Exchange Ideas - Daniel Kenyon-Smith : Daniel Kenyon-Smith

Domino to Exchange 2007 migration

danielke — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 22:44:00 GMT

When migrating to Lotus Notes you need to ensure your customer provides you with a list of groups which need to migrated over to Exchange so you don’t migrate any unnecessary groups into the new infrastructure, this also is required for user accounts.

Your customer should run a cleanup process to ensure all data migrated to Exchange is healthy (ADRAP). Users should also be encouraged to clean up their mailboxes.

Various groups to migrate:-

Ø Mailing groups (Notes Mail Group gets migrated to Active Directory Distribution Groups)

Ø Access groups (Notes Access Group gets migrated to Active Directory Security Group)

Ø Multi groups (Notes Multipurpose Group gets migrated to Active Directory Mail-Enabled Security Groups/Universal Group)

User clean up:-

Ø Deleting old mail

Ø Removing unwanted attachments

Ø Emptying deleted items

Ø Users are instructed to log off before migration

SMTP address names need to be unique, so for example an additional SMTP address applied to exchange users such as exchange.Contoso.com and or Notes domino.Contoso.com

Migration of data can be migrated in various ways, some options are listed below:-

Ø Per Server

Ø Per Location

Ø Per Department

Ø Per Access

Migration using Microsoft Transporter Suite:-

In brief:-

Contacts will be created In AD, then users from notes will merged into Exchange creating a mailbox enabled user, then data migration will occur. During this destination address details will be updated to reflect where the user’s mailbox is located e.g. Exchange or Notes. This is updated so users can e-mail a user no matter where their mailbox is located.

In order to use the Microsoft Transport suite notes client v7.0.2 needs to be installed on HT sever.

Directory Migration Matching Algorithm

When you migrate Lotus Notes users to Active Directory, the Directory Migration tool in the Exchange Server 2007 Microsoft Transporter Suite for Lotus Domino searches Active Directory for the following types of objects:

Ø Users

Ø Mail Users

Ø Mailbox Users

The Transporter tries to find matches to existing Active Directory entries for the Lotus Notes users instead of creating new entries for all migrated users. There are two types of matches that can be performed: hard matches and soft matches.

Ø Hard matches are based on proxy address and are considered definitive because each destination object has a unique proxy address.

Ø Soft matches are educated guesses. If a hard match is found, soft match search will not be performed. If no hard match is found and a soft match is found, the user performing the migration must confirm that the educated guess is the correct one before the attributes are merged.

If neither a hard match nor a soft match is found, a new user object of the type specified will be created during the migration. All migrated users will be stamped with the properties necessary for a hard match at the end of migration.

In addition, the Directory Migration tool searches for Contacts with matching proxy addresses. If any such Contacts are found, they are deleted from Active Directory and the directory data is merged with an existing matched object or to the newly created Mailbox user.

Note Mailbox migrations require a hard match to a mail user or a mailbox user. However, if the matching user does not have a mailbox and you specified a mailbox database to create mailboxes in, one will be created at the time of migration.

Multiple Free/Busy Connectors

It is possible to use more than one Free/Busy connector to provide faster response times to remote users. Whether it is appropriate to install additional Free/Busy connectors depends heavily on the overall network structure.

Typically, such an installation would only be in the largest of organizations, with several network locations where Exchange Server users and Domino users coexist, and there is high speed, low latency connectivity between the systems at that location.

New to Exchange Server 2007’s Transporter Suite is the possibility of having “Global” and “Subordinate” Free/Busy Connectors.

Note The use of multiple Free/Busy Connector does not guarantee redundancy in the event of a failure of:

o An Exchange Server 2007 server running the Free/Busy Connector

o A Domino server acting as a Free/Busy bridgehead. It will provide resiliency during a WAN failure (if the site locally hosts a Public Folder replica and a local “Subordinate” Free/Busy Connector).

The first Free/Busy Connector created is considered a “Global” connector, as is responsible for logging into ALL non-subordinate-owned Public Folder servers that house a replica of the Public Folder at this location:

\NON_IPM_SUBTREE
\SCHEDULE+ FREE BUSY
\EX:/o=OrgName/ou=Exchange Administrative Group (FYDIBOHF23SPDLT)

Using the Transporter Command Shell, you can determine if a connector is a “Global” connector using the command:

Get-DominoFreeBusyConnector

And then by looking at the GlobalConnector attribute. A result of “True” indicates that this is a “Global” connector.

