Best Practices For Exchange 2010 White Paper From Quest…

Quest has released a white paper on best practices to be followed while deploying Exchange 2010. Organizations that consider adopting Exchange 2010 will need to weigh its benefits against the costs and complexities of managing it. This white paper describes the new features of Exchange Server 2010 and discusses best practices for migrating to and managing this unified communications foundation.

Access the white paper here

Exchange 2010 Design Exam & Prometric…

This is a quick one for who had successfully registered for the Exchange 2010 Design Beta exam (70-663) in December and got automatically cancelled by Microsoft/Prometric. Working with Microsoft, Prometric is emailing all beta registrants with a voucher code for a free 70-663 exam. If you haven’t received it already, I urge you to contact Prometric.

The exam is not yet live, but is expected to be released for public this month itself. Below is the email I received from Prometric.

””””””Thank you for your interest in the Microsoft Beta 071-663, PRO: Designing & Deploying Messaging Solutions w/MS Exchange Server 2010, examination. Per the previous communication, you are due to receive one 100% discount voucher for the live 070-663 exam. Below is your voucher number.  Please retain this voucher number as it is required at the time of registration for your exam. 

Voucher number:

This exam is due to be released in late January 2010. Once the exam is released, you will be able to schedule an appointment by logging onto www.prometric.com/microsoft.  Please use the above voucher number for payment when scheduling your exam”””””””

Exchange 2010 Mailbox Role Requirements Calculator Updated…

The Exchange Product Team has just released a new version of the Exchange 2010 Mailbox Requirements Calculator. This version includes the following improvements and new features (From Team Blog):

• Added processor core guidance for Hub Transport and Client Access server roles.
• Added the ability to define a custom number of databases that you would like to implement in the solution.
• Added support for 2-node site resilient Database Availability Groups.
• Added 1 and 6 processor cores as selectable options.
• Improved breakdown of the activation scenarios in a site resilient solution.
• Improved breakout of the role requirements section.
• The Storage Design tab now indicates that when you select a custom RAID configuration that the calculator ignores RAID-5 and RAID-6 for 5.xK and 7.2K spindles due to performance concerns.
• Updated processor utilization results to show the processor utilization even if it is above the recommended threshold.
• Made conditional formatting improvements throughout the calculator to warn you when you have a configuration that will not work.
• Improved various cell comments.

For more information, check the source article

Download the new calculator here

Log Shipping In Exchange 2010 DAG…

In Exchange 2010 DAG, the asynchronous replication no longer uses SMB like it used to be in 2007. Exchange 2007 uses Server Message Blocks (SMB) for log shipping and port 445 has to be opened across datacentres if you have multi-site CCRs or SCRs.

Exchange 2010 uses TCP/IP for copying of log files and seeding. The DAG uses 64327 port for replication by default, but you can change the port. Check my previous article on how to change the replication port used by the DAG.

Update Rollup 2 for Exchange 2007 SP2 Released…

Microsoft has released the Update Rollup 2 for Exchange 2007 Service Pack 2. This update rollup does not apply to the Exchange Server 2007 RTM or SP1.

The required services are automatically stopped and then restarted when you apply this update rollup. If you want to remove this rollup update for some reason, remove update 972076 from add/remove programs in the control panel.

Download the update rollup 2 here

Change The Replication Port Used By Database Availability Group…

Exchange 2010 setup opens up the necessary ports for client server communication and by default the replication port used by DAG is 64327. If you do want to change the replication port to the one of your choice for whatever reason, you can do it.

Run the command below to change the replication port, to say 64000

Set-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup -identity "dagname" -ReplicationPort 64000

Once the default replication port has been changed, make sure that you manually modify the firewall exceptions on all members of the DAG so that communication occurs through the new port. If you have your firewall disabled (not recommended), no change is necessary.

Assigning Static IP Address For Database Availability Group...

Database Availability Group (DAG) uses an IP address assigned by a DHCP server by default. Please check my previous articles about configuring DAG and points to note if you are not familiar with DAG. You can use the exchange console or the shell to configure the properties of a DAG, including the witness server and directory used by the DAG. The shell enables you to configure the DAG properties that are not available in the console. As an administrator, you can assign a static IP address for the DAG, though it is not a requirement. DAG doesn't really care as long as it has an IP address and the name of the DAG is resolvable. The DAG name is not used by users or admins anyway. It is only used by the system for internal communication.

