Month: November 2009

#Exchange 2010 Training Day 1

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

#Exchange2010 … For the guys on the training here.

When you use the GUI wizard to create a new mailbox, there is a check box that says “Specify the mailbox database rather than using a database automatically selected” .. How does the database get automatically selected?  What criteria gets used?

  1. Gather all databases in the org
  2. Exclude any that are marked for exclusion
  3. Exclude any that are not in the same AD site as the provisioning server
  4. Pick one randomly – check if it’s “up” according to active manager. If yes, use it. If no, repeat step #4.

For #2 Set-MailboxDatabase -IsExcludedFromProvisioning:$True

The IsExcludedFromProvisioning parameter specifies that this database is permanently not considered by the mailbox provisioning load balancer. If the IsExcludedFromProvisioning parameter is enabled, new mailboxes aren’t added automatically to this database. You can manually add a mailbox if your role permits.

#Powershell Script to install #Exchange 2010 pre-requisites for Windows Server 2008 R2

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

Funky

Source: http://www.bhargavs.com/index.php/powershell/2009/11/script-to-install-exchange-2010-pre-requisites-for-windows-server-2008-r2/

 

Even though installing pre-requisites on Windows Server 2008 R2 is simple and straight forward as described here, it makes it even faster if you were to use a script to do so.

MVP Anderson Patricio recently published a script for the same. What the script did not do is what I took liberty to add. I am publishing entire script below with credit to Anderson where it is due.

..

Microsoft drops free migration tool for #Exchange 2010

by ucinfo, posted in Exchange, Flaphead, MsExchange

#Exchange2010 Humm..

Source: http://bit.ly/2cjtNW

IT shops moving off of IBM Domino servers or generic POP/IMAP sources and onto Exchange Server 2010 won’t be able to do it with free tools from Microsoft. The company isn’t offering the Transporter Suite for the new Exchange, leaving little choice but to buy expensive third party software.

The Microsoft Transporter Suite launched in 2007 as a free tool for migrating content from Lotus Domino servers or generic POP/IMAP servers to Exchange and Active Directory. Microsoft recently said it will not support the tools for Exchange Server 2010 because there are better third-party options.

The company said it would stop investing in the tools because most customers were already using more full featured tools from Microsoft partners, versus the free Exchange migration tool offered by Microsoft. “Based on this feedback, we decided not to continue investing in these basic, free tools, and instead switched our focus to helping customers understand the end-to-end solutions that are available through our partners,” according to the company.

BlackBerry Enterprise Server for Microsoft Exchange Version: 5.0 | Service Pack: 1

by , posted in BlackBerry, Exchange, Flaphead, Mobile, MsExchange

Interesting .. http://docs.blackberry.com/en/admin/deliverables/12039/BlackBerry_Enterprise_Server_for_Microsoft_Exchange-Release_Notes–934496-1104102201-001-5.0.1-US.pdf

Hightlight for me is: Support for Microsoft Exchange Web Services.  You can configure the BlackBerry Enterprise Server to use Microsoft Exchange Web Services instead of MAPI and CDO libraries to manage calendars on BlackBerry devices. You configure support for Microsoft Exchange Web Services using the BlackBerry Enterprise Trait Tool. To configure the BlackBerry Enterprise Server to use Microsoft Exchange Web Services, your organization’s environment must use Microsoft Exchange 2007 SP1 or later.

BlackBerry Enterprise Server for Microsoft Exchange Version: 5.0 | Service Pack: 1

by ucinfo, posted in BlackBerry, Exchange, Flaphead, Mobile, MsExchange

Interesting .. http://docs.blackberry.com/en/admin/deliverables/12039/BlackBerry_Enterprise_Server_for_Microsoft_Exchange-Release_Notes–934496-1104102201-001-5.0.1-US.pdf

Hightlight for me is: Support for Microsoft Exchange Web Services.  You can configure the BlackBerry Enterprise Server to use Microsoft Exchange Web Services instead of MAPI and CDO libraries to manage calendars on BlackBerry devices. You configure support for Microsoft Exchange Web Services using the BlackBerry Enterprise Trait Tool. To configure the BlackBerry Enterprise Server to use Microsoft Exchange Web Services, your organization’s environment must use Microsoft Exchange 2007 SP1 or later.

