The Three UC Amigos

Exchange 2010 Unified Messaging

Scalability. Lots of changes with Exchange 2010 including Voicemail preview. We haven’t seen the upper bounds of scale with Exchange 2010 but I can tell you that based on testing with Exchange 2007 SP1 against Exchange 2010 (with Voicemail Preview turned off) we can easily surpass the call concurrency established with Exchange 2007 SP1. Call handling for voicemail will vary based on the codec used and with WMA and a hardware profile with 2xdual-core Xeon/4GB Ram we were able to do 80 concurrent Voicemail calls. With GSM against the same we could do 100. In Exchange 2010 with a 2xquad core Xeon/16GB Ram we can do >80 on WMA, >100 on GSM, and with a new codec >100 on MP3. This translates to approximately 10K users supported via one UM Server.

Caller ID Resolution. One of the other areas that has changed with Exchange 2010 Unified messaging is around Caller ID Resolution. Bottom-line people want to see names not numbers on resolution. Let’s use AD as a source for phone #s in your organization. They probably have a phone number (if populated?) even if they aren’t UM enabled.

In Exchange 2007 Caller ID was based on the following:

• Resolve extension against callee’s dial plan
• Resolve SIP address against SIP proxy address
• Resolve against callee’s personal contacts
• Resolve E164 number against MsRtcSip-Line

In Exchange 2010 we’ve added AD lookup heuristics on several attributes. In AD phone attributes are not indexed and aren’t suitable for a direct query by Exchange UM. Instead UM copies reversed phone numbers to DTMF map attribute which allows a suffix search. Numbers searched (if present):

• telephoneNumber, otherTelephone
• homePhone, otherHomePhone
• mobile, otherMobile
• facsimileTelephoneNumber, otherFacsimileTelephoneNumber

This is controlled by a new property in the UM Dial plan called AllowHeuristicADCallingLineIDResolution (true/false)

Exchange 2010 also can resolve against multiple dial plans. If User 1 (Dialplan A) calls Users 2 (Dial Plan B) and they are on the same PBX the extension lookup performed in the callee’s dial plan and any other dial plans specified by B’s EquivalentDialPlanPhoneContexts. BTW – in Exchange 2007 it would only look in the callee’s B plan.

If we look at the big picture here’s how Caller ID Resolution works in Exchange 2010. More info can be found in our technet guidance here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd351203.aspx. Paul Robichaux thanks for pointing this out!!!!

 

 

 

Very cool OCS 2007 R2 Architecture Poster available

If you like visual aids to help understand how OCS 2007 R2 works, how the clients connect, protocols used, then there is an excellent poster available for download here. It is perfect your techno geek cube wall!

 

I broke it out so you could see what was on it:

 

New Exchange Server 2010 training webcasts and How Do I videos

Some really useful Exchange 2010 content just showed up. I really like the ‘How Do I’ short videos:

For short demos on how to get started with Exchange 2010, check out the new library of “How Do I” videos:

· Getting Started with Archiving in Exchange 2010

· Getting Started with Remote Management

· Getting Started with Message Retention in Exchange 2010

· Getting Started with Message Discovery

· Introduction to Exchange 2010

· Get Started with Role Based Access Control

· Get Started with DAGs

· Create and Configure Certificates

· Transitioning from Exchange 2007 to Exchange 2010 Part 1

· Transitioning from Exchange 2007 to Exchange 2010 Part 2

· Transitioning from Exchange 2007 to Exchange 2010 Part 3

· Coexisting Exchange 2010 with Exchange 2007

· CAS ISA

 

Upcoming Exchange 2010 Webcasts that look like some great information:

· Introducing Exchange Server 2010

· Discover the New OWA: Outlook Web App

· Upgrade and Coexistence with Exchange Server 2007 and 2003

· Information Protection and Control in Microsoft Exchange Server 2010

· Exchange Server 2010 High Availability

· Getting the Most out of Exchange Server 2010: Performance and Scalability

· Deploying and Managing Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Transport Servers

· Addressing E-mail Archiving and Retention

· Exchange Server 2010 Management and Operations

· Calendar Sharing and Federation in Microsoft Exchange Server 2010

Hardware sizing for Exchange Server 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.