To find the current ip address of the DAG, run the command

Get-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup -identity "dagname" | fl *ip*

To configure a static IP address (say 192.168.1.104) for the DAG, run

Set-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup -identity "dagname" -DatabaseAvailabilityGroupIpAddress 192.168.1.104

If you have a DAG that spans multiple subnets (for high availability), you can configure multiple ip addresses for the DAG. To configure multiple ip addresses, run

Set-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup -identity "dagname" -DatabaseAvailabilityGroupIpAddress 192.168.1.104, 192.168.2.104

Points To Note While Creating A Database Availability Group (DAG)…

I have written an article detailing the steps for creating a Database Availability Group (DAG). As more and more companies are thinking about moving to Exchange 2010 with high availability, few points have to be noted before creating the first DAG.

• You can use both EMC and shell to create a DAG.
• The DAG name can have a maximum of 15 characters.
• The name of the DAG isn't used by end users or administrators. It is only used by the system for internal communication and to secure the DAG.
• All DAG members should have the same operating system, either 2008 SP2 or 2008 R2.
• The operating system should be enterprise or datacenter edition, while Exchange 2010 can be either standard or enterprise.
• You can install other roles like CAS & HUB on DAG nodes.
• You have to use an external load balancer to load balance CAS & HUB installed on DAG nodes.
• If you don't specify a witness server, the system will attempt to automatically select a hub transport server that doesn't have the mailbox server role installed to be used as the witness server.
• The witness server cannot be a member of the DAG.
• After you create a DAG, it will be configured to use DHCP. If you don't want the DAG to use DHCP, you can use the Set-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup cmdlet to configure an IP address for the DAG.
• You can configure more than one IP address for the DAG if the DAG is spread across different sites.
• You don’t have to fill in all the details while creating a DAG in the EMC. Four combinations of options are possible.

1. You can specify only a name for the DAG and leave the witness server and witness directory check boxes cleared. Then, the wizard will search for a hub transport server that doesn't have the mailbox server role installed. It will automatically create the default directory and share on that hub server and use that server as the witness server.
2. You can specify a name for the DAG, the witness server that you want to use and the directory you want created and shared on the witness server.
3. You can specify a name for the DAG and the witness server that you want to use and leave the witness directory check box cleared. Then, the wizard will create the default directory on the specified witness server.
4. You can specify a name for the DAG, leave the witness server check box cleared and specify the directory you want to be created and shared on the witness server. Then, the wizard will search for a hub server that doesn't have the mailbox role installed and will automatically create the specified directory on that server, share the directory and use that hub server as the witness server.

Ports Opened By Exchange 2010 Setup…

Exchange 2010 setup opens a number of ports required for client server communication depending upon the server roles that gets installed. The setup does this by creating firewall rules and they are visible when you fire up “Windows Firewall with Advanced Security” snap-in.

The below table (from Technet) lists all the ports opened by exchange 2010. As I was going through the list, the one that caught my attention was the port used for log shipping in a DAG, which is 64327!

One thing to note is that you can’t modify firewall rules created by the Exchange 2010 setup. You can create custom rules based on them & then disable or delete them.