Note “Global” connectors will not log on to Public Folder servers in Exchange Server 2003 Administrative Groups when a Calendar Connector from Exchange Server 2003 is present in any of the Routing Groups of the Administrative Group.

Subsequently installed Free/Busy Connectors are considered “Subordinate” and will only log in to the specified servers. To set a server on a connector, you use the Transporter Command Shell, with a command of the form:

Set-DominoFreeBusyConnector –Identity 'Identity of connector' ‑ConnectedFreeBusyServers pfservername

Written by Daniel Kenyon-smith

Log replay for corrupt files (CCR)

danielke — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 16:33:00 GMT

In Exchange 2007 if a log file on the active node is corrupted an attempt to re copy that log file will occur.

Log files are inspected via LogInspector and moved to the passive log directory. LastLogInspected is updated when a log is successfully inspected.

If log copying or the log file inspection fails, the Replication service will attempt to recopy the log file and inspect it again. The Replication service will do this three times before marking the log file as irrecoverable and requiring a database reseed.

For full deep dive details on Exchange 2007 CCR see Continuous Replication Deep Dive

Written by Daniel Kenyon-smith

TechNet Events

danielke — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 16:36:00 GMT

TechNet Events Live:

TechNet Event : Managing Windows Servers with PowerShell V2

Location: London

Date: 10 February 2009

TechNet Event: Microsoft Systems Management and understanding the role of System Center

Location: Birmingham

Date: 12 February 2009

TechNet Event: Self Service Business Intelligence

Location: Edinburgh

Date: 24 February 2009

TechNet Events: “What’s New in Office Communications Server 2007 R2”

Location: Manchester

Date: 26 February 2009

TechNet Events Online:

TechNet Live Webcasts:

TechNet Presents: Protecting SharePoint with System Center Data Protection Manager 2007

Date: 14 January 2009

Time: 16.00

TechNet Presents: Farewell old friend – how to say goodbye to SQL Server 2000

Date: 17 February 2009

Time: 16:00

TechNet Presents: Storage and Capacity Planning for Exchange 2007

Date: 4 March 2009

Time: 16:00

TechNet Presents: Office Communication Server 2007 R2 - Voice Capabilities

Date: 11 March 2009

Time: 16.00

Written by Daniel Kenyon-smith

TechNet: Recipient management, policies and permissions in Exchange 2007

danielke — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 16:38:00 GMT

Why not come along to my TechNet presentation ‘Recipient management, policies and permissions in Exchange 2007’ at our Microsoft offices in London

Abstract
In this session we will discuss the recipient management model, which has changed since Exchange Server 2003. There are a number of things we will cover here, most notably, how Exchange Server 2007 handles resources. The other major are we will be discussing is changes to the administrative permission model. In Exchange 2007, you have the option to separate your Active Directory administration from your Exchange administration, and during the session, we’ll see how that’s achieved.

What we will cover:

Recipient Management Model Update

Administrative Permission Model Overview

Demonstrations in this Session:

Locating Recipients

Managing Recipients

Delegating Admin Roles

Session Prerequisites

IT administration experience with Microsoft? Exchange Server 2003, Exchange 2000 Server, or Exchange Server 5.5

Recommended Audience

Generalist

Infrastructure Specialist

Written by Daniel Kenyon-smith

Session 3: Messaging – 3rd September 2008

danielke — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 15:51:00 GMT

MCS Talks

This session will build upon the core infrastructure services discussed in Session 2 but will focus on the decisions commonly faced by enterprises when deploying Exchange Server 2007. Some of the topics we'll cover will include how to approach the consolidation of services and infrastructure, and how to achieve high levels of resilience and availability with Exchange Server 2007. Focus will be given to datacentre resilience and how to control client access, message delivery and network bandwidth. With this in mind we will cover operating system choices for Exchange Server 2007 and how to protect your data with System Centre Data Protection Manager (DPM).

Written by Daniel Kenyon-smith

To Hyper-V or not to Hyper-V?

danielke — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 22:56:00 GMT

It’s here! Hyper-V.

Is Exchange 2007 a good candidate for virtualisation? Well only in certain situations and for certain roles and we’ll discuss this later.

Some applications can have major advantages from increased utilization of hardware, simplified and flexible deployment. A virtualized technology is not necessarily suited to every server workload or application, in fact some are a poor fit and hamper the business benefit if virtualized. Mission critical applications are often poor candidates for virtualization, the cost/efficiency can be outweighed by the risks.

