By reading performance counters from services such as SQL Server or Exchange, you can get a wealth of performance information. By automating the process of gathering and storing appropriate counters, you can routinely check a range of devices quickly using visual tools such as PerfMon. By then creating your own counters, you can add counter-based metrics to anything that can be measured programmatically, such as services, applications, processes such as ETL, or deployments. … Read more
WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) is the basic way of querying and changing basic information about any windows server, including SQL Server or Exchange Server. It provides a logical structure and representation of systems and services that are hosted on the server and is essential for anyone who is keen to automate routine monitoring and administration work via PowerShell, especially where many servers are involved in the task.… Read more
Should you be planning to move from Exchange to Office 365? If so, why? What sort of license should you get, and should you use cloud identities or federated identities for your users? Jaap starts a series of articles with an overview of the advantages, and a simple explanation of the options in subscriptions and licenses for Office 365.… Read more
If you are using Exchange Server 2003, it is worth considering a move to Office 365 instead of Exchange 2012. If you have business reasons to do so, it is possible to use the migration tool to switch over from an 'on-premises' Exchange-hosted mail service to a cloud-based Office 365 service. Jaap walks through the steps for a relatively small corporation..… Read more
The offline address-book (OAB) of Exchange is available when the user is not connected, Since Exchange 2007, it is updated via a Web-based distribution point. But what if you need to set up several Offline address-books for a variety of sites or geographical regions, each to be distributed by a different point? How would you do that? Krishna demonstrates.… Read more
This update of Jaap Wessellius' popular guide to Exchange 2010 covers everything you need to know to install, run and maintain Exchange 2010 SP1.… Read more
When a customer asks for an Exchange Server feature that you have no idea how to implement, and you just get one item coming up on Google, then you've got the blues. Antoine relates the struggle from that point to successful delivery of the feature.… Read more
When one mailbox server in a Database Availability Group (DAG) is accidentally deleted, then it is supposedly easy to fix the problem, but if the DAG is not fully cleaned up, it can prove a little more complex.… Read more
The Secure Socket Layer is now essential for the secure exchange of digital data, and is most generally used within the HTTPS protocol. .NET now provides the Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) to implement secure communications directly. Matteo explains the TLS/SSL protocol, and takes a hands-on approach to investigate the SslStream class to show how to implement a secure communication channel … Read more
Sean Duffy recently had an unwelcome encounter with Exchange Server Back Pressure, which cut off his message flow due to a lack of space on the server. To make sure it didn't happen again, he found a way to automatically monitor all his servers from afar, with a little PowerShell magic.… Read more
In Exchange Server 2010 it is possible to make the system more resilient by creating a Database Availability Group (DAG) where the nodes contain multiple server roles.… Read more
Brien has been on the front line of Systems Administration for long enough to both respect and fear PST files. Though they are a handy tool when used wisely, they are too often misused, resulting in disaster. Brien relates a few tragedies to which he's had a front-row seat. Read on, and be warned.… Read more
Unless you use Red Gate's PST Importer, the import and export of PST files with Exchange 2010 is a complex and error-prone business. Microsoft have acknowledged this in the release of Exchange 2010 SP1, since they have now re-engineered the way that PSTs are handled to try and ease the pain of importing and exporting them, but it is still a matter of using Powershell with cmdlets, rather than a GUI. Jaap Wesselius takes a look at the new process.
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Now that you've created your first DAG in Exchange 2010, you'll need to be sure it's correctly configured for failovers and switchovers, and you know how to troubleshoot. Fear not, for Neil Hobson tells you what you need to know.… Read more
Since Exchange 2000, and the introduction of the document retention period it has been much easier to recover mailboxes, disconnect or connect mailboxes to users, and disable mailboxes. Exchange 2010 has introduced the personal archive, which adds a slight complication. Michel de Rooij explains how to deal with this, and clean up mailboxes that are still within the retention period.… Read more
Just recently, a problem involving the iPhone/iPod's synchronisation process with Exchange 2007, made it necessary for Exchange Administrators to alert various mail users to upgrade to the latest version of Apple's iOS 4. Ben shows how easily he was able to do this for his organisation, using Exchange's Management Shell with PowerShell and some Exchange cmdlets.… Read more
If you ever need to set up fine-grained rules to control the maximum size of messages a subset of your picky users' can send or receive, Krishna Kumar has you covered. His step-by-step instructions will tell you everything you need to know to keep emails sizes under control.… Read more
If you could design an Exchange email archiver from scratch, what would you do differently and how would you bring it to maturity? Bob Cramblitt talks with three principals from the new Exchange Server Archiver 3.0 development team and gets the inside story on the soul of a new archiver.… Read more
Sean Duffy, always keen to be on the cutting edge of making his job as a production SysAdmin as painless as possible, puts V3.0 of Red Gate's Exchange Server Archiver through its paces. His verdict: an impressive and transparent tool for managing your Exchange environment.… Read more
If you're working with Hyper-V, it's recommended that you use Windows Server 2008 R2 Server Core for your root partition, as its stripped-down nature makes it a more secure option than it's more full-bodied sibling. But it can also be painful to work with. Jaap Wesselius expertly guides us through the pitfalls.… Read more
