Unified Communications News Tips and Tricks

What's New in Exchange Server 2010

David Figueiredo — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:42:11 GMT

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd298136(EXCHG.149).aspx

What's New in Exchange Server 2010

[This is pre-release documentation and subject to change in future releases. This topic's current status is: Writing.]

Applies to: Exchange Server 2010

Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 brings a new and rich set of technologies, features, and services to the Exchange Server product line. This topic includes a list of the new features and functionality that are included in Exchange 2010. The list isn't comprehensive, but it provides important information to use when you're planning, deploying, and administering your Exchange 2010 organization. This topic also includes information about some of the limitations of this release and features from Exchange Server 2007 that have been removed.

New Rights-Protected E-Mail Functionality with Active Directory RMS

The following is a list of new rights-protected e-mail functionality with Active Directory Rights Management Services (AD RMS) that has been included in Exchange 2010:

Transport rules to apply AD RMS protection to messages based on conditions.
Persistent protection of attachments in rights-protected messages.
Support for AD RMS templates.
An Internet confidential AD RMS template for protection over the Internet.
AD RMS protection for Unified Messaging voice mail messages

New Transport and Routing Functionality

The following is a list of new transport and routing functionality that has been included in Exchange 2010:

Cross-premises mail routing An organization can choose to outsource some of their mailboxes to a hosted solution while maintaining their on-premises deployment. For example, a university can choose to host the mailboxes for all faculty and staff in their on-premises deployment and use a hosted solution for student mailboxes. Exchange 2010 allows routing of messages between the on-premises and hosted mailboxes.
Enhanced disclaimers Exchange 2010 lets you add disclaimers that can include hyperlinks, images, and HTML-formatted text. You can also insert Active Directory attributes that are substituted for the sender's attributes when a disclaimer rule is triggered.
Transport rules integration with AD RMS Exchange 2010 gives you the ability to create rules that require AD RMS protection based on keywords or patterns.
Moderated Transport Exchange 2010 provides an approval workflow for sending messages to recipients. When you configure a recipient for moderation, all messages sent to that recipient must go through an approval process.
Shadow redundancy Messages that are submitted to an Exchange 2010 Hub Transport server are stored in the transport database until the next hop reports successful delivery of the message. If the next hop doesn't report successful delivery and it fails, the message is resubmitted for delivery.
Transport Dumpster truncation based on log copy status When messages that are in the dumpster are replicated to all mailbox databases, they're removed from the dumpster.
Latency SLA management Exchange 2010 Transport lets you measure service levels delivered relative to your service level agreement (SLA) goals. Exchange 2010 gives you the ability to measure latencies for each hop, as well as end-to-end latency.
Transport database improvements Performance improvements in the Transport database result in reduced database I/O per second (IOPS) per message, which increases message throughput.

New Permissions Functionality

In Exchange 2010, Role Based Access Control (RBAC) has replaced the permissions model that was used in Exchange 2007. RBAC lets you define extremely broad or extremely precise permissions models based on the roles of you administrators and users.

For administrators and specialist users, management role groups define what these users can manage in the organization. Role groups associate role group members to a set of management roles that define what the members can do. By adding or removing users as members of role groups, and adding or removing role assignments to or from a role group, you can control what aspects of the organization the members can manage.

For end users, management role assignment policies define what users can configure on their own mailbox. Assignment policies are applied to every mailbox either by default or manually, and enable you to control whether users can change their personal information, contact information, distribution group membership, and so on.

Both group groups and role assignment policies are assigned management roles. Management roles control access to the cmdlets and parameters required to perform a task. For example, if a cmdlet exists on a management role, and that role is assigned to a role group, the members of that role group can then use that cmdlet.

For more information about RBAC, see Overview of Permissions.

New High Availability Functionality

Exchange 2010 integrates high availability into the core architecture of Microsoft Exchange to enable customers of all sizes and in all segments to be able to economically deploy a messaging continuity service in their organization.

Exchange 2010 includes many changes to its core architecture. The following features in Exchange 2007 and Exchange 2007 Service Pack 1 (SP1) no longer exist in Exchange 2010:

Local continuous replication (LCR)
Single copy clusters (SCC)

In addition to these features, the concept of a clustered mailbox server no longer exists in Exchange 2010. Two other features, cluster continuous replication (CCR) and standby continuous replication (SCR), have been merged and renamed as a set of new features in Exchange 2010: incremental deployment, continuous mailbox availability, database mobility, database copies, and database availability groups.

For more information about Exchange 2010 high availability features, see New High Availability and Site Resilience Functionality.

New Messaging Policy and Compliance Features

Exchange 2010 compliance features make retention independent of users' mailbox management and filing habits, and ensure retention policies are applied continuously. The following is a list of new messaging and compliance features that have been included in Exchange 2010:

New interface for applying retention policies
Auto tagging for retention policies
Mailbox search features for cross-mailbox search with AQS support
New transport rules predicates and actions

For more information, see New Messaging Policy and Compliance Functionality.

New Outlook Web App Features

The following is a list of new features in Outlook Web App in Exchange 2010.

