June 2008 - Posts
You can download this neat eBook if you register for Simple-Talk Exchange Newsletter.
"For a limited period, we've teamed up to offer you a FREE copy of "Sybex's Best of Exchange Server 2007" e-Book, comprising 10 chapters, and 350 pages of in-depth Exchange knowledge, compiled from five of Wiley's most popular Exchange 2007 books."
Table of Contents:
- Mastering Exchange Server 2007 - Barry Gerber, Jim McBee
- Chapter 2: Exchange Server Architecture
- Chapter 6: Scaling Upward and Outward
- Exchange Server 2007 Infrastructure Design: A Service-Oriented Approach - David W. Tschanz
- Chapter 4: Applying Planning Principles to Exchange Sever 2007
- Exchange Server 2007 Implementation & Administration - Jim McBee, Benjamin Craig
- Chapter 2: Exchange Server Administration
- Chapter 4: Installing Exchange Server 2007
- Chapter 12: Sizing Storage Groups and Databases
- MCITP: Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Messaging, Design and Deployment Study Guide (Exams 70-237 & 70-238) - Rawlinson Rivera
- Chapter 5: Defining Policies and Security Procedures
- Chapter 10: Planning a Backup and Recovery Solution for Exchange Server 2007
- Chapter 15: Planning Exchange Server 2007 Security
- MCTS: Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Configuration Study Guide (Exam 70-236) - Will Schmied, Kevin Miller
- Chapter 10: Creating, Managing Highly Available Exchange Server Solutions
The long awaited updated version (v6.0.6278.12) of the Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Management Pack for System Center Operations Manager 2007 was finally released!
The MP comes with a nice technical guide with detailed instructions about its installation and configuration.
Brief Description
This management pack includes scripts and rules to effectively monitor Exchange 2007 and report on performance, availability, and reliability of its server roles.
Overview
The Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 management pack is designed to be used for monitoring Exchange 2007 events, collecting Exchange component-specific performance counters in one central location, and for raising alerts for operator intervention as necessary. By detecting, sending alerts, and automatically responding to critical events, this management pack helps indicate, correct, and prevent possible service outages or configuration problems, allowing you to proactively manage Exchange servers and identify issues before they become critical. The management pack monitors and provides alerts for automatic notification of events indicating service outages, performance degradation, health monitoring, and centralized management.
This Management Pack requires Operations Manager 2007 Service Pack 1.
This Management Pack requires the Operations Manager 2007 updates specified in Knowledge Base articles 950853, 951979 and 951380 (see the Management Pack Guide for details).
Release History:
- 10/9/2007 - Initial Release, version 6.0.5000.0
- 6/22/2007 - Updated Release, version 6.0.6278.12
List of updates:
- All updates included in the 08.01.0240.001 version of the Exchange Server 2007 SP1 Management Pack for Microsoft Operations Manager 2005, except updates relating to reports.
- Overrides were documented in the Management Pack Guide for the LDAP Search Time and Failure DSNs Total rules and monitors.
- The management pack was updated to support the renamed performance counters in Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1. Performance counters for the Database object were renamed to MSExchange Database.
- The management pack was updated to support non-default names of the Reporting data warehouse.
- The OWA Connectivity performance view was updated to show performance data.
- Fixed an issue where cluster virtual servers where discovered as type Microsoft Exchange 2007 Mailbox Servers Installation.
- The Management Pack was updated so that alerts are correctly generated for events logged by physical cluster nodes in an Exchange Server 2007 cluster.
- Fixed an issue where the Exchange cluster virtual servers were discovered as type Microsoft Exchange 2007 Mailbox Servers – Physical Computers Installation.
- The Microsoft_Exchange_Server_Exchange_2007_Mailbox_Replication_Health_Test_ReplicationHealth_Events view was updated to target the Microsoft.Exchange.2007.Microsoft_Exchange_2007_Mailbox_Servers___Physical_Computers_ComputerGroup.
- The reports were updated to support non-US locales on the Reporting Server.
- The date/time picker was added to the reports, allowing for more flexibility in report scheduling.
- The Failure and Delay DSNs Total monitors were updated to look for deltas. Previously, the monitors measured the averages for the sampling interval.
- Fixed an issue where the cluster virtual servers were discovered as type Microsoft Exchange 2007 All Servers Installation.
Besides the Exchange webcasts I announced some time ago, you may be interested in these additional ones:
- FunCast: Recovery Storage Group - Interested in knowing more about the Recovery Storage Group in Exchange 2007? Have a look at a new posted recorded "funcast" by Ilse Van Criekinge.