Let’s have a look at how Hyper-V should be configured for Exchange 2007 SP1:

Root OS configuration

· Separate LUN’s / Arrays for root OS, Guest OS VHD’s and Hyper-V storage

· Snapshot creation and differencing disks for VM’s are not supported for production environments

· Oversubscribing CPU’s greater than 2:1 (Virtual processor / Physical core) is not supported for Exchange

· No Exchange (or other applications) running in the root OS

Guest OS Configuration

· Windows 2008 and Exchange 2007 SP1 only

· Fixed VHD’s for virtual OS

· Account for pagefile consumption in addition to OS requirements

Exchange Storage Configuration

· Exchange storage should be separate spindles from the guest OS VHD physical storage

· Exchange storage must be using a fixed VHD, SCSI pass-through or iSCSI

· FC/SCSI HBA’s must be configured to root OS and LUN’s presented to VM’s as passthrough or VHD

o Separate iSCSI Gigabit network recommended

o Dedicated NIC

High Availability

· There is an automatic switch over of application services which doesn’t affect the integrity of the application

· Hyper-V is a good fit for the branch office scenario when servers in the branch office cannot be consolidated to a central datacenter, this could be due to bandwidth or connectivity issues (Hyper-V enables 50% reduction of physical server count in branch scenarios when HA is required)

Consolidation

In some environments (such as branch offices) consolidating servers into Hyper-V provides many benefits. The servers which are good candidates for Hyper-V consolidation are Active Directory (AD) servers, Exchange 2007 SP1 Client Access Servers (CAS) and Exchange 2007 SP1 Hub Transport Servers (HT).

· Exchange 2007 SP1 Mailbox role –

o This server role is NOT a good candidate for virtualisation as it increases the overall risk for such a critical resource.

o Adds additional complexity to an already complex configuration.

o The mailbox role is a highly utilized role and has few resources available for sharing

o Requires additional network interfaces and complexity especially with storage e.g. iSCSI

Unsupported configuration

· Unified Messaging Server Role

· Hardware VSS/VDS

· VHD Disk > 2040GB

For more information on Hyper-V consolidation see Virtualization and Consolidation with Hyper-V and Identifying Server Candidates for Virtualization

Written by Daniel Kenyon-smith

Up and coming Live Webcasts (Technet) - Office Communication Server 2007 (OCS) and Exchange 2007

danielke — Fri, 30 May 2008 19:52:00 GMT

Unified Communication Solutions: Critical to Success – Monday 02 June 2008

TechNet Webcast: Disaster Recovery in Communications Server 2007 (Level 200) – Monday 02 June 2008

Unified Communication Solutions: Critical to Success – Wednesday 04 June 2008

Exchange Labs Webcast- Free Email for K12 Students Overview - Wednesday 04 June 2008

TechNet Webcast: All About Communications Server 2007 Security (Level 300) – Thursday 05 June 2008

TechNet Webcast: Going Big! Deploying Large Mailboxes with Exchange Server 2007 Without Breaking the Bank (Level 300) - Thursday 05 June 2008

TechNet Webcast: Forefront Security for Exchange Deployment Best Practices (Level 300) – Monday 09 June 2008

TechNet Webcast: Deploying and Managing Your Unified Communications Devices (Level 300) – Tuesday 10^th June

Written by Daniel Kenyon-smith

Windows Mobile 6.1 and Microsoft System Center Mobile Device Manager 2008 (SCMDM)

danielke — Tue, 27 May 2008 15:11:00 GMT

Microsoft released Windows mobile 6.1 on the 1^st April which is full of new enhancements, such as:

· Instant messaging-like texting - Messages are threaded together to allow you to track your conversations, this provides you access to the chain of discussions that have just taken place

· Improved Internet browsing – Adds the ability to easily view full-screen web pages and multimedia on the web

· Simpler e-mail and Bluetooth setup

· New Home screen interface

· New Getting Started Center

· Security enhancements – Mobile VPN access to Line Of Business Applications (LOB)

· Easier Wi-Fi connection

· More personal choice

To compare versions of Windows Mobile starting from 5.0 see the compatibility chart. Smartphones listed on Windows Mobile devices list all devices that can be updated with Windows Mobile 6.1, there is also a full listing of Windows Mobile phones.

To managed your windows Mobile 6.1 device you can use Windows Mobile Device Center 6.1 for Windows Vista (6.1 is only supported on Windows Vista) or you can use Microsoft System Center Mobile Device Manager 2008 (SCMDM) which provides a powerful management tool for your mobile devices. Using SCMDM 2008 you have control over and can centralised the management of over-the-air devices, set advanced policies, run inventory and reporting using Active Directory Group Policy (GPO).

