HMC 4.5 and Exchange 2007 SP1 - Part #6 - Conclusion (for now)
Introduction
So far, we have discussed what and how we have tweaked Exchange 2007 SP1 for HMC 4.5 so that it can be catered for multi-tenants. However, I should highlight that there are still more to be discussed, for example Unified Messaging, Free/Busy and Availability Services and OWA segmentation. Here, I am going to conclude this series but before doing so, there are a few topics that I like to briefly cover.
There is more?
Yes, there is more. :) If you read through the HMC 4.5 Solutions help file, you may find some of the following there but I thought I should highlight this again (after all, who read Help file, right?) and it may make the blog more complete to cover some of those topics here.
(1) Resource Management
It is important to note that HMC does more than just multi-tenant enabling Exchange 2007. There are large Centralized Management and Provisioning pieces that I didn't cover which I think it is important to know. HMC also provides the mechanism to allow the service provider to properly manage the Exchange resources and plans. For example, it gives the service provider the capability to define different User Plans, such as properly defining the type of client feature such as Quota, MAPI enable, owaSignaturesEnabled and etc. Service provider can also specify the amount of space allocated to a specific tenant and how those spaces can be distributed to different mail stores and etc.
In another word, what we have covered here in this blog is purely on the Exchange customization part, which is only small part of the whole HMC solutions.
(2) Hub Transport or Edge?
When Microsoft introduces Exchange 2007, Edge Transport server role has been greatly discussed because for the first time, Exchange comes with a server role that is not part of the Windows domain and that Microsoft recommends putting that server role in the perimeters network. The Edge Transport server role was designed specifically to deploy into a perimeter network.
However, there is lag time for both newly created and updated accepted domains and accepted users on the Edge server because of built in EdgeSync delay replication and cache delay (see KB Article 936159). This can cause unwanted NDR messages for hosting organizations. For this reason, in HMC 4.5, we offer an alternative deployment scenario where the Microsoft Exchange 2007 SP1 Hub Transport server can be reached directly through the Internet. The Internet-facing Hub Transport server will offer antivirus and anti- spam protection similar to the security provided by the Edge server role.
It should be noted that when we released HMC 4.0, Edge was part of the deployment walkthrough but in HMC 4.5, we recommended the alternative deployment scenario instead.
(3) Exchange 2007 Rollups and Updates
This is another question that always comes up. How do I know if I can apply the latest Exchange 2007 Rollup? For Exchange to work, generally it is not an issue unless the rollups introduces some permission changes or etc.
However, HMC solution as a whole has to be tested because HMC makes specific cmdlets calls all the time to create mailbox, to modify calendar settings, quotas and etc. If some of the rollup changes the cmdlet, it will result in HMC to fail. For that reason, we recommend users to wait till the rollup has been full tested by the HMC team before deploying them.
(4) Is ExBPA useful for HMC?
Yes, it is. There are still many rules in ExBPA that are applicable as you can see that the number of customization that made by HMC aren't many. In fact, many of the recommended practices still apply.
Also, it is important to note that HMC will not violate the Exchange Product Group support stand. For example, Exchange PG does not recommend putting CAS in DMZ and do not recommend to have firewall between CAS and Mailbox Server roles, HMC will not recommend to do that as well.
(5) Disaster Recovery
I think this qualifies a separate blog but it is important to note that when you are troubleshooting an Exchange issue in HMC environment, you can't just treat it like a normal Exchange environment. For example, you should not simply move mailbox from one server to another from the EMC or EMS because that will create inconsistencies between the HMC Resource Management and the Exchange and AD.
Conclusion
So, there you go. While I know there are much to be covered but I think these few blogs should give everyone a good idea what are the things that HMC has changed in Exchange 2007.