- Podcast: Exchange PowerShell with Ilse Van Criekinge - Today we’ll be speaking to noted Exchange MVP, trainer, and author Ilse van Criekinge. Also on tap: news, resources, and a bunch of PowerShell tips for you.
- Webcast: High Availability in Exchange Server 2007 SP1 (Part 1 of 2): CCR vs. Other High Availability Solutions (Level 300) - Are you digging out your backups every time there is a failure? Are you paying a lot for hardware replication that promises zero data loss? Join us in this webcast to learn about the advantages of cluster continuous replication (CCR) over other high availability solutions and get a deep dive into CCR internals.
- Webcast: How Microsoft IT uses the Exchange Hosted Services to Protect the Messaging Environment (Level 300) - Microsoft deploys and supports more than 130,000 Exchange Server mailboxes for the global organization. All mail delivered to mailboxes@microsoft.com is first routed through Exchange Hosted Services, a hosted service that filters mail for spam and viruses and enforces corporate e-mail policies “in the cloud” before the mail reaches the Microsoft corporate network. This session describes Microsoft IT deployment, including server configuration and implementation, collecting server evidence, and lessons learned from deployment. Exchange Hosted Services is a service offering to enterprises that currently serves over 10,000 customers and processes 3.5 billion messages across the EHS global network.
SolarWinds released recently a free Microsoft Exchange monitoring tool.
"SolarWinds free Exchange Monitor is a clever desktop dashboard that continuously monitors Microsoft Exchange to deliver real-time insight into Exchange services, mail queue sizes, and host server health.
SolarWinds free Exchange Monitor makes it easy to:
- Quickly identify and troubleshoot Exchange server problems, preventing email delays and calendaring issues
- Spot growing mail queues that can indicate bigger issues, like transport failures, Internet connection failures, and virus activity
- Leverage out-of-the-box settings based on best practices to start monitoring Exchange immediately
- Prevent performance issues before they impact users with built-in red, yellow, and green health indicators
- Monitor critical server health indicators, including disk space, CPU utilization, and memory utilization to ensure optimal hardware functionality."
This is how the tool looks like:
When you first run it, you're presented with a window to configure the desired threshold and what services to monitor:
Related links:
The Exchange Web Services Windows Vista Gadget Sample Application is available to download from the Microsoft site.
Overview
The Exchange Web Services Windows Vista Gadget sample application uses Exchange Web Services to retrieve Inbox, Calendar, and Task information from a user's Exchange 2007 mailbox. This sample application enables you to do the following:
- View your latest e-mail messages, upcoming appointments, and tasks.
- Page through your Inbox.
- Open items in a fly-out window.
- Open items in Outlook Web Access.
- Mark messages as read or unread.
- Delete messages.
The Pro-Exchange site has a good review about this gadget.
There are a couple of other related samples that you might be interested in:
- Unified Messaging Web Service Sample - The Unified Messaging Web Service Sample describes how to create proxy classes that interact with the Unified Messaging Web service. The proxy classes make it easier to implement the interaction between the client and the Web service.
- TimeChangeType Extension Sample - The TimeChangeType Extension Sample extends the TimeChangeType that implements IXmlSerializable to create an IXmlSerializable partial class.
- Exchange Server 2007 Legacy API Property Mapping - The Exchange Server 2007 Legacy API Property Mapping download includes a spreadsheet that maps WebDAV/CDOEX properties to Exchange Web Services properties. You can use the information in the spreadsheet to migrate your WebDAV/CDOEX–based applications to Exchange Web Services in Exchange 2007.
Installing Exchange Server 2007 can be a little tricky and sometimes even frustrating. That's why I rejoiced when I found out this wonderful technical guide, written by Microsoft Customer Service and Support: Exchange Server 2007 Setup Architecture and Troubleshooting.
Brief Description
This document is a step-by-step guide to help end users install Exchange Server 2007.
Overview
Exchange Server 2007 Setup Architecture and Troubleshooting was written by Microsoft Customer Service and Support to prepare Support Engineers who are assisting customers installing Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1 (SP1). We hope that you find the step-by-step approach useful and appreciate any feedback.
