Anderson Patricio Get-news Blog

Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Transport Server Role Architecture Diagrams

Anderson Patricio — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:29:56 GMT

Hi Folks,

The best way to understand a product is to study its architecture. If you want to learn a little bit more about Hub Transport, then this download is for you.

Many components are involved in the transport of messages through the Exchange Server 2010 mail flow pipeline. The Hub Transport server role diagram can help you understand the role each component plays in the processing of messages that enter the Exchange 2010 mail flow pipeline. Exchange administrators can use this information to help diagnose mail flow problems. The Hub Transport extensibility diagram can help you understand how the agents process a message that is in the Exchange 2010 mail flow pipeline. Developers can use this information to help create third-party agents and applications to work with Exchange 2010.

Get it here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=6eb8c09a-6ea4-442a-9faa-de33265ceb84&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MicrosoftDownloadCenter+%28Microsoft+Download+Center%29#tm

Cheers,
Anderson Patricio

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Installing Exchange Server 2010 pre-requisites on Windows Server 2008 R2 - Part 2

Anderson Patricio — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:46:46 GMT

Hi folks,

Bhargav Shukla (http://www.bhargavs.com) added the Filter Pack installation on the current script and now the script can download and install the Filter Pack.

Great job Bhargav and thanks for sharing this with the community. His blog entry with the script can be seen at his blog http://www.bhargavs.com/index.php/powershell/2009/11/script-to-install-exchange-2010-pre-requisites-for-windows-server-2008-r2/ and also saved his script on this location: http://cid-a9fab8a859bc28e5.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/Ex2010-PreRequisites-v2.ps1?ccr=6123

Cheers,
Anderson Patricio

Installing Exchange Server 2010 pre-requisites on Windows Server 2008 R2

Anderson Patricio — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 18:29:00 GMT

Hi folks,

If you have ever tried to use ServerManagerCMD on Windows Server 2008 R2 probably you will remember this message:

"Servermanagercmd.exe is deprecated, and is not guaranteed to be supported in future releases of Windows. We recommend that you use the Windows PowerShell cmdlets that are available for Server Manager"

So.. which means that we can use the XML files to install the pre-requisites but we should start using the new method which is PowerShell. In order to use PowerShell to add Windows Features we need to know three cmdlets: Get-WindowsFeature, Add-WindowsFeature and Remove-WindowsFeature. If you open a PowerShell prompt on your Windows Server 2008 R2 and you try it won't work because you must enable the modules first, you can accomplish that task using Import-Module ServerManager cmdlet.

Using Exchange Server 2010 documentation has all the code to install all features using PowerShell capabilities, you can find this information at this page: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb691354(EXCHG.140).aspx#WS08R2

I'm a kind of lazy guy and I always trt to create scripts to automate regular process like the Exchange Server 2010 pre-requisites. So, using Microsoft documentation I created a script that asks you what you want to install for each role, also configures the NetTCPPortSharing service and gives you the TinyURL to download the Office 2007 Converter. The script is really simple and it can be seen in the figure below:

Get it here: http://msmvps.com/media/p/1739558.aspx] and make sure to rename it to .ps1 before using it.

Get it here: http://cid-a9fab8a859bc28e5.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/Ex2010-PreRequisites.rename?sa=717015916 and make sure to rename it to .ps1 before using it.

Thanks to Phil Grainger and Robbie for telling me that MSMVPs.org required password to download. Thank you guys!

Cheers,
Anderson Patricio

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Exchange Server 2010 Deployment Assistant

Anderson Patricio — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:07:06 GMT

Hi folks,

MSExchange Team released a great tool to help mail administrators to move from their current environment to Exchange Server 2010. The name of this web interface tool is Exchange Deployment Assistant and it can be found at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-ca/exdeploy2010/default.aspx#Home.

At this point the only option available is Upgrade from Exchange Server 2003 and the other transition scenarios will be covered soon.

You will be asked a couple of questions about your environment and based on your answers you will have a list of steps to be performed and those tasks are explained step-by-step which makes really easy a migration procedure.

You can also send a lind of the current step by e-mail clicking on Send or download the checklist (Download Checklist link).

Cheers,
Anderson Patricio

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Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Server

Anderson Patricio — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:59:14 GMT

Microsoft Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Server (FPE) provides fast and effective protection against malware and spam by including multiple scanning engines from industry-leading security partners. It also integrates with Forefront Online Protection for Exchange to provide the defense-in-depth benefits of hosted and on-premise filtering in a single solution.