Rule name	Server roles	Port	Program
MSExchangeADTopology - RPC (TCP-In)	Client Access, Hub Transport, Mailbox, Unified Messaging	Dynamic RPC	Bin\MSExchangeADTopologyService.exe
MSExchangeMonitoring - RPC (TCP-In)	Client Access, Hub Transport, Edge Transport, Unified Messaging	Dynamic RPC	Bin\Microsoft.Exchange.Management.Monitoring.exe
MSExchangeServiceHost - RPC (TCP-In)	All roles	Dynamic RPC	Bin\Microsoft.Exchange.ServiceHost.exe
MSExchangeServiceHost - RPCEPMap (TCP-In)	All roles	RPC-EPMap	Bin\Microsoft.Exchange.Service.Host
MSExchangeRPCEPMap (GFW) (TCP-In)	All roles	RPC-EPMap	Any
MSExchangeRPC (GFW) (TCP-In)	Client Access, Hub Transport, Mailbox, Unified Messaging	Dynamic RPC	Any
MSExchange - IMAP4 (GFW) (TCP-In)	Client Access	143, 993 (TCP)	All
MSExchangeIMAP4 (TCP-In)	Client Access	143, 993 (TCP)	ClientAccess\PopImap\Microsoft.Exchange.Imap4Service.exe
MSExchange - POP3 (FGW) (TCP-In)	Client Access	110, 995 (TCP)	All
MSExchange - POP3 (TCP-In)	Client Access	110, 995 (TCP)	ClientAccess\PopImap\Microsoft.Exchange.Pop3Service.exe
MSExchange - OWA (GFW) (TCP-In)	Client Access	5075, 5076, 5077 (TCP)	All
MSExchangeOWAAppPool (TCP-In)	Client Access	5075, 5076, 5077 (TCP)	Inetsrv\w3wp.exe
MSExchangeAB-RPC (TCP-In)	Client Access	Dynamic RPC	Bin\Microsoft.Exchange.AddressBook.Service.exe
MSExchangeAB-RPCEPMap (TCP-In)	Client Access	RPC-EPMap	Bin\Microsoft.Exchange.AddressBook.Service.exe
MSExchangeAB-RpcHttp (TCP-In)	Client Access	6002, 6004 (TCP)	Bin\Microsoft.Exchange.AddressBook.Service.exe
RpcHttpLBS (TCP-In)	Client Access	Dynamic RPC	System32\Svchost.exe
MSExchangeRPC - RPC (TCP-In)	Client Access, Mailbox	Dynamic RPC	Bing\Microsoft.Exchange.RpcClientAccess.Service.exe
MSExchangeRPC - PRCEPMap (TCP-In)	Client Access, Mailbox	RPC-EPMap	Bing\Microsoft.Exchange.RpcClientAccess.Service.exe
MSExchangeRPC (TCP-In)	Client Access, Mailbox	6001 (TCP)	Bing\Microsoft.Exchange.RpcClientAccess.Service.exe
MSExchangeMailboxReplication (GFW) (TCP-In)	Client Access	808 (TCP)	Any
MSExchangeMailboxReplication (TCP-In)	Client Access	808 (TCP)	Bin\MSExchangeMailboxReplication.exe
MSExchangeIS - RPC (TCP-In)	Mailbox	Dynamic RPC	Bin\Store.exe
MSExchangeIS RPCEPMap (TCP-In)	Mailbox	RPC-EPMap	Bin\Store.exe
MSExchangeIS (GFW) (TCP-In)	Mailbox	6001, 6002, 6003, 6004 (TCP)	Any
MSExchangeIS (TCP-In)	Mailbox	6001 (TCP)	Bin\Store.exe
MSExchangeMailboxAssistants - RPC (TCP-In)	Mailbox	Dynamic RPC	Bin\MSExchangeMailboxAssistants.exe
MSExchangeMailboxAssistants - RPCEPMap (TCP-In)	Mailbox	RPC-EPMap	Bin\MSExchangeMailboxAssistants.exe
MSExchangeMailSubmission - RPC (TCP-In)	Mailbox	Dynamic RPC	Bin\MSExchangeMailSubmission.exe
MSExchangeMailSubmission - RPCEPMap (TCP-In)	Mailbox	RPC-EPMap	Bin\MSExchangeMailSubmission.exe
MSExchangeMigration - RPC (TCP-In)	Mailbox	Dynamic RPC	Bin\MSExchangeMigration.exe
MSExchangeMigration - RPCEPMap (TCP-In)	Mailbox	RPC-EPMap	Bin\MSExchangeMigration.exe
MSExchangerepl - Log Copier (TCP-In)	Mailbox	64327 (TCP)	Bin\MSExchangeRepl.exe
MSExchangerepl - RPC (TCP-In)	Mailbox	Dynamic RPC	Bin\MSExchangeRepl.exe
MSExchangerepl - RPC-EPMap (TCP-In)	Mailbox	RPC-EPMap	Bin\MSExchangeRepl.exe
MSExchangeSearch - RPC (TCP-In)	Mailbox	Dynamic RPC	Bin\Microsoft.Exchange.Search.ExSearch.exe
MSExchangeThrottling - RPC (TCP-In)	Mailbox	Dynamic RPC	Bin\MSExchangeThrottling.exe
MSExchangeThrottling - RPCEPMap (TCP-In)	Mailbox	RPC-EPMap	Bin\MSExchangeThrottling.exe
MSFTED - RPC (TCP-In)	Mailbox	Dynamic RPC	Bin\MSFTED.exe
MSFTED - RPCEPMap (TCP-In)	Mailbox	RPC-EPMap	Bin\MSFTED.exe
MSExchangeEdgeSync - RPC (TCP-In)	Hub Transport	Dynamic RPC	Bin\Microsoft.Exchange.EdgeSyncSvc.exe
MSExchangeEdgeSync - RPCEPMap (TCP-In)	Hub Transport	RPC-EPMap	Bin\Microsoft.Exchange.EdgeSyncSvc.exe
MSExchangeTransportWorker - RPC (TCP-In)	Hub Transport	Dynamic RPC	Bin\edgetransport.exe
MSExchangeTransportWorker - RPCEPMap (TCP-In)	Hub Transport	RPC-EPMap	Bin\edgetransport.exe
MSExchangeTransportWorker (GFW) (TCP-In)	Hub Transport	25, 587 (TCP)	Any
MSExchangeTransportWorker (TCP-In)	Hub Transport	25, 587 (TCP)	Bin\edgetransport.exe
MSExchangeTransportLogSearch - RPC (TCP-In)	Hub Transport, Edge Transport, Mailbox	Dynamic RPC	Bin\MSExchangeTransportLogSearch.exe
MSExchangeTransportLogSearch - RPCEPMap (TCP-In)	Hub Transport, Edge Transport, Mailbox	RPC-EPMap	Bin\MSExchangeTransportLogSearch.exe
SESWorker (GFW) (TCP-In)	Unified Messaging	Any	Any
SESWorker (TCP-In)	Unified Messaging	Any	UnifiedMessaging\SESWorker.exe
UMService (GFW) (TCP-In)	Unified Messaging	5060, 5061	Any
UMService (TCP-In)	Unified Messaging	5060, 5061	Bin\UMService.exe
UMWorkerProcess (GFW) (TCP-In)	Unified Messaging	5065, 5066, 5067, 5068	Any
UMWorkerProcess (TCP-In)	Unified Messaging	5065, 5066, 5067, 5068	Bin\UMWorkerProcess.exe
UMWorkerProcess - RPC (TCP-In)	Unified Messaging	Dynamic RPC	Bin\UMWorkerProcess.exe

