article.
Advertising