Although the Exchange Server TechCenter has lots of high quality technical information, this document condenses the most important steps required for a successful setup, and also provides some additional tips. For instance, the troubleshooting chapter suggests that you format the output of the Exchange Setup log file to HTML:
To enhance output, output can be directed to HTML using the OUT-HTML and OUT-IE scripts using the following command:
Get-SetupLog –tree:$false –error:$false | Where { $_.status –eq “Error” } | select datetime, depth, description, status | Out-HTML | Out-IE
And here's a personal tip: I like to follow the setup progress using the Tail utility, from the Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools:
Tail -f C:\ExchangeSetupLogs\ExchangeSetup.log
Ross Smith IV announced at the Microsoft Exchange Team Blog that the Exchange 2007 Mailbox Server Role Storage Requirements Calculator v14.7 has been released and that it includes some major improvements.
According to the updates tracking page at the You Had Me At EHLO blog, some of the new enhancements and features are:
- Usability enhancements
- New Storage Design worksheet
- Bug fixes
To get the detailed instructions on how to use it, read Exchange 2007 Mailbox Server Role Storage Requirements Calculator.
The July edition of TechNet Magazine is now available online or, if you prefer, you can download as an HTML Help .chm file for offline reading.
Although IIS 7.0 is the star of the front cover, there are a couple of Communications and Collaboration articles, featuring OCS 2007 and Exchange Server 2007.
I would like to highlight the following articles:
Hyper-V really rocks! Period.
Migrating my VMs to Hyper-V has given me the opportunity to test new scenarios, namely to finally have x64 machines with Exchange Server 2007. And it was during one of my latest installations that I faced an interesting challenge: to install an Exchange Server 2007 on Windows Server 2008 x64, that was also a Domain Controller.
Let me first remind you that installing Exchange on a DC (which is also a Global Catalog) is not a recommended solution, since you can face some challenges, as the ones described in KB940845.
But my problems started during installation. Let me give you some more details. It all began when I decided to install Exchange Server 2007 SP1 on a brand new Windows Server 2008 x64 virtual machine. After following the steps to accomplish the necessary prerequisites to install Exchange Server 2007, as described on this TechNet article, I kicked the Exchange setup.
It all seemed well, when suddenly the setup process stopped with the error: Service 'MSExchangeTransport' failed to reach status 'Running' on this server.
My next logical step was to examine Application Event Log, where I found the following events:
Source: MSExchange ADAccess
Event ID: 2114
Task Category: Topology
Level: Error
Description:
Process MSEXCHANGEADTOPOLOGYSERVICE.EXE (PID=1784). Topology discovery failed, error 0x80040a02 (DSC_E_NO_SUITABLE_CDC). Look up the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) error code specified in the event description. To do this, use Microsoft Knowledge Base article 218185, "Microsoft LDAP Error Codes." Use the information in that article to learn more about the cause and resolution to this error. Use the Ping or PathPing command-line tools to test network connectivity to local domain controllers.
Source: MSExchange ADAccess
Event ID: 2604
Task Category: General
Level: Error
Description:
Process MSEXCHANGEADTOPOLOGY (PID=1784). When updating security for a remote procedure call (RPC) access for the Exchange Active Directory Topology service, Exchange could not retrieve the security descriptor for Exchange server object E2K7-X64 - Error code=80040a01.
The Exchange Active Directory Topology service will continue with limited permissions.
Event ID: 2601
Source: MSExchange ADAccess
Category: General
Type: Warning
Description: Process MSEXCHANGEADTOPOLOGY (PID=1784). When initializing a remote procedure call (RPC) to the Microsoft Exchange Active Directory Topology service, Exchange could not retrieve the SID for account <WKGUID=DC1301662F547445B9C490A52961F8FC,CN=Microsoft Exchange,CN=Services,CN=Configuration,...> - Error code=80040a01. The Microsoft Exchange Active Directory Topology service will continue starting with limited permissions.
After doing some research on the Internet, I finally came to the conclusion that the problem was related with IPv6 being disabled on the Network Properties.
Exchange Server 2007 needs IPv6 in order to run on Windows Server 2008 (unless you completely disable IPv6). There are a lot of components that depend on IPv6, as you can check on TechNet: IPv6 Support in Exchange 2007 SP1.
If you decide to completely disable IPv6, follow these steps that David Chen described on TechNet Forums (I didn't test it):
- Open Registry with "Regedit"
- HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip6\Parameters
- Create a dword (32-bit) value and name it as "Disabled Components" and then click OK
- Double click "Disabled Components" and type 0xffffffff(hexadecimal value) or 4294967295 (Decimal value)
Please note: The above value 0xffffffff(hexadecimal value) or 4294967295 (Decimal value) will disable all IPv6 components, except the IPv6 loopback interface.
