* But Were Afraid to Ask In Part 1 and Part 2 of this series we looked at the fundamentals of Exchange backups using VSS, and the flow of an active DAG database backup. In Part 3 we break down how a passive DAG database copy undergoes a full backup. The...

We eat our own Dogfood in Exchange and talk about it often so we wanted to share some very special insights with you on the process.  What is Dogfood? It's a slang term we use for using our own software, including alpha and beta varieties internally...

We are happy to announce improvements to the Remote Connectivity Analyzer CAPTCHA experience.  Several of you told us how frustrating the previous experience was to use.  And we agree… it was very annoying to have both password fields get blanked...

In Part 1 of this series, I explained the E2K7_IndexRebuildAnalyzer.ps1 script and in Part 2 , I discussed the Search Rebuild Framework that Anatoly Girko and I developed. Before concluding this series I did want to provide a series of graphs as well...

Update 07/03/2012 : Expanded the Workaround section to include more details. We wanted to bring to your attention an issue that we have been seeing recently in CSS where many mailboxes on the same mailbox database become quarantined seemingly for no reason...

In Part 1 of this series, I explained the E2K7_IndexRebuildAnalyzer.ps1 script (also please go here for Part 3 ). In this article, I will discuss the Search Rebuild Framework that Anatoly Girko and I developed. This framework was originally designed to...

OCAT download Documentation download As the original blog post about OCAT release was quite popular, we wanted to let you know that we have just released the version 2.0 of the tool, with many features that you have been asking for! If...

This is a part 1 of a 3 part blog post series. Please go here for Part 2 and here for Part 3 . One of the first actions most Exchange Administrators generally take when troubleshooting suspected problems with Exchange Content Indexing will be to rebuild...

6/22/12 Update - This article and the accompanying download have been updated. The latest release of the Exchange Client Network Bandwidth Calculator includes several updates but arguably the most significant is time zone support. I have been looking...

We've made several enhancements and bug fixes based on community feedback. Please go to our Mailbox Server Role Storage Requirements Calculator updates tracking page to see what is in this new version! A blog post explaining the calculator is here and...

* But Were Afraid to Ask Part 2 of this series ( Part 1 is here and Part 3 is here ) breaks down the events that take place during the backup of a mounted and active replicated database in an Exchange 2010 Database Availability Group called, simply...

Back in December 2011, the Exchange team first started making the Exchange Online December 2011 Service Update available to customers.  This rollout was staggered globally, with full deployment expected to be completed within six months.  For...

TechEd North America 2012 happens next week in Orlando, Florida. This year, there are several Exchange break-out sessions and hands-on labs for IT pros and developers, including sessions on Exchange 2010 high availability, virtualization, retention and...

TechEd North America 2012 is coming and folks on the Exchange team will be there to talk to you about Exchange hybrid deployments and Exchange Online migrations! We've gotten a lot of questions on hybrid deployments, especially after releasing Exchange...

*But Were Afraid to Ask This is a part 1 of a 3 part blog series. Please see this for Part 2 and this for Part 3 . If you find the inner workings of Exchange data backups using Volume Shadown Copy (VSS) a bit mystifying take comfort in not being...

Over the course of the last several months, we've received reports of excessive growth of the Recoverable Items folder (what many term Dumpster , although we no longer refer to it as such). There are two main scenarios that can contribute to this excessive...

Nearly two years ago, I presented a session called High Availability Design Considerations at TechEd North America 2010. During my session I described the changes we were making around how MAPI connectivity should occur after mailbox moves and cross-site...

Earlier today, the Exchange CXP team released Update Rollup 3 for Exchange Server 2010 SP2 to the Download Center. This update contains a number of customers reported and internally found issues. See KB2685289 Description of Update Rollup 3 for Exchange...

We're happy to announce that the Exchange Server Deployment Assistant (ExDeploy) now includes full checklist support for configuring hybrid deployments for Exchange 2010 SP2 organizations. This newly added scenario is for Exchange 2010 SP2 organizations...

We’re pleased to announce that we have released the newest version of the Exchange 2010 language pack and that it is available for download here . This language pack resolves three key issues some customers have experienced; Events being...

Recently, customers who use Outlook Web App (OWA) have been raising the topic of web app accessibility as a top priority. One reason for all the buzz about web application accessibility is due to a standard produced by the W3C called ARIA ( Accessible...

We're happy to announce that the Exchange Server Deployment Assistant (ExDeploy) now includes support for configuring hybrid deployments using Exchange 2010 SP2 and Exchange 2007 on-premises organizations. This newly added scenario is for Exchange...

Properly calculating the SPECint 2006 rate value of your planned mailbox role processors is a critical step in the overall planning and design of your Exchange 2010 architecture. The SPECint 2006 rate value is used by the Mailbox Server Role Requirements...

When we perform network bandwidth planning for Exchange deployments we always ask “what is the size of your OAB?” This is important since if you have a large OAB file it can severely affect the amount of network bandwidth that you require...

This post describes an update to the Facebook provider for the Outlook Social Connector and the related policy settings that are available for Administrators. Outlook 2010 includes a feature called the Outlook Social Connector which can show social updates...