Finally some “public” info on Exchange 2010 (E14)

Posted on 01/14/2009 by Jason Sherry

I’ve been working with E14 a bit for the last few months and have been reading PPT and other info on it for over a year. But due to my NDA requirements with Microsoft, as a Microsoft Exchange MVP, I cannot speak/post publicly on any information that Microsoft hasn’t made public yet on pre-released products/fixes. So this is my 1st blog post on E14 J

Today KC Lemson, Lead Program Manager for Exchange, posted on the EHLO blog a video with her and Jim Lucy, Product Manager for Exchange Labs (EHLO blog post on Exchange Labs), talking about how Exchange Labs is using E14, a short "demo" of E14, and some info on the focus of E14. The information below comes from this EHLO blog post only.

One of the key points mentioned is that the development E14 was focused on reducing the cost of Exchange. Microsoft did a great job with Exchange 2007 in this area; Ferris Research release a survey saying it cost roughly 50% less to run Exchange 2007 verses 2003 that proves this point. On top of this, Microsoft is hoping to further reduce the cost of running Exchange by another 50%! In order to do this, they are making several changes to the fundamental way Exchange operates and scales out. Currently, Exchange Labs is running E14, and has been since October 2007, which hosts over 3.5 million mailboxes. Scaling out to this many users wasn’t possible with Exchange 2003 at all and probably not even with 2007. So there has been a lot of work done to re-designing Exchange to run better as a service in the cloud and to scale. Therefore, E14 should allow organizations to easily let Microsoft, or other providers, host some or all of their mailboxes in a seamless fashion. While this has been possible for awhile with Exchange, it was not that easy to setup, nor was it fully seamless in some cases.

In the video they cover some of the features I have been wanting for awhile, web based administration. They didn’t show much of the details but E14 will have a web based admin console that will allow creation and management of mailboxes, groups/DLs, contacts, and more. So from anywhere in the world, without VPN or RDP access, Exchange admins will finally be able to carry out some of the theiro most common admin tasks. E14 will add to and enhance web based functionality in OWA. From OWA users will be able to share calendars, view user information in the GAL better, and even create e-mail distribution groups! Some of the features they showed, like viewing Office documents in IE without Office being install locally and Inbox rule management, is already in Exchange 2007 but will be improved upon.

Finally, Microsoft is make many improvements for organizations that run Exchange in-house, but I can’t go into details on this yet since Microsoft hasn’t posted any information publicly let in this area.

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Mimosa Exchange Expert chat log posted

Posted on 01/08/2009 by Jason Sherry

Update 1/13: Added link to next chat sign-up page:
http://www.mimosasystems.com/TechChatJan09

On December 17th, 2008, Mimosa hosted their 1st Exchange MVP/Expert Tech Chat.  This technical chat was open to anyone and questions were answered by Pat Richard, Steve Bryant, Martin Tuip, and myself (Jason Sherry).  All four of us were Exchange MVPs in 2008, have been working with Exchange since the pre-Exchange days, and agreed this was a great event to help the community.  Over 370 people joined in and over 200 questions were answered during the chat, or afterwards for those that required a bit of research.  This chat session has so successful Mimosa has decided to try to do this on a quarterly basis.  The next one is planned for 1/21, goto this link to sign up: http://www.mimosasystems.com/TechChatJan09.

The questions covered everything from Exchange Architecture, virtualization, eDiscovery, disaster recovery, archiving, Mimosa NearPoint, PSTs, and several other Exchange topics.  The Q&A chat log can be viewed here: http://www.mimosasystems.com/mimosachatlogs/mimosa_exchange_techchat.htm.  Due to volume and format of the chat we had to answer the questions as quickly as possible and keep our responses fairly short.  Please forgive us for any typos, spelling, or other errors.  If you see any technical errors in the chat log please e-mail me (JSherry@mimosasystems.nospam.com) and I will try to get them corrected in the chat log.

If you are interested in attending our next Exchange Experts chat, please start off by reviewing the chat log from the previous one to see if your questions might have already been answered and to get an idea of the type of Q&A that will occur.  Then, keep an eye on our website or this blog post.  Once we have the data set for the next one, I will update this blog post with a link to register for the chat.

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Got my Microsoft MVP Award again for the 4th year!

Posted on 01/01/2009 by Jason Sherry
I just got my MVP Award e-mail in the area of Exchange for the 4th year.
 
It is an honor to be selected as a Microsoft MVP since there are only around 30 or so Exchange MVP in the US and 120 world wide.  In order to become an MVP you must be nominated by others in the technical community you work with, Microsoft employees, or other MVPs. Each year a panel of Microsoft employees reviews the contributions of each nominee for quality, quantity, and level of impact on the technical community.
 
So basically you have to write articles, blog post, or otherwise contribute to the technical community and be recognized for your work.
 