Although some people suggest that you must configure a fixed IPv6 address (like Alexander Zammit), I left the default settings (obtain an IPv6 address automatically), restarted the setup process and it went smooth like a breeze.
Microsoft Tech·Ed EMEA 2008 is now open for registration.
As usual the event is divided in two parts: Tech·Ed EMEA 2008 IT Professionals and Tech·Ed EMEA 2008 Developers.
Be a part of this year’s Tech·Ed EMEA 2008 IT Professionals, 3-7 November 2008, in the CCIB, Barcelona, Spain.
Microsoft Tech·Ed EMEA 2008 IT Professionals is the Microsoft premier technical education conference just for IT professionals. For five days, you and 5,000 of your peers will learn how to architect, plan, deploy, manage and secure a connected enterprise from Microsoft experts and industry leaders. Experience more than ever before at Tech·Ed EMEA 2008 IT Professionals.
Be a part of this year’s Tech·Ed EMEA 2008 Developers, 10-14 November 2008, in the CCIB, Barcelona, Spain.
Microsoft Tech·Ed EMEA 2008 Developers is the Microsoft premier technical education conference just for developers. For five days, you and more than 4,000 of your peers have countless opportunities to explore about the latest cutting-edge technologies from Microsoft.
For a Super Early Bird discount (€300€) register before 31 July!
Following my yesterday's post about a GUI tool, I would like to announce a new one from Glen Scales: Version 5 of the Mailbox Size Gui Script for Exchange 2007 (click the picture to enlarge).
Getting mailbox sizes was so easy using the old Exchange 2003 System Manager. This is one of the features that messaging administrators most miss.
For all the PowerShell junkies out there, this a simple task (check this post by Devin Ganger and this one at the ExchangeNinjas site), but if you're more a GUI kind of guy (like me) you'll really appreciate this neat tool from Glen.
Keep those babies coming Glen!
Glen wrote this fantastic piece of code that I've been planning to write about for ages! This PowerShell script, Exchange 2007 Content Agent Log Message Tracker Gui, allows you to easily find any message that went through the Content Filtering Agent.
Although it's possible to manage the antispam agent logs using plain PowerShell, as Bharat explains so well in his post Exchange Server 2007: Managing And Filtering Anti-Spam Agent Logs, for those of you who don't like the command line, the script from Glen Scales can really be a life safer.
Here's how the GUI looks like (click image to enlarge):
From Glen's own words:
- There are textboxes to allows you to search based on the from and/or To address.
- There is a drop down list to allow you to select a SCL level to look at so you can choose to filter by only messages that have been assigned a specific SCL value.
- The Extra sections has the aggregate options. Currently it has four aggregate option it can aggregate:
- By SCL this shows you by SCL Value how many messages where received between the dates specified
- By Receiver will show you grouped by receiver how many messages have been received for each SCL value
- By Sender will show you grouped by Sender(P1) how many messages have been received for each SCL value
- By Date will show you by Date how many messages have been received for each SCL value.
If you download the script and save it at "%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft\Exchange Server\Scripts\", you can create a shortcut to run it, using this command:
%windir%\system32\windowspowershell\v1.0\powershell.exe -PSConsoleFile "C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\bin\exshell.psc1" -command ". 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\Scripts\cagentTracker.ps1'"
If you are eager to get more reports from the Agent logs, out of the box Exchange has some good PowerShell scripts that can help you achieve the results you want. Again, Bharat has done a wonderful job explaining them: Keeping tabs on Antispam filters: A few handy scripts in Exchange Server 2007.
Some of you may have noticed that I no longer exhibit the MVP logo on the left side bar of this blog.
There's a good reason for that. I joined Microsoft a couple of weeks ago, or as we say it in MVP jargon, I took the red pill.
I'm now a Technology Solution Specialist for Core UC, meaning that I have the opportunity to dedicate myself to 2 of the most exciting Microsoft Technologies: Exchange and OCS.
Being an MVP was one of the most fantastic experiences of my life, I met fantastic people, some of them became friends for life, I know for sure.
I encourage everybody to start participating in some technical community: start a blog, respond to newsgroups, write technical articles... There are so many ways that can make you part of this group of passionate and outstanding people, so what are you waiting for?
[UPDATE]
The Great Place To Work Institute has just announced Microsoft as Europe’s Best Workplace 2008. How cool is that?