#VMware #ESX 4.0 Update 1 and VMware vCenter Server 4.0 Update 1

by ucinfo, posted in Flaphead, Virtualisation

Thanks Virtual Commander for the links: http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/vs_pages/vsp_pubs_esx40_u1_vc40_u1.html

-and-

http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2009/11/20/vsphere-esxvcenter-4-0-update-1/

What’s new?

The following information provides highlights of some of the enhancements available in this release of VMware ESX:

VMware View 4.0 support – This release adds support for VMware View 4.0, a solution built specifically for delivering desktops as a managed service from the protocol to the platform.

Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2 support –This release adds support for 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows 7 as well as 64-bit Windows 2008 R2 as guest OS platforms. In addition, the vSphere Client is now supported and can be installed on a Windows 7 platform.

Enhanced Clustering Support for Microsoft Windows – Microsoft Cluster Server (MSCS) for Windows 2000 and 2003 and Windows Server 2008 Failover Clustering is now supported on an VMware High Availability (HA) and Dynamic Resource Scheduler (DRS) cluster in a limited configuration. HA and DRS functionality can be effectively disabled for individual MSCS virtual machines as opposed to disabling HA and DRS on the entire ESX/ESXi host.

Enhanced VMware Paravirtualized SCSI Support – Support for boot disk devices attached to a Paravirtualized SCSI ( PVSCSI) adapter has been added for Windows 2003 and 2008 guest operating systems. Floppy disk images are also available containing the driver for use during the Windows installation by selecting F6 to install additional drivers during setup. Floppy images can be found in the /vmimages/floppies/ folder.

Improved vNetwork Distributed Switch Performance – Several performance and usability issues have been resolved resulting in the following:

  • Improved performance when making configuration changes to a vNetwork Distributed Switch (vDS) instance when the ESX/ESXi host is under a heavy load
  • Improved performance when adding or removing an ESX/ESXi host to or from a vDS instance

Increase in vCPU per Core Limit – The limit on vCPUs per core has been increased from 20 to 25. This change raises the supported limit only. It does not include any additional performance optimizations. Raising the limit allows users more flexibility to configure systems based on specific workloads and to get the most advantage from increasingly faster processors. The achievable number of vCPUs per core depends on the workload and specifics of the hardware. Processor 3400 Series – Support for the Xeon processor 3400 series has been added.

Resolved Issues – In addition, this release delivers a number of bug fixes that have been documented in the Resolved Issues section.

The Total Economic Impact Of Microsoft #Exchange 2010

by ucinfo, posted in Exchange, Flaphead, MsExchange

#Exchange2010 .. Planning on deploying Exchange 2010? .. You have got to check this out:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/7/5/0/75068B44-0A70-4BBF-9824-01ECF076F7AE/TheTotalEconomicImpact_pdf_11042009.pdf

Some highlights are:

  • “Lorimer” is Forresters made up company
  • the ROI for our composite company, computed from hard benefits, is 48% with a breakeven point (payback period) of less than six months after deployment.
  • Exchange 2010 does not require Exchange Server Enterprise Edition for email resiliency. Therefore Lorimer is able to replace their Exchange Server Enterprise Edition licenses with Exchange Server Standard Edition. The cost for this is $411 per server annually for each of the three years.
  • The Helpdesk training cost on pg 15 seem a bit low to me?
  • “We found over three years that we would save $5.1 million, mostly by avoiding the cost of third-party archiving and compliance, but also . . . from storage savings.”
  • Based on Forrester’s conservative estimate, Lorimer should save approximately $64,100 annually on storage costs.
  • Using standard industry defaults, Forrester believes Lorimer to save approximately $45,000 annually from retiring traditional PBX voicemail systems from each of its three office locations.