Binary Tree Announces Products For Migrating Lotus Notes Users To Exchange 2010…

Binary Tree has announced the immediate availability of their coexistence and migration products for customers who need to establish direct interoperability and a direct migration path between Lotus Domino and Exchange 2010. In recognition of Binary Tree’s success with the migration of Notes users to the Microsoft platform, Microsoft has recognized Binary Tree as a recommended ISV as part of Microsoft’s Enterprise Notes Migration program.

CMT for Coexistence 3.0 establishes robust interoperability between Domino and Exchange Server 2010. This new release puts Binary Tree in the unique position of being the only ISV to deliver messaging, calendaring and application coexistence as well as directory synchronization and calendar free/busy lookup functionality between Lotus Domino and Exchange 2010. CMT for Coexistence 3.0 preserves the workflow between Lotus Notes and Microsoft Outlook users by ensuring the high-fidelity interchange of directory information, email, calendar entries, calendar free/busy availability and email-enabled applications.

Get more info from the source @ BinaryTree website

Microsoft Transporter Suite (free tool) doesn’t work against Exchange 2010. Read my previous article for a workaround.

Recovery Database In Exchange 2010…

All of you know that there are no storage groups in Exchange 2010 and hence no recovery storage groups as well. A recovery database (RDB) serves the functions carried out by a recovery storage group in previous versions of exchange. Few points need to be understood before we start playing with restore options in 2010.