Favorites in the Navigation Pane
Search folders
Message filtering
The ability to set categories in the message list
Options in the Web management interface for Outlook Web App
A side-by-side view for calendars
Multi-client language support
The ability to attach messages to messages
Expanded right-click capabilities
Integration with Office Communicator, including presence, chat, and a contact list
Conversation view
The ability to send and receive text (SMS) messages from Outlook Web App
Outlook Web App mailbox policies

New Unified Messaging Features

The following is a list of new Unified Messaging features that have been included in Exchange 2010:

Call answering rules
Additional language support including in Outlook Voice Access
Enhancements to name lookup from caller ID
Voice mail preview
Messaging Waiting Indicator
Missed call and voice mail notifications using text messaging (SMS)
Protected voice mail
Incoming fax support
Addressing to Groups (Personal Distribution Lists) support
Built-in Unified Messaging administrative roles

For more information about the new Unified Messaging functionality and new voice mail features, see New Unified Messaging Functionality and Voice Mail Features.

Web Management Interface

The following is a list of the features available in the new Web management interface for Outlook Web App.

Text messaging (SMS) integration
Voice messaging integration
Mailbox Search
Additional proxy addresses for mailboxes
Moderation and approval for distribution list submission

New Exchange Store and Mailbox Database Functionality

The following is a list of core store functionality that is included or has been changed in Exchange 2010:

Storage groups are deprecated.
Mailbox databases are no longer connected to the server object.
Extensible Storage Engine (ESE) has many improvements for high availability, performance, and database mobility.
The Exchange Store schema has been flattened.
Enhanced reporting with Public Folders

For more information about these changes, see New Exchange Core Store Functionality.

New Mailbox and Recipient Functionality

The following is a list of the new mailbox and recipient functionality that is included or has been changed in Exchange 2010.

Users can share information such as calendar free/busy and contacts with users who reside in a different organization
Scheduling and configuring resource mailbox calendar processing has been improved
You can now move a mailbox while the end user is still accessing it
New parameters have been added to the distribution group cmdlets to allow users to create and manage their own distribution groups in Outlook Web App and Outlook 2010
You can manage folder-level permissions for all folders within a user's mailbox
Bulk recipient management has been expanded to allow you to bulk manage recipient properties
You can send mail to recipients from the EMC

New Administration Functionality in the Exchange Management Console

The following is a list of the new core Exchange Management Console (EMC) features that have been included in Exchange 2010. The core EMC refers to new functionality that affects how you use the Exchange Management Console, not how you use specific features:

Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP)
Organizational Health
Community and Resources
Command logging
Property dialog command exposure
UI is RBAC aware

For more information about these features, see New Administrative Functionality in the Exchange Management Console.

New Administration Functionality in the Exchange Management Shell

The following is a list of features available in the new Exchange Management Shell:

Remote administration With the new Shell, you can connect to remote Exchange 2010 servers across the network with only the Windows Management Framework installed, which includes Windows PowerShell. For more information, see Overview of Exchange Management Shell.
RBAC integration The Shell works with RBAC to give you and your users access only to the cmdlets and parameters they're allowed to use. If your permissions don't allow you to configure a certain feature, you aren't given access to the cmdlets, parameters, or both, that manage that feature. For more information, see Understanding Role Based Access Control.
Administrator audit logging Actions that result in the modification of Exchange organization configuration and other object properties in the Exchange Management Console, the Web management interface, and the Shell can now be logged for later review. For more information, see Overview of Administrator Audit Logging.
Improved multiple-valued property syntax Instead of running multiple commands to add and remove values from a single property, you can now add and remove values with a single command line. For more information, see Multi-Valued Properties.

Exchange 2010 has been RTM’d

David Figueiredo — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 23:39:50 GMT

http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2009/10/08/452775.aspx

Exchange 2007 SP2 has been released

David Figueiredo — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 14:05:09 GMT

Hi all for all of those that were anxious for SP2 here’s the download link:

The download site is located here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=4c4bd2a3-5e50-42b0-8bbb-2cc9afe3216a

Some new features:

Enhanced Auditing – New Exchange auditing events and audit log repository enable Exchange administrators to more easily audit the activities occurring on their Exchange servers. It allows the right balance of granularity, performance, and easy access to audited events via a dedicated audit log repository. This simplifies the auditing process and makes review of audited events easier by segregating audited events in a dedicated location
Exchange Volume Snapshot Backup Functionality – A new backup plug-in has been added to the product that will enable customers to create Exchange backups when a backup is invoked through the Windows Server 2008 Backup tool. Exchange Server 2007 didn’t have this capability on Windows Server 2008 and additional solutions were required to perform this task.
Dynamic Active Directory Schema Update and Validation – The dynamic AD schema update and validation feature allows for future schema updates to be dynamic deployed as well as proactively preventing conflicts whenever a new property is added to the AD schema. Once this capability is deployed it will enable easier management of future schema updates and will prevent support issues when adding properties that don’t exist in the AD schema.

Public Folder Quota Management – SP2 enables a consistent way to manage quotas by improving the current PowerShell cmdlets to perform quota management tasks.

Centralized Organizational Settings – SP2 introduces new PowerShell option that enable centralized management of many of the Exchange organization settings.

