Category Archives: Exchange

Exchange 2010 virtualization storage gotchas

There’s a lot of momentum for Exchange virtualization. At Trace3, we do a lot of work with VMware, so the majority of the customers I work with already have VMware deployed strategically into their production operation model. As a result, … Continue reading

Share
Posted in Computers, Exchange, Work | 1 Comment

Devin’s Load Balancer for Exchange 2010

Overview One of the biggest differences I’m seeing when deploying Exchange 2010 compared to previous versions is that for just about all of my customers, load balancing is becoming a critical part of the process. In Exchange 2003 FE/BE, load … Continue reading

Share
Posted in Computers, Exchange, Work | 11 Comments

Moving to Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 1

Microsoft recently announced that Service Pack 1 (SP1) for Exchange Server 2010 had been released to web, prompting an immediate upgrade rush for all of us Exchange professionals. Most of us maintain at least one home/personal lab environment, the better … Continue reading

Share
Posted in Computers, Exchange, Work | 2 Comments

Manually creating a DAG FSW for Exchange 2010

I just had a comment from Chris on my Busting the Exchange Trusted Subsystem Myth post that boiled down to asking what you do when you have to create the FSW for an Exchange 2010 DAG manually? In order for … Continue reading

Share
Posted in Computers, Exchange, Work | 5 Comments

The Disk’s The Thing! Exchange 2010 Storage Essays, part 2

Greetings, readers! When I first posted From Whence Redundancy? (part 1 of this series of essays on Exchange 2010 storage) I’d intended to follow up with other posts a bit faster than I have been. So much for intentions; let … Continue reading

Share
Posted in Computers, Exchange, Work | 7 Comments

More Exchange blogging with Trace3!

I just wanted to drop a quick note to let you all know that I’ll be cross-posting all of my Exchange related material both here and at the Trace3 blog. The Trace3 blog is a multi-author blog, so you’ll get … Continue reading

Share
Posted in Exchange, Work | 1 Comment

What Exchange 2010 on Windows Datacenter Means

Exchange Server has historically come in two flavors for many versions – Standard Edition and Enterprise Edition. The main difference this license change made for you was the maximum number of supported mailbox databases as shown in Table 1: Version … Continue reading

Share
Posted in Computers, Exchange, Work | 7 Comments

From Whence Redundancy? Exchange 2010 Storage Essays, part 1

Updated 4/13 with improved reseed time data provided by item #4 in the Top 10 Exchange Storage Myths blog post from the Exchange team. Over the next couple of months, I’d like to slowly sketch out some of the thoughts … Continue reading

Share
Posted in Computers, Exchange, Work | 9 Comments

Busting the Exchange Trusted Subsystem Myth

It’s amazing what kind of disruption leaving your job, looking for a new job, and starting to get settled in to a new job can have on your routines. Like blogging. Who knew? At any rate, I’m back with some … Continue reading

Share
Posted in Computers, Exchange, Work | 27 Comments

Why Aren’t My Exchange Certificates Validating?

Updated 10/13: Updated the link to the blog article on configuring Squid for Exchange per the request of the author Owen Campbell. Thank you, Owen, for letting me know the location had changed! By now you should be aware that … Continue reading

Share
Posted in 3Sharp, Exchange | Leave a comment

Some Thoughts on FBA (part 2)

As promised, here’s part 2 of my FBA discussion, in which we’ll talk about the interaction of ISA’s forms-based authentication (FBA) feature with Exchange 2010. (See part 1 here.) Offloading FBA to ISA As I discussed in part 1, ISA … Continue reading

Share
Posted in 3Sharp, Exchange | 1 Comment

Stolen Thunder: Outlook for the Mac

I was going to write up a quick post about the release of Entourage for EWS (allowing it to work in native Exchange 2007, and, more importantly, Exchange 2010 environments) and the announcement that Office 2010 for the Mac would … Continue reading

Share
Posted in 3Sharp, Exchange | 1 Comment

EAS: King of Sync?