Get it here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=b8a7d36f-cc8d-4335-ae60-8f27c48f3a37&displaylang=en&hash=cAyQs16hHEBYVnB%2bP3agzqA51Mb0PGLnQg%2b%2bugdWiPe0six3xFieUb5SYqPaSRR9Nfw34kg6oUKYiufP%2fPqX0Q%3d%3d#filelist

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Exchange 2010 Mailbox Server Role Requirements Calculator

Anderson Patricio — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:49:55 GMT

Hi Folks,

MSExchangeTeam released the Storage Calculator for the new version just one day after the release of the RTM version.

The Exchange Mailbox Server role is arguably one of the most important roles within an Exchange deployment for it stores the data that users will ultimately access on a daily basis. Therefore, ensuring that you design the mailbox server role correctly is critical to your design.

With Exchange 2010 you can deploy a solution that leverages mailbox resiliency and has multiple database copies deployed across datacenters, implements single item recovery for data recovery, and has the flexibility in storage design to allow you to deploy on storage area networks utilizing fibre-channel or SATA class disks or on direct attached storage utilizing SAS or SATA class disks with or without RAID protection. But, in order to design your solution, you need to understand the following criteria:

User profile - the message profile, the mailbox size, and the number of users
High availability architecture - the number of database copies you plant to deploy, whether the solution will be site resilient, the desired number of mailbox servers
Server's CPU platform
Storage architecture - the disk capacity / type and storage solution
Backup architecture - whether to use hardware or software VSS and the frequency of the backups, or leverage the Exchange native data protection features
Network architecture - the utilization, throughput, and latency aspects

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Exchange Server 2010 RTM download available

Anderson Patricio — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:03:55 GMT

Hi folks,

Exchange Server 2010 RTM has just been released for download at Microsoft download site.

Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 helps IT Professionals achieve new levels of reliability with greater flexibility, enhanced user experiences, and increased protection for business communications.

Flexible and reliable - Exchange Server 2010 gives you the flexibility to tailor your deployment based on your company's unique needs and a simplified way to keep e-mail continuously available for your users.
Anywhere access - Exchange Server 2010 helps your users get more done by giving them the freedom to securely access all their communications - e-mail, voice mail, instant messaging, and more - from virtually any platform, Web browser, or device.
Protection and compliance - Exchange Server 2010 delivers integrated information loss prevention, and compliance tools aimed at helping you simplify the process of protecting your company's communications and meeting regulatory requirements.

This software is intended for evaluation purposes only. You must accept the license terms before you are authorized to use the software. There is no product support for this trial software. You are welcome to participate in the forums to share your trial experiences with others and to ask for advice.

Get it here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=05741f65-2a7b-4070-879f-d74208d6171d&displaylang=en&Hash=p7EU0gyhY4DEbH1Kipa3uP2uqNEJBU6x8oXNokye62E1aoNzVuAdGKn5z%2bpQxA0UMZ9tlXMiGQL%2bhmwYy1%2btbA%3d%3d

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Exchange Server 2007 will be supported on Windows Server 2008 R2

Anderson Patricio — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:58:55 GMT

Hi Folks,

If you are planning to upgrade your entire infrastructure to Windows Server 2008 R2, then Exchange Server 2007 (in case you still have it :)) won't be an issue. Today, it was posted a note about that in the MSExchangeTeam, as follows:

We always talk about listening to customers and sometimes this is written off by many as 'marketing speak'. In fact, we do take feedback seriously and no input is more important to our engineering processes than your voice.

Earlier this year we made a decision in one direction, and due to the feedback we have received on this blog and elsewhere, we have reconsidered. In the coming calendar year we will issue an update for Exchange 2007 enabling full support of Windows Server 2008 R2. We heard from many customers that this was important for streamlining their operations and reducing administrative challenges, so we have changed course and will add R2 support. We are still working through the specifics and will let you know once we have more to share on the timing of this update.

Talking about Windows Server 2008 R2 and UC products, at this point OCS 2007 R2 is not supported on Windows Server 2008 R2, so keep your OCS infrastructure running on Windows Server 2008 for now. :)

Cheers,
Anderson Patricio
http://msmvps.org/blogs/AndersonPatricio

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Programmatic Access via Remote PowerShell in Exchange Server 2010

Anderson Patricio — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:09:47 GMT

MSExchangeTeam posted about Remote PowerShell and some examples of scripts using remote access (exchange 2010) instead of local one (exchange 2007).

The management experience given by Exchange 2010 through PowerShell has been moved all the way from Local to Remote. This will mean that enterprise Admins will have to adjust their regular scripts to connect to Remote PowerShell instead of creating a local session.

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DAG in Exchange Server 2010

Anderson Patricio — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:45:56 GMT

Hello folks,

I've just read In the UC blog an entry where the UC team states that DAG will be supported on Exchange Server 2010 Standard Edition. Isn't that cool? :)

On the server side, Exchange Server Standard will now support high availability, so all customers can take full advantage of the new database availability group capabilities. Exchange Server Enterprise enables configurations with up to 100 databases per server.

