Before You Install 

Use this page to check that your environment is ready and to decide how many machines you need before starting the installation. 

Decide Your Machine Layout 

Unlike Exchange's Transport Agent, which must run on every Mailbox Server, the Microsoft 365 Agent has no dependency on any particular server. You have real flexibility here: 

If the Agent and Portal are on separate machines, keep in mind: SMTP communication between them uses the Agent machine's FQDN (rather than localhost, which only works when they share a machine), and outbound SMTP port 25 needs to be reachable, see ExSign M365 SMTP Configurations and Firewall Ports You'll Need Open (M365).

Software and Hardware Requirements

ExSign Web Portal

ExSign Web Portal is a web-based utility that can be accessed on the Internet. It’s recommended to install the ExSign Web Portal on a separate Windows Server. If you only have a single machine, you can have both the web portal and the agent on the same machine. There can also be more than one portal server for high availability. These portal servers will be public-facing. 

The portal server should have: 

ExSign Microsoft 365 Agent

ExSign Microsoft 365 Agent is developed to work as a desktop utility and can be installed on the ExSign Web Portal machine or any stand-alone Windows machine on your own premises or a machine in any cloud service such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Microsoft Azure. The machine should have:

• NET 4.8 Framework
• .NET Desktop Runtime 8
• .NET Runtime 8

Microsoft 365 Sent Items Update Agent (Optional)

Microsoft 365 Sent Items Update Agent is developed to work as a desktop utility and should be deployed either on the ExSign Portal server or a standalone server. The server should have:

• .NET 4.8 Framework
• .NET Desktop Runtime 8

ExSign Database

ExSign stores its database in Microsoft SQL Server. It is possible to connect to a remote MSSQL database instance regardless of its location.

However, to set up a separate MSSQL Server instance, here are the recommended software and hardware specifications, considering different workloads and use cases (e.g., development, testing, or production).

Quick Checklist Before You Move On

• Decided single-machine vs. separate vs. cloud-hosted Agent layout. 
• Confirmed the Agent isn't sharing a machine with an existing ExSign Transport Agent  
• Web Portal server(s) provisioned with required software  
• Microsoft 365 Agent prerequisites confirmed on its target machine  
• Sent Items Update Agent server decided, if you want this feature  
• SQL Server database ready (dedicated or existing remote instance)  
• If Agent and Portal are on separate machines, be aware of the FQDN/port 25 requirement for SMTP