Seven months or so ago, IBM surprised a bunch of people by announcing that they were licensing Microsoft’s Exchange ActiveSync protocol (EAS) for use with a future version of Lotus Notes. I’m sure there were a few folks who saw … Continue reading

Share
Posted in 3Sharp, Exchange | Leave a comment

Comparing PowerShell Switch Parameters with Boolean Parameters

If you’ve ever take a look at the help output (or TechNet documentation) for PowerShell cmdlets, you see that they list several pieces of information about each of the various parameters the cmdlet can use: The parameter name Whether it … Continue reading

Share
Posted in 3Sharp, Exchange, PowerShell | Leave a comment

Some Thoughts on FBA (part 1)

It’s funny how topics tend to come in clumps. Take the current example: forms-based authentication (FBA) in Exchange. An FBA Overview FBA was introduced in Exchange Server 2003 as a new authentication method for Outlook Web Access. It requires OWA … Continue reading

Share
Posted in 3Sharp, Exchange | 2 Comments

You, too, can Master Exchange

One of the biggest criticisms I’ve seen of the MCM program, even when it first was announced, was the cost – at a list price of $18,500 for the actual MCM program, discounting the travel, lodging, food, and opportunity cost … Continue reading

Share
Posted in 3Sharp, Exchange | 1 Comment

ExMon released (no joke!)

If you’re tempted to think this is an April Fool’s Day joke, no worries – this is the real deal. Yesterday, Microsoft published the Exchange 2007-aware version of Exchange Server User Monitor (ExMon) for download. “ExMon?” you ask. “What’s that?” … Continue reading

Share
Posted in 3Sharp, Exchange | 1 Comment

Two CCR White Papers from Missy

This actually happened last week, but I’ve been remiss in getting it posted (sorry, Missy!) Missy recently completed two Exchange 2007 whitepapers, both centered around the CCR story. The first one, High Availability Choices for Exchange Server 2007: Continuous Cluster … Continue reading

Share
Posted in 3Sharp, Exchange | Leave a comment

Haz Firewall, Want Cheezburger

Although Window Server 2008 offers an impressive built-in firewall, in some cases we Exchange administrators don’t want to have to deal with it. Maybe you are building a demo to show a customer, or a lab environment to reproduce an … Continue reading

Share
Posted in 3Sharp, Exchange | Leave a comment

Outlook Performance Goodness

Microsoft has recently released a pair of Outlook 2007 updates (okay, technically, they’re updates for Outlook 2007 with SP1 applied) that you might want to look at installing sooner rather than later. These two updates are together being billed as … Continue reading

Share
Posted in 3Sharp, Exchange | Leave a comment

What happens in Vegas gets blogged

Update (11/15/08 1240PST): Fixed the URLs in the links to point to the actual decks. Sorry! Time this year has flown! Hard to believe that I’ve just finished up my last conference for the year — Exchange Connections Fall at … Continue reading

Share
Posted in 3Sharp, Exchange | 1 Comment

Masters update: short form

I have gotten a lot of email from people who wished me well and wanted to find out the status of my recent Masters rotation. I’m working on a bigger write-up, but here’s the short form: It was intense. I … Continue reading

Share
Posted in 3Sharp, Exchange | Leave a comment

…does this mean I’ll get an apprentice?

For the next three weeks, I’ll be squirreled away in a hidden location, having my brains surgically removed and replaced with a quantum-computing device filled with Exchange knowledge. Good times! Seriously, though, I’ll be off to the October rotation of … Continue reading

Share
Posted in 3Sharp, Exchange | 3 Comments

OCS follows Exchange into 64-bit-only land

You may have missed this interesting blog post this morning amidst all the political kerfuffle, so let me sum up: the next version of OCS will only support x64 platforms. This isn’t the big deal it would have been for … Continue reading

Share
Posted in 3Sharp, Exchange | Leave a comment

First Look at Microsoft Online Services: the Sign-In tool

Continuing from my previous post on MOS… I didn’t really mention this in the previous post, but MOS is designed to provide a hosted alternative to the server-side applications. One of the goals is to continue working with existing native … Continue reading

Share
Posted in 3Sharp, Exchange | Leave a comment

First look at Microsoft Online Services: adding domains

I’m at an airlift here in Redmond for the new Microsoft Online Services (MOS), Microsoft’s hosted services platform. Right now, MOS offers a combination of hosted Exchange (OWA, Outlook, and even EAS!), hosted SharePoint, and Live Meeting. We’ve just gone through … Continue reading

Share
Posted in 3Sharp, Exchange | Leave a comment

Hyper-V in the hizzouse!