• You cannot create a recovery database using the console. Use shell instead (New-MailboxDatabase -Recovery -Name RDB -Server “servername” -EdbFilePath "path" -LogFolderPath "path” )
• Recovery database can only be used for 2010 databases. Previous versions are not supported.
• You cannot create mailbox database copies of a recovery database.
• Online maintenance isn't performed on a recovery database.
• You cannot enable circular logging on RDB.
• A recovery database cannot be used to recover public folder data.
• Only one RDB can be mounted on a mailbox server at any time.
• Access to RDB using Outlook or OWA is not allowed.
• Mailbox management policies are not applied on a RDB.
• Mailboxes in a recovery database cannot be connected to user accounts.
• Data from a RDB can be merged to an existing mailbox or exported to a folder.

Exchange 2010 Deployment Assistant Fully Updated…

I had written about the release of a new deployment tool for Exchange 2010 (Deployment Assistant) in one of my previous article and only “upgrade from exchange 2003” was the supported scenario at that time. The tool has been fully updated with all scenarios now.

• Upgrade from exchange 2003.
• Upgrade from exchange 2007.
• Upgrade from exchange 2003 & 2007.
• New installation of exchange 2010.

This online tool makes transition from earlier versions of exchange to 2010 much easier, by giving a list of steps to be taken based on your existing network. Access the tool here

Get A Free Second Shot On Microsoft Exams…

The promotion is back and is running from Jan 13 - June 30, 2010. You must register, obtain a voucher code, schedule, pay and sit for both the first and (if necessary) second retake exams before June 30, 2010. You must wait one day after taking your initial exam before you can register for your retake exam. This time is required to enter test results into the system.

Check the Prometric site for more info.

No Single Instance Storage (SIS) In Exchange 2010…

The store schema in 2010 has been given a big change and as a result of the new store architecture, Exchange 2010 no longer supports Single Instance Storage (SIS). This means that when you send a 1mb attachment to 50 users within the same database, the size of the database will grow by 50mb. In previous versions of exchange, the attachment is only stored once and all recipients get a pointer to the actual attachment from which it opens. Hence the database only increases in size by 1mb.

With the removal of SIS from 2010, the exchange product group estimates an increase in database size of upto 20%. This has to be considered when designing a 2010 environment. As the Extensible Storage Engine (ESE) is optimized for handling large (10Gb+) mailboxes in 2010, the 20% increase in storage is not a big deal considering that you don’t need expensive RAID solutions if you have a DAG with 3+ copies of your database. Plus the hard drives are getting bigger and cheaper these days!

HP Sizer Tool For Exchange Server 2010…

HP has developed the HP Sizer for Exchange Server 2010 to assist customers with proper server and storage sizing for their Exchange Server 2010 deployments. This tool is free to download & use and is designed to simplify configuration across a broad range of deployments. The tool provides support for multiple site deployments, all 2010 server roles, Database Availability Group (DAG) and either direct attached or SAN-based storage solutions.

Download and more info here

Managing Mobile Devices Using Exchange 2007 Console…

More and more employees are starting to use mobile devices to sync their company email. The main devices we have are Apple iPhone and Windows Mobile phones. Companies who have blackberries normally have a blackberry server in house. As an exchange admin, you can manage & troubleshoot activesync devices using exchange 2007 management console. Right click the user account & if the user has a mobile device associated, you will see a new option called “Manage Mobile Device”.

Selecting that option allows us to do the following.

• Remotely wipe the device.
• Remove mobile device partnership.
• Shows the last synchronization time.
• Shows the first synchronization time.
• Shows the last time the activesync policy was updated
• Shows the recovery password to unlock the phone, if the user has configured a device password. User can use OWA as well to get the recovery password.

Client Throttling Policy In Exchange 2010…

Exchange 2010 brings a new feature to improve the performance of the server. An exchange 2010 install comes with a client throttling policy created to make sure that users are not taxing the system knowingly or unknowingly. Exchange tracks the resources used by each user and limits connection bandwidths as necessary.

You can modify the default policy or configure a new one for your network. The default policy is enough for most customers. You have to use the exchange shell to manage throttling policies with the New-ThrottlingPolicy, Get-ThrottlingPolicy, Set-ThrottlingPolicy & Remove-ThrottlingPolicy cmdlets. When you create a custom (new) throttling policy, any parameter that is not configured will inherit the values from the default policy. You can associate custom throttling policies to users or group of users using the ThrottlingPolicy parameter in the Set-Mailbox cmdlet.