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ForeFront Administrators: Action Required by Dec 1st

Anderson Patricio — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 19:35:36 GMT

Hi Folks,

If you use Antigen/ForeFront Security and you are using any of these engines: AhnLab, CA, Sophos and also SpamCure, then you must read the post that the ForeFront Team published. Basically, those ones won't be longer updated as explained below:

The AhnLab, CA, and Sophos engines will be retired on Dec. 1, 2009. After December 1^st, customers will not receive any updates for these retired engines. In order to make sure your Antigen and Forefront products continue to scan efficiently and effectively for malware, any customers running the AhnLab, CA, or Sophos engines must DISABLE these engines before Dec. 1, 2009 and select from the new set of five engines - Authentium, Kaspersky, Microsoft, Norman, and VirusBuster.

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Configuring DAG witness in a non-Exchange Server

Anderson Patricio — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:48:27 GMT

Hi folks,

Exchange Server 2010 is just around the corner and today we are going over the witness server/directory creation in a regular member server. The first question is why? Well, we already know that in this new release we can have only 2 servers and provide high availability for all roles the essential roles with those two servers. Remember that the same thing was accomplished with 4 servers in Exchange Server 2007 (2 CAS/HUB and 2 MBX - CCR).

However DAG witness has some requirements, such as: it cannot be a member of the DAG; must be in the same forest; it can run on top of Windows Server 2003/2008/2008 R2.

So, if you have only two Exchange Servers and wants to create a DAG a member server must be used as DAG witness server. In order to do that make sure that the group Exchange Trusted Subsystem is added to the local administrators of the server that will be the witness server, as shown in the figure below. After that you will be able to create a DAG using Exchange Management Console.

Cheers,
Anderson Patricio
http://msmvps.org/blogs/AndersonPatricio
http://www.andersonpatricio.org

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Exchange Server 2010 version-based routing

Anderson Patricio — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 03:10:18 GMT

Hi Folks,

Really nice post from MSExchangeTeam explaining the Exchange 2010 version-based routing. Long story short, Exchange 2010 Hub will communicate only with a Mailbox Exchange 2010, if you have an Exchange Server 2007 Mailbox a Hub 2007 is required to communicate with the legacy mailbox.

By now, you've seen a few of our Spotlight on Exchange 2010 postings. If you have, hopefully you're excited about the great work that has been going on to make Exchange 2010 the best version of Exchange yet. So then the practical side of you kicks in and starts to wonder what it is going to take to start utilizing these new features when the time comes. Certainly, rolling out a new version of Exchange is rarely an endeavor to be entered into lightly.

In the interest of making certain that you can begin planning early and as informed as possible, I want to call out a requirement that we had to put in place for Transport server roles in order to deliver a quality product with cool new features. This requirement is often referred to as "version-based routing" or just "versioned routing."

What this requirement means

Simply put, this requirement means that Exchange 2010 Hub Transport servers and Exchange 2010 Mailbox servers will only communicate with each other. Also, it means that Exchange 2007 Hub Transport servers and Exchange 2007 mailbox servers will only communicate with each other. However, any version Hub is able to communicate (via SMTP) to any other Hub server. So, for a user on Exchange 2007 to be able to send to a user on Exchange 2010 in the same site, the mail must pass through both Hub servers.

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ForeFront names .. confused? Don't be!

Anderson Patricio — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 18:13:00 GMT

Hi Folks,

Some of the ForeFront names, such as ForeFront Server Security Management Console, ForeFront Protection Manager, ILM or ForeFront Identity Manager make you crazy to figure out which is the name of current version and the next version? Well, the product family is not small and specially at this point they may cause some confusion with so many names.

This page can help you out to memorize the current product names and their future names: http://www.microsoft.com/Forefront/en/us/trial-software.aspx.

Cheers,
Anderson Patricio
http://msmvps.org/blogs/AndersonPatricio
http:/www.andersonpatricio.org

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How to renew the self-signed certificate using Exchange 2010 console

Anderson Patricio — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 13:14:38 GMT

Hi Folks,

Exchange Server 2010 introduced the certificate management through Exchange Management Console. In order to manage it, just expand Server Configuration and click on the required server on the left and on the bottom you will see certificates available for that server and at the Toolbox actions you will be able to all available options.

In this post we are going to renew the certificate created during the server installation. Let's click on Renew Exchange Certificate as shown in the figure above, and in the first wizard page we can select the services associated to the certificate.

The renew of the self-signed certiicate will overwrite the current certificate, the console requires a confirmation, just click Yes.

Then, a three step will be performed in background and the results will be displayed in the Completion page. Just click Finish and enjoy your new renewed certificate.