Everyone’s being so coy in the Windows blogosphere today. “As you may have heard…” Heck with that; this is wicked cool. Hyper-V has Released To Manufacturing … and is already available for download. As the link explains, it’ll start coming … Continue reading

Share
Posted in 3Sharp, Exchange | Leave a comment

These are not the solutions you’re looking for

As IT professionals, we are more than often prone to fall to the perils of magical thinking. (I’m sure this is a side-effect of being human, which is a pesky and bothersome condition I will have to do something about … Continue reading

Share
Posted in 3Sharp, Exchange | Leave a comment

Tech-Talk: Making Backups Cool with DPM

While I was at the Tech-Ed NA IT Pro conference last week, Jason Buffington and I took the chance to invade the Tech-Ed Online fishbowl studio and record a quick Tech-Talk on using DPM. You can now view it online … Continue reading

Share
Posted in 3Sharp, DPM, Exchange | Leave a comment

Updated Exchange Developer Roadmap

To reinforce yesterday’s post about Exchange Web Services (EWS), I wanted to draw your attention to the Exchange Developer Roadmap posted on May 22 2008 on the Exchange API-spotting blog. There shouldn’t really be any surprises here, but there were … Continue reading

Share
Posted in 3Sharp, Exchange | Leave a comment

A .NET add-on for working with Exchange Web Services

I just got word that Independentsoft has come out with a beta version of an EWS client API for the .NET Framework and .NET Compact Framework. I’ve not looked at it yet, but I’m particularly hopeful about having a good … Continue reading

Share
Posted in 3Sharp, Exchange | Leave a comment

Revised guidance on protecting Exchange with DPM 2007

Just a quick note to let you  all know that the Protecting Exchange Server with DPM 2007 white paper is available for download from Microsoft. This is the same white paper I worked on for them last year, but freshly … Continue reading

Share
Posted in 3Sharp, DPM, Exchange | Leave a comment

One last quick tidbit: Exchange 2007 and Outlook Anywhere scalability whitepaper

A lot of you may have missed this: Microsoft just released a new white paper for Exchange, Outlook Anywhere Scalability with Outlook 2007, Outlook 2003, and Exchange 2007. This paper should give you some detailed guidance goodness on scaling your … Continue reading

Share
Posted in 3Sharp, Exchange | Leave a comment

A certificate roundup

Certificates are one of the biggest issues I keep hearing about with Exchange and OCS, and apparently I’m not the only one. Fellow MVP Michael B. Smith has recently posted two blog articles on certs: how to use SAN certificates … Continue reading

Share
Posted in 3Sharp, Exchange, PowerShell | Leave a comment

Doing UC in the Pacific Northwest

I’ve been sitting on a cool announcement for several days now, and I’m happy that it’s now time to announce it. I’ve been working with a group of people to get a new user group for Unified Communications (UC) put … Continue reading

Share
Posted in 3Sharp, Exchange, OCS | Leave a comment

Post-Conference report

As I typically do, I’m posting links to my slide decks for the presentations I just finished giving. I apologize to the Connections folks; I was supposed to get this done Monday afternoon or Tuesday and got ambushed by a … Continue reading

Share
Posted in 3Sharp, DCAR, DPM, Exchange | Leave a comment

A DPM roundup

This was a big travel week for me; I got the privilege of speaking about protecting Exchange with DPM 2007 at both Exchange Connections (in Orlando) and Microsoft Management Summit (in Las Vegas). The session had a good response at … Continue reading

Share
Posted in 3Sharp, DPM, Exchange | Leave a comment

Greetings from Orlando!

I’m posting from a break between sessions at Exchange Connections in Orlando, FL. I just had a good session on protecting Exchange with DPM — thanks to everyone who attended and gave lots of good feedback. Next up — a … Continue reading

Share
Posted in 3Sharp, DCAR, DPM, Exchange | Leave a comment

Setting Exchange 2007 Unified Messaging codecs on a per-user basis? Genius!