In order to keep your MVP status each year you must continue to contribute to the community.  This year I was so busy with my new job at Mimosa Systems (blog post on this topic), who creates an Exchange E-mail archiving solution called NearPoint, that I haven’t had time to contribute as much as I normally do.
 
Here’s what I did in 2008:
 
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Where did my nickname “Izzy” from?

Posted on 12/08/2008 by Jason Sherry

When I lived in Atlanta (94 – 00) I had a lot of people ask me if my nick name (Izzy) came from the Olympic mascot for the ’96 games.  It did not! This stupid Olympic mascot actually “won” worst mascot of all times. Whatizit Wikipedia Page
From: The best and worst Olympic mascots:

# 1. Whatizit (1996 Summer Olympics, Atlanta)
With his lightning bolt eyebrows, big red shoes, Donny Osmond teeth and ringed multi-colored tail, Izzy appeared to have been designed by a team of kids with attention deficit disorder. His blobby body seemed to promote a sedentary lifestyle, not a the elite athletic competition that the Olympic Games represented. The Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games gave Izzy makeovers, but the damage was done. Bob Costas called the mascot “a genetic experiment gone horribly, ghastly wrong.”

 

My nickname came from a D&D character I created back in 1988.  Izzy was short for IzKen which was short for IzKendar.  This name actually came from the Japanese anime series Star Blazers (wikipedia link) from 1980 – 1984.  “Iscandar” was the planet that they have to travel go to to save the earth, which is where Izzy really came from.

The Space Battleship Yamato returns to Earth on Dec 8th, 2199, 227 years after I was born to the day 😁 This post was made 191 years before that date 🤓

2020 Update: In 2013 Star Blazers\Space Battleship Yamato was redone completely, with minor changes to story, and called Star Blazers: Space Battleship Yamato 2199 (wikipeida) and is on Amazon here to buy or stream (2199 is season 1 & 2 and 2022 is season 3 & 4, links to by Blu-ray versions).

 

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Have pressing Microsoft Exchange questions?

Posted on 12/03/2008 by Jason Sherry

Update: 1/8
Here’s a follow-up blog post this chat

Whether you are struggling with today’s challenges or planning 5 years out, we would like to invite you to bring your questions and issues to our panel of Microsoft Exchange Server MVPs.

During a live chat session you will also be able to learn about issues your peers are having as you get helpful tips and information from Exchange product experts. Our MVPs are open to any Exchange issues you would like to discuss such as:

  • Preparing for an Exchange 2007 migration
  • Options for High Availability
  • Blocking end users from creating PST files
  • Enabling Outlook Anywhere
  • Do you need Edge Transport?
  • Certificate issues
  • Hub Transport management
  • How best to plan and manage large mailboxes
  • Virtualization of Exchange
  • and much more…
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Update on my computer upgrade…

Posted on 11/19/2008 by Jason Sherry

Update: 5/2/09

Upgraded to Windows 7 RC today (blog post).

Last weekend I removed the 250GB system drive I was using and replaced it with a pair of 150GB drives in a RAID1.  I split the RAID into 2 partitions, 50GB for XP x86 and 100GB for Windows 7.

This worked out great for the install of Windows 7.  So now I have XP & Windows 7 fully setup.  When the RTM comes out I will redo the entire drive with just Windows 7 since it will include a single VM for XP 🙂

Update: 3/10/09

System is still running great, I’m going to rebuild it around Windows 7 when the RC comes out.

So the motherboard from my 1st set of parts was DOA.  decided to return the case, cooling fan, and power supply. already gotten a refund for the motherboard and NewEgg is going to give me a full refund and cover shipping on the other parts.  I may have gotten a bad motherboard, but NewEgg was very helpful on working with me.

I’ve now gone with a Shuttle Prima XPC SX48P2-Deluxe case, PS, and MB combo.  Much smaller form factor then the monster case COOLER MASTER RC-690-KKN1-GP.  Less expandable, only 2 PCI-16 slots of which only one can be used with my video card. But it had on board wireless, sound card (I hope it’s OK), dual 1G NIC, 6 SATA, 1 Firewire port, so I think I will be fine.

I’m  currently setting up Windows XP (x86) and then will install Windows Vista x64 (on a separate drive).

Won’t have much time to work on it since I fly to Santa Clara tomorrow for a day trip then Chrissy & I are driving to TX for Thanskgiving week on Sat.  We are taking the dogs with and will drive back the weekend of 28th.

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Time for an upgrade to my Gaming system

Posted on 10/24/2008 by Jason Sherry

Update 5/2/09: System is now running Windows 7:  Lastest updates are in my “Update on my computer upgrade” blog post.