By the way, the process to renew the self-signed certificate using Exchange Management Shell was posted a long time ago but can still be used in Exchange 2010: http://msmvps.com/blogs/andersonpatricio/archive/2008/04/08/how-to-renew-a-built-in-certificate-in-exchange-server-2007.aspx

Cheers,
Anderson Patricio
http://msmvps.org/blogs/AndersonPatricio
http://www.andersonpatricio.org

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Download Microsoft Forefront Identity Manager 2010 RC1

Anderson Patricio — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 14:47:04 GMT

Forefront Identity Manager 2010 (FIM), formerly known as Identity Lifecycle Manager "2" delivers an integrated identity management solution with powerful self-service capabilities for Office end-users, rich administrative tools and enhanced automation for IT professionals and .NET and WS-* based extensibility for developers. FIM 2010 provides organizations with unique workflow driven solutions to manage user accounts, passwords, groups and distribution lists as well as certificate-based credentials such as smart cards, using identity-based policies that can span across Windows and heterogeneous environments. And when you download the latest beta software, you're automatically registered to access valuable resources assembled in one convenient location.

Microsoft Forefront Identity Manager 2010 is the official name for Microsoft Identity Lifecycle Manager "2". This was announced as part of Microsoft's strategy for Business Ready Security. You will continue to see the ILM "2" name for some time including in the software available below.

Get it from here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/cc872861.aspx

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DPM 2010 Beta available for download

Anderson Patricio — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 21:29:05 GMT

Hello folks,

DPM 2010 beta is available and this beta supports Exchange Server 2010 DAG protection! :)

Overview of DPM 2010: http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/dataprotectionmanager/en/us/2010beta-overview.aspx

You can download it from here: https://connect.microsoft.com/Downloads/DownloadDetails.aspx?SiteID=840&DownloadID=22070

Cheers,
Anderson Patricio
http://msmvps.org/blogs/AndersonPatricio
http://www.andersonpatricio.org

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Exchange Server 2010 and Dumpster 2.0

Anderson Patricio — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 15:54:21 GMT

Hi folks,

MSExchangeTeam blogged about the architectural changes in the Recover Deleted items in Exchange Server 2010.

Users often delete data from their mailboxes that they later want recovered. Recovery of these deleted items is the most common reason for IT admins to recover data from traditional point-in-time backups today.

With previous versions of Exchange Server, administrators implemented two solutions to enable single item recovery, dumpster and restores. Both had their issues, unfortunately.

Exchange 2010 aims to reduce the complexity and administrative costs associated with single item recovery.

Exchange Server 2010: Managing Archive feature #03

Anderson Patricio — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 19:42:17 GMT

Hi folks,

Continuing the Archive Mailbox Week.. Today, we are going to talk about Archive Mailbox Name and Quota.

Change the Archive Mailbox name...

Using Exchange Management Console, we can double click on an user and go to the Mailbox Features tab, and get Properties of Archive item.

Then, we can change the name of the Archive Mailbox ...

and the results can be seen on either Outlook Web App or Outlook 2010.

Changing the warning quota for the Archive Mailbox...

We can also use Exchange Management console to change que Quota Warning, we just need to go to Mailbox Settings and get properties of Archive Quota item.

On the new dialog box we can define the new arning threshold in MB. By the way, we don't have the total quota using GUI, if you want to do that, just use the following syntax: Set-Mailbox <UserName> -ArchiveQuota 2GB

Cheers,
Anderson Patricio
http://www.andersonpatricio.org
http://msmvps.org/blogs/AndersonPatricio

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Exchange Server 2010: Managing Archive feature #02

Anderson Patricio — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 16:07:29 GMT

Hi folks,

In the previous post we saw how to create an Archive Mailbox and also how to enable it in an existent mailbox. Today's post we are going to identify a mailbox that has an Archive Mailbox using Exchange Management Shell and Console and also how to get statistics from an Archive Mailbox.

Identifying an Archive Mailbox...

That is really easy, basically a Mailbox that has an Archive Mailbox has a different icon. We can notice that the user Anderson.Patricio has a different icon than a regular account (Lidiana.Patricio in this example)

We can also use Exchange Management Shell to retrieve that information, we just need the Archive attributes of the mailbox, then let's run the following cmdlet: Get-Mailbox <UserName> | Select archive* | fl. Again, we can notice the differences between those two users (Anderson.Patricio = Archive and Lidiana.Patricio = Just Mailbox).

Getting mailbox statistics from Archive Mailbox...

When the subject is archive the -Archive parameter does the trick as we saw in the previous post. In order to retrieve Mailbox statistics is the same rule, the following syntax will help us out:

Get-MailboxStatistics <UserName> -Archive

Cheers,
Anderson Patricio
http://msmvps.org/blogs/AndersonPatricio
http://www.andersonpatricio.org

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