What can you tell me about Messaging Records Management and Exchange Server 2010?

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

DAG and Port Questions

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

New Exchange Server 2010 Deployment Assistant scenarios released today

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:

Can I virtualize Exchange Server 2010 and be supported?

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.

Security Configuration Wizard and Exchange 2010

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

Virtualization and Enterprise Edition Licensing

 

Answering Questions on Licensing and Virtualization:

 

First Licensing in OCS R2 has improved.

For OCS Enterprise Edition Servers Microsoft has made all roles  EXCEPT Front End and Edge Servers "Additional Software"

The impact for this simplifies the Enterprise Edition Servers so they can be purchased without the concern about roles and reduces the customer cost.  Customers will decide on High Availability and number of seats covered.

http://www.microsoft.com/communicationsserver/en/us/pricing-licensing.aspx

 

For Virtualization

Presence, IM, and Group Chat roles are now fully supported in a Hyper-V environment.

The virtual machines must be running on Windows Server 2008 64 bits.  Archiving Server and Monitoring Server can be connected to a virtualized Enterprise pool, but they must run on a physical server

 

Virtualization of the other workloads is not supported because of possible quality issues with real-time media.

If any one of these workloads is required, a new pool with physical servers must be deployed for those users. For more information about support for client virtualization technologies, please refer to the official support statement at: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951152

 

In order to plan both their physical and virtualized topologies, customers can use Microsoft® Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Capacity Planning Tool, which can simulate user load for the available workloads. This will help customers validating the hypervisor load and scalability before going to production.

 

Along with this announcement, a whitepaper detailing the tested architecture, performance, use of the Capacity Planning Tool, and a methodology to select a successful architecture can be found at: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0a45d921-3b48-44e4-b42b-19704a2b81b0

 

 

Blackberry Support for Exchange 2010!!!!!!!!!!!

I know that Mark posted this previously but wanted to ensure it had it’s own post as this is very important for our customers.

 

Blackberry is now supported with RIM.

Requirements:

• Roll-Up 1 (RU1) for Exchange Server 2010
• MAPI v6.5.8147
• BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0.1 Maintenance Release 1 (MR1)

All three of these updates are available to customers of Exchange Server 2010 and BlackBerry Enterprise Server v.5.0 with Service Pack 1 at no cost. BlackBerry Enterprise Server v5.0 Service Pack 1 and Maintenance Release 1 can be found here: http://www.blackberry.com/support/downloads

Additional information on the solution requirements, preparing the BlackBerry environment for Microsoft Exchange Server2010, can be found on the BlackBerry site here.

What if I need to install earlier versions of Exchange with Exchange Server 2010?

Important: Before you deploy Exchange Server 2010 please validate if you require Exchange 2003 or Exchange 2007 in your environment as you cannot install these previous versions of Exchange unless you have installed them PRIOR to installing Exchange 2010. Once Exchange 2010 is installed, any previous versions of Exchange that have not already been installed cannot be installed after the fact.

What are scenarios that I would need to install previous versions of Exchange Server prior to Exchange Server 2010?

There are certain cases where our tools or 3rd party tools/software does not yet or will not work with Exchange Server 2010. In these scenarios, you may need to install a previous version of Exchange Server such and 2003 or 2007 to coincide with Exchange Server 2010. 

What are some Microsoft tools that do not work with Exchange Server 2010?

If you need to migrate from Lotus Domino and want to leverage our Transporter Suite Migration Tools you’ll need an Exchange 2007 server installed since there will be no version for Exchange Server 2010. Grab the tool here.  There are 3rd party migration tools that work with Exchange 2010 as well.

Another scenario would be if you want to migrate from GroupWise and want to leverage our GroupWise migration tools you need an Exchange 2003 server installed first to get the Exchange Migration Wizard which allows you migrate from Novell GroupWise 6.5 or lower to Exchange. Read about it here.  There are 3rd party migration tools that work with Exchange 2010 as well.