SCMDM 2008 features:

· Over 130 GPO’s can be applied to user and device groups to allow your organisation to apply consistent settings across your enterprise devices

· Self-service device provisioning and bootstrapping can be used to setup new devices quickly

· Device Models, make and software updates that have been deployed for deivices can be determined in one central console (this information can be stored and retrieved from SQL 2005 databases)

· Deploy software and firmware updates

· Allows IPSec-based mobile VPN capabilities to access Line of business (LOB) applications to run on mobile devices such as SharePoint.

· Improved certificate support, allowing better certificate enrolment, support for wild card certificates and AES for SSL

· Allow or Restrict applications that can be run on devices in the enterprise

Speaking of applications that can be run on your mobile devices, see Microsoft Office Mobile to use applications such as Excel Mobile, Word Mobile and PowerPoint Mobile while on the move.

Written by Daniel Kenyon-Smith

Update Rollup 2 for Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1

danielke — Thu, 15 May 2008 19:02:00 GMT

We all know Exchange 2007 SP1 released a little while ago adding some cool new features to the product, Standby cluster replication (SCR) to name one, for more details on exactly what features are provided with SP1 see MSExchangeteam Blog and TechNet

There is now an update rollup 2 for Exchange 2007 SP1, full details of this update and where the update can be obtained is listed on Microsoft Support

One thing to be aware of before you download the rollup and install on your live servers (test all Service Packs and patches before installing in your production environment) is that Exchange 2007 managed code services do not start after you’ve installed the update rollup for Exchange 2007 if your Exchange server does not have internet access. The Exchange 2007 server will try and access the following site http://crl.microsoft.com/pki/crl/products/CSPCA.crl to check the Certificate Revocation List (CRL) is available, if the internet connection is blocked or the server does not have internet access the Service Control Manager (SCM) will time out and report an error, full details can be found at Microsoft Support.

Written by Daniel Kenyon-Smith

Exchange 2007 SP1 and Windows 2008

danielke — Tue, 13 May 2008 18:33:00 GMT

Now Windows 2008 has been released to manufacturing (RTM), all new implementations of Exchange 2007 SP1 can be designed using Windows 2008 Server (SP1 is a minimum requirement for Windows 2008, a full list of prerequisites can found at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb691354.aspx ).

Windows 2008 new features

For a full new and updated list of features in Windows 2008 see the following link http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/compare-features.aspx

Topology

If you are running Windows 2008 Read-only DC’s (RODC) or Read-only Global Catalog servers (ROGC), be aware that no version of Exchange supports these new types of server roles and Exchange requires a writeable server. However Exchange 2003 SP2 and Exchange 2007 are supported in a Windows 2008 AD environment.

Windows Upgrades

In place upgrades cannot be performed when the server is running Exchange, so in order to run Windows 2008 and Exchange 2007 SP1 you will need to build a fresh server. Official guidance for migrating from Exchange 2007 running on Windows 2003 to Exchange 2007 running on Windows 2008 can be found at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/cc296562.aspx

Exchange 2007 Sp1 new features when running Windows 2008

These are only a few of the new and improved features of running Exchange 2007 SP1 on Windows 2008

· Faster log shipping – Windows 2008 includes SMB v2, which increases the throughput performance by around 30-40%

· Support for multi-subnet failover cluster – Running a Windows 2008 failover cluster with Exchange 2007 SP1 includes support for geographically dispersed cluster for failover across 2 subnets

· Improvements for Client Access Servers (CAS) – Windows 2008 removes RPC Proxy service TCP connection limits. Previous versions of Windows had a limit of 65,535 connections per server, Windows 2008 now supports 65,535 connections per IP address

· Easier deployment – Windows 2008 includes Windows PowerShell

· Support of IPv6 – IP addresses can be entered using IPv4 or IPv6 (the default installation supports both versions)

Written by Daniel Kenyon-Smith

Antigen Manual Download

danielke — Tue, 13 May 2008 11:49:00 GMT

If you want to install Antigen on an Exchange server that doesn't have access to the internet to install updates there is a work around, see the steps below:-

Create the UNC Update Folder structure.

· Create a directory that is named "Forefront."

· In the Forefront directory, create a directory that is named "Engines."

· In the Engine directory, create a directory that is named "x86."

· In the x86 directory, create a folder for the engine on which you are working.
For example, create a folder that is named "Norman."

