January, 2010

I get asked this quite a bit by my education customers. How can I get a good estimate for sizing my Mailbox Server, Hub Transport, Client Access Server and Storage? 

The latest and greatest Mailbox Server Role Requirements Calculator v3.2 has some nice new sizing capabilities such as the ability to help you size the CAS and Hub Transport server in addition to Mailbox Server and Storage needs. This is nice since you no longer have to calculate the Hub and CAS server needs manually using the core ratio of  3 cores of CAS for every 4 cores of Mailbox or 5 Cores of Mailbox for every 1 core of Hub. It also has about 11 other changes to help smooth out the calculator use.

I highlighted some of the Hub, CAS server sizing additions in the tool for estimating 5000 mailboxes:

You can grab version 3.2 here which just released on Friday.

For more in depth sizing and capacity planning of Exchange 2010, I recommend you run the JetStress 2010 for disk stress and LoadGen 2010 tools for Mailbox server sizing.

I was asked this question by a customer today. Where are the templates for Exchange 2010? Answer: We don’t have any. Exchange 2010 was shipped secure by default. The SCW templates that we delivered in Exchange 2007 didn’t do anything to the application but to ensure that all required services and firewall rules are set. No other application settings were made. SCW can still be used to harden the OS but no rules for the Exchange application are needed.

Of course utilizing the great pre-requisite scripts has been very helpful in prepping my Exchange 2010 deployments. These XML scripts make installation very simple. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb691354.aspx

The best is doing the full unattended installation: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa997281.aspx

This was a question from a university in the Midwest.

What is MRM?

Microsoft Exchange 2010 Messaging Records Management provides the following:

• Keep the messages needed to comply with company policy, government regulations, or legal needs (read archive items)
• Remove content that has no legal or business value.  (read purge items)
• Accomplished through the use of retention policies or managed folders

What components make up MRM in Exchange 2010?

• Retention Policies (new MRM feature in Exchange 2010)

    Use retention tags linked to a retention policy

• Managed Folders (same functionality as Exchange 2007- I would classify as legacy MRM)

    Use manage folders and link them to a managed folder mailbox policy

Which one should I use Managed Folders or Retention policies? Can I use both?

No, it is an either or operation. Managed Folders were left in Exchange Server 2010 for interop with Exchange Server 2007 Managed Folders. It is recommended to leverage Retention Policies for MRM in Exchange 2010.

How does an MRM strategy work in Exchange 2010 using Retention Policies?

Step1: Create Retention Tags – three types: Default Policy Tag, Retention Policy Tag, or Personal Tag  See more here

note: to use Personal Tags requires either Outlook 2010 or Outlook Web App to leverage

Step2: Create a Retention Policy

Step3: Link a Retention Tags to a Retention Policies

Step4: Apply Retention Policies to mailboxes (or in bulk via mail enabled groups)

I found this excellent TechNet strategy diagram:

How do I create retention tags and policies? 

You have to use the Exchange Management Shell. You cannot use the GUI.  Here are some sample cmdlets:

Creating a new retention tag:

New-RetentionPolicyTag “Faculty-DeletedItems" -Type "DeletedItems" -Comment "Deleted Items are purged in 30 days" -RetentionEnabled $true -AgeLimitForRetention 30 -RetentionAction PermanentlyDelete

Creating a new retention policy:

New-RetentionPolicy "RP-Faculty" -RetentionPolicyTagLinks "RPT-Faculty-Default","RPT-Faculty-Inbox",“Faculty-DeletedItems“

Linking retention tags to a retention policy:

Set-RetentionPolicy -Identity RP-VPs -RetentionPolicyTagLinks "VPs-Default","VPs-Inbox","VPs-DeletedItems"

Applying retention policies to a distribution group of mailboxes:

Get-DistributionGroupMember -Identity "Faculty All" | Set-Mailbox -RetentionPolicy "RP-Faculty"

Note: The mailboxes in this distribution group must be Exchange 2010 and it will flag a message if they are not.

To list all your retention policies:

Get-RetentionPolicy

If I want to leverage Exchange Archiving what do I get?

I found this nice diagram to net it out.

What does an archive mailbox look like?

• A secondary mailbox that is configured by the administrator
• Appears alongside a user’s primary mailbox in Outlook 2010 or Outlook Web App.
• PST files can be dragged and dropped to the Personal Archive
• E-mail in primary mailbox can be moved automatically using Retention Policies
• Archive quota can be set separately from primary mailbox

What does E-discovery (multi-mailbox search) look like?

• With the new role based access control you can provide delegate access to search to HR, compliance, legal manager without providing Exchange administrative permissions
• Filtering includes: sender, receiver, expiry policy, message size, sent/receive date, cc/bcc, regular expressions, Right Protected items
• Search all mail items (e-mail, IM, contacts, calendar) across primary mailbox and archive mailbox

What are some new Journaling Features in 2010?

Transport Journaling

•Ability to journal individual mailboxes or SMTP address (hosted archive such as Exchange Hosted Archive)

•Detailed reports per To/Cc/Bcc/Alt-Recipient and DL expansion

Journal Report de-duplication

•Customers report up to 40% duplication of journal reports (Example: internal/external recipients on same DL)

•Exchange 2010 creates one report per message

•Can dramatically reduce hosted archive storage costs

I was asked this by a university in Southern California. The answer is yes. Microsoft supports Exchange Server 2010 in production on hardware virtualization software only when all the following conditions are true:

• The hardware virtualization software is running:
  • Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V technology
  • Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V technology
  • Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008
  • Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2
  • Any third-party hypervisor that has been validated under the Windows Server Virtualization Validation Program.
• The Exchange guest virtual machine:
  • Is running Microsoft Exchange 2010.
  • Is deployed on the Windows Server 2008 with SP2 or Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system.
  • Doesn't have the Unified Messaging server role installed. All Exchange 2010 server roles, except for the Unified Messaging server role, are supported in a virtualization environment. This is due to the real-time response requirements associated with voice communications with the Unified Messaging server role.
  • Meets all of the Exchange 2010 requirements set forth previously in this topic.

For more on Exchange 2010 running with hardware virtualization visit here.

This is a nice update to the Deployment Assistant where you can walkthrough different coexistence scenarios. Visit the updated page here.

Provides a nice checklist for you to follow during your Exchange 2010 deployment

You can even export the deployment scenario to PDF for offline viewing/printing:

Some of my TOLA customers asked me about DAG configuration some of the questions I thought would be useful for others are below.

1. What port is used for log shipping?

By default, all DAGs use TCP port 64327 for continuous replication. You can modify the DAG to use a different TCP port for replication by using the ReplicationPort parameter of the Set-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup cmdlet. If you modify this port ensure you also change Firewall exceptions.

2. Port Mapping for Exchange 2010 http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb331973.aspx 

3. Exchange 2010 Storage Calculator - http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2009/11/09/453117.aspx

4. File Share Witness and Exchange 2010 – File share witness is only needed when you have an even number of members in the DAG. DAGs with an odd number do not use a witness server. The witness can be any computer running Windows Server.

Quorum is maintained at the cluster level. Remember that a quorum is when the majority of members are online and can communicate with each other. The quorum acts as a tie-breaker to avoid “split-brain” syndrome. This occurs when DAG members can’t communicate with each other but are up in running. It’s prevents by always requiring that a majority of the DAG members are available and interacting.

For more information and planning on Site Resilience please refer to this technet article: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd638104.aspx