Virtualizing the Unified Messaging role is now supported on Exchange 2010 SP1

Posted on 05/16/2011 by Jason Sherry

Microsoft announced today that the UM role can now be virtualized with Exchange 2010 SP1. Before today Microsoft would not support UM on Hyper-V, VMWare, or any virtualization technology. In addition to announcing this support Microsoft also released a new best practices white paper on virtualizing Exchange 2010 SP1 with Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V. Finally Microsoft published multiple case studies on customers who have virtualized their Exchange environment.

For more details see: Announcing Enhanced Hardware Virtualization Support for Exchange 2010 on The Exchange Team (You had me at EHLO) Blog 

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December Exchange 2010 updates

Posted on 12/23/2010 by Jason Sherry
A few key updates from other blogs: (Just HowExchangeWorks.com right now)
Download Exchange 2010 SP1 RU2 here
Download Exchange 2010 RTM RU5 here
If you haven’t seen this tool\wizard before and are looking to deploy Exchange 2010 it’s worth checking out. It provide instruction and checklists.
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Check out: Using Cmdlet Extension Agents to cause automatic events to occur in Exchange 2010

Posted on 10/22/2010 by Jason Sherry
This post, from Pat Richard, covers how to setup pre & post PowerShell cmdlets to run when things are done in any Exchange 2010 management tool (EMC, EMS, etc).
Very cool! When I worked for NetIQ in the ’90 the product I managed, Directory and Resource Administrator (DRA), had this support for Windows NT & AD; also had RBAC too. 10+ years later nice to see if finally make it into the product.
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W7 SP1 Beta & Internet Explorer 9 Beta installed

Posted on 10/10/2010 by Jason Sherry
11/4: Don’t recommend installing IE9 beta currently
Just installed Windows 7 SP1 Beta & Internet Explorer 9 Beta (they don’t require each other btw) and all seems good, so far. I’ll update this post if\when I come across any issues.
OWA for Exchange 2010, SharePoint 2007, and SharePoint 2010 pages seem to load fine and quicker.
The few pages I have tested so far come up quicker and my add-ons (Norton Internet Security, StumbleUpon, & ieSpell) seem to be working
Running Windows 7 x64 w/ SP1 beta & IE 9 beta
11/4 Update
Looks like Stumble was the main cause of crashes, now have NIS & Google only loaded and have only had a few crashes since the 12th.
Some website won’t redirect or display the vast majority of content correctly. Even in compatibly mode some have issues still.
IE9 is faster then 8 but still to buggy to recommend to daily use at this time. I removed it today due to website rendering issues.
10/12 Update
Seeing a few layout and web page formatting issues. Mainly where a graphic overlays text or another graphic were it shouldn’t. Some ads on Facebook do this.
SharePoint 2007 seems to be working almost 100%, but if I click on a file it now prompts me if I want to Open, Save, Cancel but not all of the time.
Still seeing a few crashes with IE, but these started before I upgraded to 9. I assume it’s a plug-in, only have NIS, Google, & Stumble so need to disable all 3 and see if it still crashes.
More info here:
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Released: Update Rollup 1 for Exchange Server 2010 SP1

Posted on 10/07/2010 by Jason Sherry
Earlier today the Exchange CXP team released Update Rollup 1 for Exchange Server 2010 SP1 to the Download Center. The release of the rollup via Microsoft Update will happen on October 12th.

This update includes new fixes for the following server roles:

  • Client Access
  • Mailbox
  • Edge Server
  • Hub Transport

 

In particular we would like to call out the following fixes which have been included in this release:

  • 2028967 Event ID 3022 is logged and you still cannot replicate a public folder from one Exchange Server 2010 server to another
  • 2251610 The email address of a user is updated unexpectedly after you run the Update-Recipient cmdlet on an Exchange Server 2010 server
  • 978292 An IMAP4 client cannot send an email message that has a large attachment in a mixed Exchange Server 2010 and Exchange Server 2003 environment

More details here: http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2010/10/07/456538.aspx

Download here

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Exchange 2010 Deployment Outline Wizard

Posted on 09/02/2010 by Jason Sherry
Want to have an outline of what it would take to get from Exchange 2000, 2003, and/or 2007 to Exchange 2010?
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Exchange 2010 SP1 summary

Posted on 08/25/2010 by Jason Sherry
See the You Had Me at EHLO blog post for the links below and some good client feedback on these new features.

New and Changed Features

Other links:
What’s New in SP1 – EHLO: Changes in SP1
Exchange 2010 SP1 Overview – TechNet Wiki
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Users stop getting new message on Exchange 2010

Posted on 08/25/2010 by Jason Sherry

Had an issue today with a client where some of their users stopped getting new messages.  The Information Store service was running and all databases were mounted.

After they contacted me I confirming IS and databases were on-line then I checked disk free space.  The transaction log drive had fewer than 10% free space so I assumed it was a back pressure issue.  The “back pressure” feature was introduced in Exchange 2007 and monitors critical system resources like memory and disk space, in relation to the Transport process.  When resources are low the transport process will start limiting or stop message delivery.  I’ve run into this in the past when building VMs, with very tight disk space, since the default is 500 MB or 2% of free space.  So I disabled back pressure monitoring by setting Enable=False in the EdgeTrasport.exe.Config file.  I then restarted the transport service but this did not fix the problem.   See this article for more details: Understanding the Back Pressure Feature in Exchange Server 2007

The next thing I checked was what was taking up 90% of the space on the TLOG volume.  It turns out there were transaction logs going back almost two months, which means the client’s Exchange aware backup solution wasn’t working or is non-existent (it turned out to be the later).  So I moved the oldest TLOGs to another drive to free up disk space.  I don’t delete TLOGs until I know that there has been a successfully backup of Exchange, which should delete the TLOGs for you.  I then dismounted and remounted the database in question, probably not needed but I didn’t want to wait long to see if the freeing up of disk space fixed the issue.  After a few moments users started getting their messages that were stuck in the queue.