Running Get-ThrottlingPolicy displays all the policies (if there are custom ones as well) on a 2010 box. If you have many policies configured and want to get the default one, run

Get-ThrottlingPolicy | Where-Object { $_.IsDefault –eq $true }

Exchange ActiveSync, IMAP, POP, Exchange Web Services, OWA & Windows Powershell are the components covered by the default throttling policy. The components are governed by four policy parameters.

• MaxConcurrency : Maximum concurrent connections a user can have against a 2010 server at a given time.
• PercentTimeInCAS : Percentage of a minute that can be spent running CAS code.
• PercentTimeInAD : Percentage of a minute that can be spent running LDAP requests.
• PercentTimeInMailboxRPC : Percentage of a minute that can be spent running mailbox RPC requests.

Check the technet article for more info.

Can’t Move Mailbox In Exchange 2010…

This is one of the questions which gets asked repeatedly these days in online forums and hence thought of writing about it. As more and more companies are moving from Exchange 2003 to 2010, you will be moving mailboxes using the 2010 EMC or Shell cmdlet New-MoveRequest. While you can successfully move a mailbox from 2003 to 2010 or within 2010 (any scenario involving 2010), problems starts when you try to move the mailbox again to a different database or server.

Let me explain this with the help of an example. I moved an account (Chakka Rajith) from one database in my 2010 server to another one successfully & when I tried to move the same mailbox to a different database, I didn’t get the “New Local Move Request” option in the EMC.

I then tried the New-MoveRequest cmdlet to accomplish the task, but was greeted with the error below, which was more explanatory.

The problem is that once a mailbox is moved to a 2010 mailbox server, the move request has to be cleared before the mailbox can be moved again. Removing the move request clears all move related properties from the mailbox. To do that, launch EMC, navigate to Recipient Configuration -> Move Requests node. Right click the mailbox in question & select “Clear Move Request”. You can select multiple mailboxes to clear the properties in a single task.

Click OK to confirm.

You can also run the command below to clear the move request.

Remove-MoveRequest –identity “username”

If there are more number of mailboxes, run Get-MoveRequest –MoveStatus Completed | Remove-MoveRequest

Once the above tasks have been executed, you will be able to move the mailbox again!

Versions Of Office 2010…

According to Microsoft, Office 2010 will be offered in four versions - Office Home and Business, Office Professional, Office Home and Student and Office Professional Academic.

The snapshot below (from Microsoft site) gives you an idea of what is included in each version.

Check the official article for more info.

Few Exchange 2010 Terms…

As more and more companies are moving to Exchange 2010, now is a good time to understand the terminologies associated with it.

Database Mobility is the ability of one or more mailbox databases to be replicated to and activated on other mailbox servers.

Database Portability is the feature which supports mounting of an exchange database on another server by the administrator, typically in a DR situation.

Incremental Deployment is the feature in Exchange 2010, by which a standalone server can be made into a highly available one, even after exchange has been installed on it.

Database Copy is a copy of a mailbox database’s edb & log files.

*Overs – Switchover is a manual activation of one or more mailbox databases in a DAG. Switchover can be at a database or server level. Failover is automatic activation of one or more mailboxes during a failure, which is handled by the Active Manager.

Exchange 2007 SP2 Installation Tool For SBS 2008 Released…

Microsoft has released a tool for making the installation of Exchange 2007 SP2 on an SBS 2008 easier. The tool provides a step-by-step wizard that simplifies the installation of Service Pack 2 for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 on a computer that is running Windows SBS 2008.

Download the tool here

Why do we need a tool, one might ask? When you try to install SP2 manually (in the normal way), the setup won't start. The problem is that ExBPA detects the server as an SBS and won't allow the service pack installation.

So, how did we install SP2 before the tool was released? A registry edit was necessary. The process is documented in KB973862

Now that the SP2 installation tool has been released, the process becomes much easier. Follow the steps below.

• Download Exchange 2007 SP2.
• Extract the SP2 into a local folder on SBS 2008.
• Download the SP2 Installation Tool for SBS 2008.
• Install the tool.
• The tool starts automatically once the installation is completed.
• The tool will prompt to locate the folder which has SP2 files. Browse to the local SP2 folder in step 2.
• Follow instructions to complete the installation.
• Restart SBS 2008.

If you have Forefront Security running on SBS 2008, it will have to be disabled before running the SP2 installation. Full info in KB974271