Named Properties cmdlets – SP2 enables Exchange administrators to monitor their named property usage per database.

New User Interface for Managing Diagnostic Logging– SP2 enables Exchange administrators to easily configure and manage diagnostic logging from within the Exchange Management Console.

Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2 Released To Manufacturing

David Figueiredo — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 16:43:37 GMT

http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/windows7/archive/2009/07/22/windows-7-has-been-released-to-manufacturing.aspx

Release dates

http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/windows7/archive/2009/07/21/when-will-you-get-windows-7-rtm.aspx

OCS front end service fails to start after KB967831

David Figueiredo — Thu, 21 May 2009 12:51:00 GMT

KB967831 patch will try to update OCS and afterwards will try to start RtcQmsAgent (aka Monitoring Agent)

If you dont use or configure this service it will never start, causing the rollback of the patch and with it the failure of the frontend service.

So just install MS messaging queue services (ServerManagerCmd -i MSMQ-Services) and MS messaging queue server (ServerManagerCmd -i MSMQ-Server) and reapply the patch that will apply with success since now he is able to start Monitoring Agent Service.

How to update OCS external address book url

David Figueiredo — Wed, 20 May 2009 13:04:21 GMT

Here’s how to update the external address book url:

Lcscmd /web /action:updatepoolurls /externalwebfqdn:<WebfarmFQDN> /poolname:<poolname

more info:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb803611.aspx

Presenting Exchange Server 2010

David Figueiredo — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 20:06:06 GMT

Presenting the Exchange 2010……

http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2009/04/14/451032.aspx

OCS R2 Global settings changes in AD

David Figueiredo — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 13:04:20 GMT

After a new deployment, a great question mark appeared in my head when the follow popup appeared:

So what's next?

In some multidomain scenarios where the configuration stays in the root domain there where some reports of performance issues so the OCS team decided to enable the ability to change the the settings from the system container to the configuration partition in AD.

I’ve found this info on the The Three UC Amigos blog to how to do this move:

“How do I move the OCS global settings from System container to Configuration container?

Here are the steps from the R2 deployment guide:

You can run any of the following steps in read-only test mode by appending the /Check parameter to the MigrateOcsGlobalSettings command. This parameter prints the status of target objects and properties without making updates.

If any of the following steps fails to complete successfully due to network, replication, or permission issues, you can rerun the step until it completes successfully.

Important:

Before you begin the migration process, use the Office Communications Server snap-in to stop all Office Communications Server services on all Office Communications Servers.

To migrate global settings to Configuration container

1. Copy the global settings tree structure to the Configuration container by opening a command prompt and then running the following command:

cscript MigrateOcsGlobalSettings.vbs /Action:MigrateGlobalSettingsTree

2. Copy the global settings attributes to the Configuration container as follows:

cscript MigrateOcsGlobalSettings.vbs /Action: MigrateGlobalSettingsProperties

3. For Office Communications Server 2007 and Live Communications Server 2005 with SP1, run forest preparation to set permissions as follows:

Important:

Do not use the Office Communications Server Prep Forest wizard for this step. The wizard will show that the forest is already prepared, although the ACEs are not in the new container yet.

LcsCmd /Forest /Action:ForestPrep /global:configuration

For Live Communications Server 2005 with SP1, also run domain preparation in every domain the runs Live Communications Server as follows:

LcsCmd /Domain /Action:DomainPrep

Wait for the global settings tree to replicate to most forest global catalogs before proceeding to the next step.

4. Update server distinguished name (DN) references to the new global settings tree as follows:

cscript MigrateOcsGlobalSettings.vbs /Action: MigrateServerDnReferences /SearchBaseDN:<server search base DN>

Where /SearchBaseDN specifies the migration scope for servers.

5. Update DN references for user, contact, and inetOrgPerson objects to point to new global settings tree as follows:

cscript MigrateOcsGlobalSettings.vbs /Action: MigrateUserDnReferences /SearchBaseDN:<user search base DN>

Where /SearchBaseDN specifies the migration scope for users.

Wait for this step to complete before proceeding to the next step (for example, with stable network connectivity, it takes about one hour to migrate 30,000 users).

Use the Office Communications Server snap-in to restart the Office Communications Server services.

6. Try to send instant messages and perform some conferencing tasks to verify that the migration was successful.

Remove the original global settings tree structure from the System container as follows:

Important:

Do not perform this step until steps 5 and 6 are complete.

cscript MigrateOcsGlobalSettings.vbs /Action: DeleteSystemGlobalSettingsTree”

from:http://blogs.technet.com/ucedsg/archive/2009/02/27/where-should-i-store-my-ocs-r2-global-settings.aspx

OCS R2

David Figueiredo — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 14:01:27 GMT

Hi all

OCS R2 is out there, just check the virtual launch

http://www.microsoft.com/communicationsserver/r2-virtual-launch/event/default.aspx

How to check Mailbox Backup status

David Figueiredo — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 18:10:43 GMT

Hi all just a simple line to check with PS the backup status of your MBX:

Get-MailboxDatabase "Database Name Here" -status | select *backup* | fl