I was completely floored to discover, via Paul, that you can control which codec the UM role uses to record voicemails on a per-user basis. This is seriously cool stuff, and if you can’t see why quite yet, let me … Continue reading

Share
Posted in 3Sharp, Exchange, OCS | Leave a comment

Exchange protocol documentation now available

Per the announcement on Tuesday (08 Apr), Microsoft has released a lot of new documentation for various Exchange and Outlook-Exchange protocols. This is some cool stuff — just check out the list of what’s available. However, as the web site … Continue reading

Share
Posted in 3Sharp, Exchange, OCS | 1 Comment

There’s no service like Web service

One of the cool things about Exchange 2007 is the new Web service interface into the store. In theory, having mailboxes and contents exposed via Web services makes it a lot easier for developers and casual dabblers to use Web … Continue reading

Share
Posted in 3Sharp, Exchange | 1 Comment

New Exchange 2007 migration whitepaper

A couple months back, I was able to work with Quest Software on a new whitepaper for Exchange 2007 migrations. As you probably already know, Reader, Quest makes some of the slickest migration software on the market. They also make … Continue reading

Share
Posted in 3Sharp, DCAR, Exchange | Leave a comment

Webcast on Unified Communications

Tomorrow I’m going to be giving two webcasts for Quest on What You Need to Know about Microsoft Unified Communications – one at 9am EDT, the other at 2pm EDT. (Yes, that’s 6am and 11am here, so my morning tomorrow is … Continue reading

Share
Posted in 3Sharp, Exchange, OCS | Leave a comment

Received in the mail: Exchange Server 2007 training from TrainSignal

A couple weeks back, I received an offer for a review copy of the Exchange Server 2007 video training from TrainSignal. I, of course, gleefully accepted. Over the next few days, I’ll be checking it out and will let you … Continue reading

Share
Posted in 3Sharp, Exchange | 1 Comment

Liveblogging the Unified Communications Voice Ignite conference, day 5

Last day. It’s been a blast, but my brain is getting full. (You can see my day 4 notes here.) 9:45: When you’re deploying a multi-site Edge server deployment, be aware that you can’t have multiple sites with the Access Edge role … Continue reading

Share
Posted in 3Sharp, Exchange, OCS | Leave a comment

Liveblogging the Unified Communications Voice Ignite conference, day 4

Just 2 days left — on with Thursday! (You can see my day 3 notes here.) 09:57: The RTAudio codec suite is pretty cool. Finally found out why there’s all those new devices (like USB headsets) that are marked as Microsoft UC-compatible. Regular … Continue reading

Share
Posted in 3Sharp, Exchange, OCS | Leave a comment

Fighting PKI inertia

I’ve noticed something for a while now — people are really reluctant to install a proper PKI system. If you’re a Windows-based organization, I have three words for you: Get over it. The Windows Certificate Service (WCS) is powerful and … Continue reading

Share
Posted in 3Sharp, Exchange, OCS | 1 Comment

Liveblogging the Unified Communications Voice Ignite conference, day 3

Good morning! Back for day 3. (You can see my day 2 notes here.) 09:13: Back when I first started doing OCS, the vision included “hybrid“ gateway devices which included the Mediation Server role functionality in the gateway. Well, they exist … Continue reading

Share
Posted in 3Sharp, Exchange, OCS, PowerShell | 2 Comments

Liveblogging the Unified Communications Voice Ignite conference, day 2

Good morning! Back for day 2. (You can see my day 1 notes here.) 09:13: Talking about dialing requirements. Just heard the best explanation of E.164 I’ve heard — very simply, it’s a format for writing phone numbers that makes … Continue reading

Share
Posted in 3Sharp, Exchange, OCS | Leave a comment

Liveblogging the Unified Communications Voice Ignite conference, day 1

Greetings from Sydney, Australia, where I’ll be spending the next week (along with Kevin) at the UC Voice Ignite event. (If you’re one of my readers and you’re here too, look me up.) I want to capture some neat bits … Continue reading

Share
Posted in 3Sharp, Exchange, OCS | Leave a comment