· In the %EngineName% directory, create a folder that is named "Package."
An example of the UNC Update Folder path is as follows:
C:\Forefront\Engines\x86\Norman\Package

Download the latest scan engine files.

· Save the Manifest.cab file to the Package folder for the engine that you are
updating. An example of the path of this file in the directory is as follows:
C:\Forefront\Engines\x86\Norman\Package\manifest.cab
To obtain the Manifest.cab file, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
http://forefrontdl.microsoft.com/server/scanengineupdate/x86/Norman/Package/manifest.cab

· Extract the Manifest.xml file from the Manifest.cab file, and then open the
Manifest.xml file by using a text editor, such as Notepad.

Search for the "version=" string in the Manifest.xml file. After one of the
instances of "version=," a 10-digit number is displayed.

For example, locate the entry that resembles the following entry:
version="0805080001"
In this entry, the 10-digit number represents the update version number of the
latest update at the time this was written. It is different now and just needs to
be update based on the instructions just stated. The update version is the year,
month, day with the last 4 digits for the particular update version for that day.
For this article, this update version number is represented by the update_version
placeholder.

· Save the Norman_fullpkg.cab file to a directory that has the same version name
within the Package folder. An example of the path of this file in the directory is
as follows:
http://forefrontdl.microsoft.com/server/scanengineupdate/x86/Norman/Package/0709170001/norman_fullpkg.cab

Important In this URL, replace update_version with the update version number that
you located.
For example, use a URL that resembles the following sample URL:
http://forefrontdl.microsoft.com/server/scanengineupdate/x86/Norman/Package/0709170001/norman_fullpkg.cab

· Copy the Manifest.cab file in the Package folder, and then paste the file into
the "%Version%" folder. An example of the final structure of the file is as
follows:
c:\Forefront\Engines\x86\Norman\Package\manifest.cab
c:\Forefront\Engines\x86\Norman\Package\0805080001\manifest.cab
c:\Forefront\Engines\x86\Norman\Package\0805080001\Norman_fullpkg.cab

Update the engine.

· Open the Antigen Administrator.

· Under SETTINGS, click Scanner Updates.

· Select the engine on which you are working. For example, select Microsoft.

· Change Network Update Path to the parent directory of the x86 folder. For
example, change this item to "C:\ Forefront \Engines."

· Click Save.

· Click Update Now.

Written by Daniel Kenyon-Smith

Intelligent Message Filter (IMF) Exchange 2003 SP2

danielke — Tue, 13 May 2008 11:47:00 GMT

When using Intelligent Message Filter (IMF) with Exchange 2003 SP2 it is possible to download filters manually and then upload them to the Exchange server. Why would you want to do this I hear you ask, well if you have an Exchange server that is part of a secure network and does not have access to the Internet but you still require SPAM filters, you can access the filters manually then upload them into Exchange.

The following site allows you to download IMF filters manually - http://catalog.update.microsoft.com/v7/site/Home.aspx

Once the filter has been downloaded you can then upload the filter to exchange by running the following commands:-

To manually install an update or roll back to an earlier version

1. Click Start, click Run, type the following command, and then click OK: regsvr32 "Drive_Letter:\\Program Files\Exchsvr\Bin\MSCFV2\6.5.7615.0\MSExchange.UceContentFilter.dll"

2. Click OK to accept the registration confirmation message.

3. Click Start, click Run, type iisreset, and then click OK.

Simple as that!

If you want to enable to IMF you'll need to do this in 2 seperate locations, see below for steps:

How to Enable IMF

·         Start System Manager: On the Start menu, point to Programs, point to Microsoft Exchange, and then click System Manager.

·         Move to the SMTP virtual server, starting with Servers.

·         Right-click the SMTP virtual server, and then click Properties.

·         On the General tab, click Advanced.

·         In Identification, select the Apply Intelligent Message Filtering check box, and then click OK. In Advanced, under the Filter Enabled column, Yes appears.

Note: To disable filtering, clear the Apply Intelligent Message Filtering check box.

How to Enable Updates

After you’ve enabled IMF in Exchange System Manager, to enable IMF updates, you must create the ContentFilterState registry entry. To do this, follow these steps

· Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.

· Expand the following registry sub key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Exchange

· In the left pane, click Exchange. Then, right-click in the right pane, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.

· Type ContentFilterState, and then press Enter to name the new registry entry.

· Right-click ContentFilterState, and then click Modify.

· In the Data value box, type 1, and then click OK.

· Quit Registry Editor.

· In the Services snap-in, restart the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) service.

Written by Daniel Kenyon-Smith