Month: August 2008

Two Exchange Server Tools You Should Know About

by ucinfo, posted in Exchange, Flaphead, Monitoring, MsExchange

Christophe sent me a link to this .. a couple of new tools I have not played with ;-)

Source: http://windowsitpro.com/article/articleid/100132/two-exchange-server-tools-you-should-know-about.html

One of the great things about working with Exchange Server is the wealth of available support tools. For virtually every area of administration or management, you can find tools—some commercial, and some free; some from Microsoft, some from third party vendors—that make your life easier

…

The first tool is the Performance Analysis of Logs (PAL) tool

The second tool .. is a set of tools and associated processes for figuring out what’s happening on an Exchange server given a set of transaction log files

Monitoring Without System Center Operations Manager

by ucinfo, posted in Exchange, Flaphead, Monitoring, MsExchange

Interesting topic on Technet

Source: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc671175(EXCHG.80).aspx

This topic provides guidance about the most useful performance counters to monitor that are common among all Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 server roles. When monitoring Exchange 2007 servers, you should know which performance aspects are most important. The common counters and threshold values detailed in this topic can be used to proactively identify potential issues and help identify the root cause of issues when troubleshooting.

Microsoft AV Scan Engine Updating Issue

by ucinfo, posted in Exchange, Flaphead, MsExchange, Security

Interesting but Oooops! .. I like the note at the end “Microsoft will not be providing any hotfixes, engine updates, or program fixes to automatically correct this issue.”

Source: http://blogs.technet.com/fss/archive/2008/08/28/microsoft-av-scan-engine-updating-issue.aspx

Microsoft is aware of an issue with the Microsoft AV engine not updating on some installations of Antigen and Forefront Server Security products. Not all installations of the products are experiencing this issue, however all products may be affected.

The issue arose because the aveMicrosoft.dll in one of the Microsoft AV engine updates was marked as hidden, causing all subsequent updates to fail when attempting to delete this file. When that occurs, the engine is rolled back.   This means that installations experiencing this problem are running with an outdated version of the Microsoft AV engine.

Cisco to Buy Exchange-Alternative Vendor PostPath

by ucinfo, posted in Exchange, Flaphead, MsExchange

I saw this up on Henrik’s blog .. yeah you might say  W H A T E V E R, but actually have a scout around the PostPath website is quite interesting.

The Cisco site says has the usual stuff “The acquisition of PostPath complements our strategy to develop an integrated collaboration platform designed for how we work today and into the future, providing real productivity gains and a more satisfying user experience!”

… “PostPath offers a Linux-based e-mail, calendaring and collaboration solution. It is interoperable with many other e-mail solutions and provides a browser-independent AJAX Web client. In addition, PostPath’s software is compatible with a number of mobile clients.”

But what is interesting is this Linux Exchange Server.  Now I haven’t seen it, but the site says:

Until recently, if you wanted a Linux Exchange Server solution for your organization you were out of luck. Microsoft does not offer a Linux Exchange Server product, and neither did anyone else. Until now.

The PostPath Server provides that Linux Exchange Server solution. Fully compatible with both Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft Outlook, the PostPath Server is a drop-in Exchange replacement. To both Microsoft Exchange servers and Outlook clients, the PostPath Server appears to be another Exchange server.

Whereas other Linux solutions to Outlook connectivity require Outlook to have plugins installed on all the clients, the PostPath Server is compatible at the protocol level. This means that Outlook interacts with the PostPath Server as though it were a Microsoft Exchange server, with all the features of Outlook enabled, without the need for any third-party plugins.

Microsoft does not offer a Linux Exchange Server. With PostPath Server, you don’t need one.

 

I will have a dig and see if I can get an eval! .. The oulook bit could be intersting too

Exchange 2007 Mailbox Server Role Storage Requirements Calculator

by ucinfo, posted in Exchange, Flaphead, MsExchange, Powershell

I am sure you all know there is a new Storage Calculator out in the wild not, ver 15.6

I have downloaded and read the article and found a need to pass this script on to you all.  Basically about half way down is a link to Collectlogs VBS script

Come on! a VBS .. must be able to do that in PowerShell ;-) .. Well you sure can, and here is how!

PARAM ($InServer)
If ($InServer -eq $Null) {$InServer = Hostname}

$SGs = Get-StorageGroup -Server $InServer
ForEach ($SG in $SGs)
{
 $x = $SG.LogFolderPath
 $xLogpath  = “\$InServer“
 $xLogpath += $x
 $xLogpath  = $xLogpath.Replace(“:”,”$”)
 Write-Host $xLogPath
 $xLogFiles = [system.io.directory]::getfiles($xLogpath,”*.log”)
 $xLogFileCnt = $xLogFiles.Count
 Write-Host “Number of Log Files: $xLogFileCnt”
}

Quick & dirty .. Save the script and run it with or without a server name an it will give you the number of .log files in the each storage group directory! Sweeeeeet

Exchange 2007: Offline Address Book

by ucinfo, posted in Exchange, Flaphead, MsExchange, Powershell

So been automating some global configuration in Exchange 2007 today and wanted to share this.  I need to enable web distribution of the oab and couldn’t find the Powershell “check box”.  But cracked it.  You need to just populate the VirtualDirectories entry and it “checks” the Enable Web-bases distribution.

The cheat was this:

$xOABs = Get-ClientAccessServer | Get-OabVirtualDirectory

Set-OfflineAddressBook ‘Default Offline Address Book’ -VirtualDirectories $xOABs

So we get all the CAS servers and pipe that to get the OAB Virtual Directories and then put that in to a variable ($xOABs)

Then we update the Default Offline Address Book using the $xOABs list of OAB Virtual Directories ;-)

Microsoft Virtualization and Licensing Announcements

by ucinfo, posted in Exchange, Flaphead, Microsoft, MsExchange

Interesting

Source: http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2008/08/19/449621.aspx

Today Microsoft announced some significant changes to its licensing and support policies for applications in hardware virtualization environments. There are two key parts of the announcement worth highlighting for Exchange customers:

  1. Microsoft now supports Exchange Server 2007 SP1 running Hyper-V or hypervisors validated under the Microsoft Server Virtualization Validation Program (SVVP).
  2. Microsoft is waiving its 90-day license reassignment policy to enable customers who virtualize Exchange to move their licenses between servers within a data farm as often as necessary.