Johan Veldhuis completes his 'Deep Dive' by plunging even deeper into the mysteries of MS Exchange's Transport queues that are used to temporarily store messages which are waiting until they are passed through to the next stage, and explains how to change the way they work via configuration settings. … Read more
Submission queues? Poison message queues? Johan Veldhuis unlocks the mysteries of MS Exchange's Transport queues that used to temporarily store messages waiting until they are passed through to the next stage, and explains how to manage these queues.… Read more
It is possible to change the fields in the Outlook address book to make them a better fit for your organisation. Exchange provides templates for Users, Contacts, Groups, Public Folders, and Mailbox Agents that are downloaded to Outlook. Any changes will be visible in the address book. As usual with Exchange, careful planning before you make changes pays dividends, Ben Lye explains. … Read more
One of the first things you notice with Windows Server 2008 R2 is that PowerShell 2.0 has become central to the admin function There is a powerful Active Directory module for Powershell that contains a provider and cmdlets that are designed to allow you to manage Active Directory from the command line. Now, you can also use versions for previous versions of Windows Server.… Read more
Cluster continuous replication (CCR) helps to provide a more resilient email system with faster recovery. It was introduced in Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and uses log shipping and failover. configuring Cluster Continuous Replication on a Windows Server 2008 requires different techniques to Windows Server 2003. Brien Posey explains all. … Read more
File system Quotas are used to restrict the amount of space users can consume or to report on the space consumed by them. They are useful for reporting on those users or folders that are consuming large amounts of disk space on a file server. Ben Lye shows that File system quotas are quick and easy to set up, with three different methods available for configuring them… Read more
Because the Sys Admins and DBAs who are efficient end up wielding a great deal of power, there is always a danger that it can 'go to their head'. If ever you start imposing your decisions on the organisation for no better reason than the fact that they're yours, then it is time to read Matt's simple guide on how to prevent your actions being controlled by your ego.</… Read more
What's new in Exchange Server 2010 and what features from Exchange Server 2007 have been deprecated? What has been done to further integrate Exchange with Active Directory? In an extract from his new book, Jaap gives a rooftop view of Exchange's new features and their significance, and spells out the main reasons why it is worth upgrading.… Read more
Outlook PST files are a problem for Exchange users, and give no benefits over Exchange mailboxes. You have to use them on a local drive, they are difficult to back up, and tricky for the administrator to manage. It is possible to use Exchange Group Policy settings to limit the use of PST files, and thereby alleviate some of the difficulties they cause. … Read more
Imagine that you're researching Continuous Cluster Replication, looking for a simple, direct guide to the basics of getting it set up and running. What do you do if everything you find is either too specialised, or goes into far more detail than you need? If you're Brien Posey, and you can't find that practical, to-the-point article, you roll up your sleeves and write it yourself. To kick off, he tackles the rather tedious task of setting up a Majority Node Set Cluster.… Read more
In April 2009 Microsoft released a public beta of Exchange 2010, the latest and greatest version of a part of its unified communications family of products. Recently in August 2009, a feature complete Release Candidate version was released for public download. In this article Neil Hobson takes a look at some of the high availability features of Exchange 2010.… Read more
To keep the Exchange database healthy, it is important to make sure that online maintenance and online maintenance and online defragmentation are running properly, or are at least conforming to Microsoft's recommendations. Ben shows how easy it is to automate the maintenance and monitor the defragmentation task.… Read more
There are good reasons for preventing old versions of Outlook from connecting to Exchange Server. You'll probably, at least, want to do it for security. Before you do so, you'll also need know what versions are out there being used so you can make sure that blocking of legitimate users is prevented. Ben Lye explains how it is done. explains … Read more
In his previous article "Hyper-V, an introduction" Jaap Wesselius explained about the Hypervisor, the parent partition, the child partition, and Integration Components. In this article Jaap discusses installing Hyper-V, all kinds of Virtual Hard Disks, Virtual Networks, and some best practices.… Read more
There are a number of features in Exchange that can be used in creative ways to solve problems in Exchange as they crop up. Ben Lye recently found a great use for Messaging Records Management when hit hit the problem of a meeting-room mailbox that stopped replying to booking requests. Here he shows how to apply policies that apply to all folders of a particular type, and how to schedule a regular task to do it.… Read more
Of course, changing a 32,000 mailbox system, based in 40 Exchange Servers, to a centralised 25,000 mailbox solution is not a difficult task as long as you follow the Microsoft guidelines; It just takes patience, and time to understand Exchange's storage design principles. Jaap describes the design process and shares his experiences with the chosen server hardware.… Read more
Cluster continuous replication (CCR) is a means of providing a more resilient email system with faster recovery. It was introduced in Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and uses log shipping and failover. The host-name feature of Exchange 2007 Service Pack 1 and the use of multiple redundant private network interfaces can improve the effectiveness of CCR.… Read more
Global Address Lists in MS Exchange can cause problems because the first person in the list often gets the reply. Ben Lye shows how one can eliminate any such problems with Global Address lists by creating a mail contact, a transport rule and a custom Delivery Status Notification.… Read more
Exchange's Recipient Update Service was important in Exchange 2000 or 2003 in order to complete the provisioning or updating of mailboxes created from an out-of-band process or from an Active Directory User. In Exchange 2007, full provisioning is automatic, but the functionality can replaced by Powershell scripting if it is required.… Read more
