WSSRA : Microsoft Online Services

Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 3 released

Thomas K.H. Bittner — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 06:33:28 GMT

This is a mandatory service pack to run Exchange 2013 in the same organization. And mandatory to run Exchange 2010 on Windows Server 2012.

Several other enhancements have been implemented now. So also Internet Explorer 10 is supported to use for Exchange mailbox access.

More details here.

Microsoft Exchange PST Capture

Thomas K.H. Bittner — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 08:20:03 GMT

Now it is available. Discover PST files on your network and import it automatically into users mailboxes On-Premise or Exchange Online.

Download here, and be able to stay compliant and follow your achiving and retention rules.

Exchange Display Names as email addresses on Hybrid Environments

Thomas K.H. Bittner — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 09:41:47 GMT

If you don’t take care, that the on premise and the 365 cloud Exchange of your organization is not well connected via a dedicated TLS connection, you will get into thsi issue when user display names are shown as email addresses.

Read the following article, which discuss this issue and how to take care to avoid occuring this on such environments:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/hot/archive/2012/01/09/display-names-appear-as-email-addresses-in-cloud-when-sent-from-on-premise.aspx

DNS Server service refuse name resolution on Windows Server 2008 R2

Thomas K.H. Bittner — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 10:54:23 GMT

It has been already from nearly two years ago, that under certain circumstances DNS Server service on Windows Server 2008 R2 refuse to resolve internet domain name addresses.

This issue occurs if Windows Server 2008 R2 DNS Server is used without forwarders configured, just relying on root hints entries querying for internet domain name resolution.

The issue was, that after a while the DNS Server service can’t handle the catched entries on the DNS cache and refuse name resolution.

Now Microsoft published a hotfix to fix this issue, which was still persistent on Windows Server 2008 R2 with Service Pack 1.

Get the hotfix here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2508835

Exchange 2010 Hybrid Deployments

Thomas K.H. Bittner — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 16:02:29 GMT

With Exchange 2010 SP2 you received the new Hybrid Configuration Wizard included as an enhancement of Exchange Management Console (EMC) and with additional cmdlets on Exchange Management Shell (EMS).

The new wizard will guide, verify and configure for you many former manual steps.

Read the articles on TechNet about Hybrid Deployments here

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg577584.aspx

What is new in Exchange 2010 Service Pack 2

Thomas K.H. Bittner — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 20:16:19 GMT

… read the article on TechNet here

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh529924.aspx

You will find some very useful features now implemented. Read carefully about Mailbox Replication Service, as it will support you now on your way to Office365 more seamless.

Also the Hybrid Configuration Manager will support you on local and Office365 Exchange Organizations.

For those who hosting Exchange 2010, now additional features available with SP2 which have been missing for long time. Follow the link for the Exchange 2010 SP2 hosting guidance document.

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=28192

Exchange 2010 Service Pack 2 available

Thomas K.H. Bittner — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 09:44:22 GMT

You can download it from here

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=28190

Exchange 2010 SP2 is a complete installation software pack, so for new Exchange installations, you can use it to start with from scratch.

Also when you use it for updating your current installations, be aware that you need Schema- and/or Organisaiton Administrator rights, because it contains a Schema update for your Active Directory.

And this Schema update needs to be execute in the domain where the Schema Master Role exist. So run setup /prepareAD not in the domain where you operate your Exchange Servers, it will not work. You need to go to the root domain, if there is the Schema Master or you have to move the Schema Master on to a domain controller in the domain where you operate your Exchange environment.

And remember that you should wait for replication across your AD after you’ve performed the Exchange 2010 SP2 Schema update.

During you’re waiting for replication, you can use the time to install the ‘IIS 6 WMI Compatibility’ feature. It is mandatory for your following Exchange 2010 SP2 installation, because of the new ‘Outlook Mini’ feature, which requires this feature on your CAS server roles.

Schedule

5 minutes for /prepareAD
15 minutes for replication (more if you have higher replication times set on your site links)
5 minutes for feature prerequisits
30 minutes for finishing SP2 setup per system

so you should be through with it within a hour for your first system and schedule 30 minutes for every following systems …

Reboot after SP2 installation should not be necessary.

And think about to disable Anti Virus Scanning on the box you’re going to perform Exchange 2010 SP2 Setup for upgrade.

Read the prerequisits before starting your installation

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb691354.aspx

Active Directory .local domain design and the Cloud

Thomas K.H. Bittner — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 10:51:33 GMT

In the past many IT architects designed the Active Directory namespace with .local domain. Even Microsoft distribute their best practises to not design this way but use common domain namespace.

Many administrators argued to be more save with a .local AD namespace. But security is not the option.

Now today this becomes an issue when you want to connect your AD namespace with cloud environment.

I’ve found the article from Mark Parris and I recommend you have look at it and be aware of this issue.

http://markparris.co.uk/2011/03/08/active-directory-local-domain-design-and-office-365/

Workflow Engine on the Cloud

Thomas K.H. Bittner — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 08:11:22 GMT

For a workflow engine on the cloud you need following modules:

SharePoint Developer Daschboard (can be activated with STSADM.EXE)

BizTalk for Integration of Services

SharePoint for Human Interaction

AppFabric for Business Process Integration

SharePoint Explorer (available on CodePlex to show a Directory and Folder structure View)

BizTalk Feature Pack with Extensions for AppFabric Endpoint in the cloud; works like a Reverse Proxy.

Office365 SharePoint Migrator

Thomas K.H. Bittner — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 07:05:00 GMT

Microsoft Partner MessageOps has provided a tool to move content from an On-Premise SharePoint into Office365 in the cloud.

More details here.

Microsoft System Center Advisor

Thomas K.H. Bittner — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 20:09:33 GMT

The public available Release Candidate has new features:

Windows Server, Hyper-V host, and Active Directory analysis – Analyze and see alerts for these workloads on your Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2 installations.

Multi-User support – Multiple users can access a single Advisor account.

Email Notifications – You will now receive weekly roll-up emails of alerts and changes in your environment.

SQL Server Clustering support – Advisor includes enhanced clustering support, including automatic detection when a node shifts from passive to active.

For more information on these and other new features, see what's new.

Issue with Exchange 2010 SP1 Rollup 3 and Blackberry [Update]

Thomas K.H. Bittner — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 17:54:17 GMT

The Microsoft Exchange Team has received notification of an issue impacting some customers which have RIM BlackBerry devices connecting to an Exchange 2010 SP1 RU3 environment. Now the team actively working with RIM to identify the exact scenarios in which customers are reporting this issue in order to narrow down the root cause of the problem and identify a suitable resolution for it.

Therfore you are currently not able to download the Exchange 2010 SP1 Rollup 3 anymore and have to wait for a replacement.

Secure Access to your Cloud Services

Thomas K.H. Bittner — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 16:06:24 GMT

Moving to the Cloud is going on and so we will have more and more On-Premise and Cloud environments living site by site.

Securing access to Cloud Services will be more relevant for the future.

A great article on this topic has been published by Yuri Diogenes, Senior Security Support Escalation Engineer on Microsoft Forefront Team.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/gg607680.aspx

Send with different sender addresses from Exchange

Thomas K.H. Bittner — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 19:33:06 GMT

How to send with different sender addresses from Exchange. You could create several mailboxes, but e.g. under Microsoft Online Services (BPOS) this cost extra license.

You can create a distribution list with one address and make the user (mailbox) of the other address a member. With the SendAs permissions you can enable that the user can send as the distribution list.