What is odd about this issue is that I didn’t see warning or error events being logged to the Application log after restarting the Transport Service.  After going back now and searching for just errors I did find the following events:

10014MSExchangeIS Mailbox Store
Available disk space for the database logs is extremely low. Message delivery to the database may be stopped.

Database: ‘User Mailbox Database 1510132252’.

The same event was logged for the MSExchangeIS Public Store also.

When I went into queue viewer there were 100s of messages in the queue for the database that continued the users who weren’t getting messages.  In the Last Error column it has “431 4.3.1 storedrv mailbox disk is full”.  I didn’t find anything on this error when searching, which is the main reason I’m writing this post.  This was also the final clue on what was causing the issue. 

Environment: Single Exchange 2010 server with two mailbox databases, each using their own DB and LOG LUNs.

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Exchange 2010 RTM schema prep fails with Exchange 2007 SP3 installed

Posted on 08/23/2010 by Jason Sherry
When you run the prepare schema command (/PS) using the SETUP CLI for Exchange 2010 it fails with the following error:
Setup encountered a problem while validating the state of Active Directory. The Active Directory schema version (14625) is higher than the Setup’s version (14622). Therefore, PrepareSchema can’t be executed.
This is happens if you have installed Exchange 2007 SP3, which updates the schema to a later version than Exchange 2010 RTM.
You do not need to run the /PS command, only the /PrepareAD one or just run setup from the GUI.  The GUI setup will detect the schema is updated and skip that step.
Information from:
Similar blog post with issue:
Also posted as an Issue on my Issue & Tips list:
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Repairing an Exchange 2003 storage group after a dirty shut down

Posted on 08/16/2010 by Jason Sherry

I just had to go through this process at a client, who is running Exchange 2003, and haven’t had to do this in a few years.  Since I mainly focus on design\architecture work I don’t do troubleshooting or system down issues too often.  I ended up spending a bit of time refreshing myself with ESEUTIL and thought I would document my findings.

 

Whenever there is an unmountable database in Exchange there are some key questions to ask:

 

1.       When was your most recent GOOD backup? 

·         We might need to restore from it and then try to replay the log files.

2.       Was this DB in its own storage group or one shared by other DBs?

·         If the database is in a shared SG with other DBs that are on-line they might need to be taken off-line during the recovery steps.  So to be safe, if possible move the mailboxes out of this SG before dismounting the “good” databases.

3.       Do the LOG files exist or were they lost? 

·         If they exist we might be able to replay them to bring the database up to date with ESEUTIL /R.  If they do not exist then your recovery options are limited.  If they might be corrupted the /ML switch can be used to test for corrupted log files.

Database Recovery Steps

If you have the LOG ESEUTIL /R might get you back up and running with very little chance for data loss.

1.       Run ESEUTIL /mh <path to database> (dump headers)

·         This checks the status of the database , it should show dirty shutdown

2.       Run ESEUTIL /R <DB ID> /D<Path to database>
Example: ESEUTIL /R E00 /D”D:\Exchange Data\SG1\SG1DB1.edb”

·         If multiple DBs were in the storage group you will need to add the /i option if some of them are also in a dirty shutdown state.

3.       Run ESEUTIL /mh <path to database> (dump headers)

·         This checks the status of the database , it should show clean shutdown

4.       If the state still shows dirty shutdown you will need to repair the database, see steps below

Database Repair Needed

Below are probably the steps needed to fix the database, but with possible data lost, and get it back up and running ASAP probably.  To not lose any data, the most recent log files are required and the ESEUTIL /R needs to run successfully.  If you do carry out these steps keep the copy of the EDB & STM files, from step #2 below.  If data is lost you might be able to restore data from them with Ontrack PowerControls directly or similar tools

 

1.       Run ESEUTIL /mh <path to database> (dump headers)

·         This checks the status of the database , it should show dirty shutdown

2.       Copy current the EDB & STM files to another drive\server

3.       Move all the files from mdbdata folder, for this DB, except the .EDB and .STM files to a temp folder

·         Do not delete the .CHK or LOG files, we might need\use them later if data was lost

4.       Run ESEUTIL /p <path to database> (repair) on the EDB
Example:
ESEUTIL /P c:\exchsrvr\mdbdata\DB1.EDB /Sd:\exchsrvr\mdbdata\DB1.STM /Te:\TEMPREPAIR.EDB

·         This command line will repair DB1.EDB located on C: along with its matching .STM file located on D: and will put the temporary file on the E: drive.

·         It require 25% of free space and runs at ~3 GB/hr

·         Quick tutorial here on the /P option

5.       Run ESEUTIL /d <path to database> (defrag)

·         Besides defragging the database, this will fix corrupted index issues that may be caused by the /P command

·         This requires 110% of free space and runs at ~4 GB/hr

6.       Run ESEUTIL /mh <path to database>

·         This checks the status of the database , it should show clean shutdown

7.       Make another copy of the current EDB & STM files

8.       Run ISINTEG -s <server> -fix –test AllTests

·         When running this commend you will be shown all databases on <server> and their current status.  Select the database that you ran the above steps on

·         Runs at ~10GB/hr

 

Good articles\posts on this topic and the source for some of the info above:

Repairing Exchange databases with ESEUTIL – when and how?

Using ESEUTIL to recover and repair exchange databases with dirty shutdown state

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