The last scenario you may need an earlier version of Exchange would be if you want to have Interorg free/busy calendar and public folder replication information shared between multiple Exchange organizations.  You can use the IOREPL tool for this. Grab it here or read about it here.

 

What if I need to install Exchange 2007 server, can I do that after I install Exchange 2010?

Answer: Yes, but only if you had installed Exchange 2007 prior to Exchange 2010.

What if I need to install Exchange 2003 server, can I do that after I install Exchange 2010?

Answer: Yes, but only if you had installed Exchange 2003 prior to Exchange 2010.

What if I need to install Exchange 2007, can I do that if I have upgraded from Exchange 2003 directly to Exchange 2010?

Answer: No, you must have installed 2003, 2007 and then Exchange 2010 in that order.

 

Is there a tool I can use to help me with my Exchange 2010 installation?

Answer: Yes, check out this  Exchange 2010 deployment assistant before you upgrade to Exchange Server 2010 here.

 

Does Blackberry Enterprise Server work with Exchange 2010?

Answer: Yes, Be sure to install the brand new Exchange Server 2010 RollUp1 here in conjunction with the new BES 5.0.1 MR1 update along with MAPI 6.5.8147 – it has a patch to allow for BlackBerry Enterprise Server to fully support Exchange 2010. Rollup 1 has a few CAS and OWA patches as well.

How to setup an Exchange 2010 CAS Array to load balance MAPI

Since Exchange 2010 CAS servers now handle all internal and external client traffic to Exchange mailbox servers including Outlook MAPI traffic, the need for a highly available CAS array is critical to your design.

So how do you load balance MAPI traffic? I found a some useful bits of information to help out:

1. Load balance your CAS servers in a CAS array by whatever method you choose – Both Hardware LB or Windows Network LB are supported load balancers
2. Create a MAPI A record in your internal DNS infrastructure that resolves to the Virtual IP Address (VIP) of the CAS load balancing array.  The DNS entry, for example, could be outlook.school.edu
3. Configure your load balancing array to load balance the MAPI RPC ports:
   1. TCP 135
   2. UDP/TCP 6005-65535; or set static ports
4. Use the new-clientaccessarray cmdlet to create the CAS array object. Such as:

New-ClientAccessArray –Name “School CAS Array” –Fqdn “outlook.school.edu” –Site “Boulder”

More here.

    5.  You need to revisit any Exchange databases that were created before the CAS array was created and set the rpcclientaccessserver property to match the newly created CAS array. Such as:

Set-MailboxDatabase DB1 -RpcClientAccessServer “outlook.school.edu”

For more on Exchange Server 2010 CAS visit here.

Group Chat Capacity Planning Documents Released today

I have been asked by customers for Group Chat scalability documents and we have just posted these today.

 

Step 1 Deploy the Group Chat QFE update to increase scalability

Deploy the Group Chat QFE here to increase the Group Chat scalability which allows for:

· Support for up to three servers per pool

· Increased capacity to support up to 20,000 users per server or 60,000 users for all three Group Chat servers

 

Step 2 Download the GC documents to capacity plan

Grab the Group Chat Capacity Planning document here.

Group Chat capacity planning spreadsheet here.

How do I enable Exchange 2010 MWI with Call Manager 7.x?

With Exchange Server 2010’s new messaging waiting indicator feature, my customer, from a school district in Colorado, was trying to get this to work.

Here is a reference I found:

To enable MWI

1) Open Cisco Unified CM Administration

2) Click System >  Security Profile > SIP Trunk Security Profile

3) At the Find and List SIP Trunk Security Profiles screen, click the FIND button

4) You’ll likely then see at least two SIP Trunk Security profiles (i.e. Non Secure, Secure).  Select the profile used by your SIP trunk with Ex2010UM.

5) From the SIP Trunk Security Profile Configuration menu, verify that Accept Unsolicited Notification is enabled. 

                Note:  If your SIP trunk to UM is configured to use Digest Authentication, also be sure to select the option Enable Application Level Authorization.

6) Commit changes by clicking Save (this will restart all trunks associated with the security profile)

 

For more on Exchange Server 2010 Unified Messaging visit here.