My current system, AMD X4800 based, 4GB ram, Windows XP x64, GeForce 8800 GTS is getting a bit long in the tooth (it’s two years old now) for gaming. In addition there isn’t a good Vista drivers for the mother board’s (ASUS A8N32-SLI) on board RAID controller. I’ve also started to have problems with the system, due to me trying to move my Windows\Installer directory to another drive using a NTFS junction/mount point. For some reason all of my Installer files are gone now, undelete utilities can’t even find them and Microsoft Office and other applications are now acting up. Finally, I want to goto Vista (even though I hate it) for DirectX 10 support for some of the latest games.

So I could spend hours rebuilding my current system, minus the RAID0, with Vista x64 or hours rebuilding a new system… I choose the new system route. I will still rebuild my current system since I need a gaming system at the place we are renting in the mountains for the ski season, but that’s a lower priority then having my primary system work correctly.

With that said here’s what my requirements were:

  1. Intel Quad Core support
  2. 1,600MHz FSB support
  3. DDR3 RAM support
  4. Two PCI X 2.0 slots (for future SLI/CrossFire support)
  5. Can use my existing GeForce 8800 GTS
  6. At least 6 SATA ports
    1. DVD R/W
    2. BlueRay (soon)
    3. OS 1
    4. OS 2 (mirrored)
    5. Gaming/data drive 1
    6. Gaming/data drive 1 (mirrored)
  7. Two eSATA ports (minor point I know, but I have 1 eSATA drive that contains my entire networks backups and a 2nd for “portal” music, which I have over 400GB now of)

Here’s what I purchased:

MSI P45 Diamond LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard – Retail

Item #: N82E16813130183

$274.99

COOLER MASTER RC-690-KKN1-GP Black SECC/ ABS ATX Mid Tower Computer Case – Retail

Item #: N82E16811119137

$74.99

COOLER MASTER Real Power Pro RS-750-ACAA-A1 750W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply – Retail

Item #: N82E16817171024

$129.99

LG 22X DVD±R DVD Burner Black SATA Model GH22NS30 – OEM

Item #: N82E16827136152

$23.99

Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 Yorkfield 2.83GHz LGA 775 95W Quad-Core Processor Model BX80569Q9550 – Retail

Item #: N82E16819115041

$319.99

OCZ Platinum 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model OCZ3P16004GK – Retail

Item #: N82E16820227297

$219.99

ZALMAN CNPS9500 AT 2 Ball CPU Cooling Fan/Heatsink – Retail

Item #: N82E16835118003

Standard Return Policy

$41.99

Total:

$1,055.95

I’ll update my blog with the results once I build the system…

10/29: Got parts, but the case had some melted wires in it so I had to return it to NewEgg.  I called them up and they sent me an RMA form and paid for shipping.
11/5: New case shipped out

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The Five (Major) Steps to Recover an Exchange 2007 Server

Posted on 10/09/2008 by Jason Sherry
This quick overview covers how you can easily recover from a complete server failure (if you have backups) of an Exchange 2007 server.

 
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The history of the Active Directory

Posted on 08/07/2008 by Jason Sherry
This was sent out to the Exchange MVP DL and the Activedir.org DL also.  It is pretty interesting and the first time I’ve heard some of this, so I thought I would post it here for my fellow Microsoft geeks 🙂
 
Note: Don Hacherl used to work with Microsoft, has written several books, and articles on the AD so he is a valid source of this info.
 

From: ActiveDir-owner@mail.activedir.org [mailto:ActiveDir-owner@mail.activedir.org] On Behalf Of Don Hacherl
Sent: Thursday, August 07, 2008 10:45 AM
To: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.org
Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] History of AD…

 

Thanks for tipping me off to this thread, Eric.  I’ll see if I can clear up the pre-history.

 

The oldest traceable part of AD started life at 3Com in 1988 or 1989.  This was an (incomplete!) X.500-ish directory with custom communication protocols, built on top of a C-Tree database, running under 16-bit OS/2.  By 1990 3Com had abandoned its network software efforts and the directory code moved to Microsoft as part of some complicated deal.  The LanMan group planned to include the directory service in LanMan 3.0 and immediately started porting it to the JET Blue ISAM and building an RPC front end compliant with the X/Open XDS API.

 

At this point (in early 1991) Jim Allchin, who had recently taken over the LanMan group, cancelled LanMan 3.0 and scrapped its directory service project.  In its place he created the Cairo project, which included a completely non-X.500 like directory service that lived as part of OFS, the Cairo file system.

 

The email group at Microsoft picked up two pieces out of the wreckage of LanMan 3.0: the DS and an X.400 MTA.  We (this is when I became dev lead of the DS) ported the DS to Windows NT, finished the JET and XDS work, and added a MAPI RPC interface, a query engine, the KCC, a modifiable schema, the link table, and much, much more.  This version of the DSA (plus the MTA and a custom message store) shipped in Exchange 4.0 in 1996.  By this point there’s very little of the original code left, although some elderly data structures live on, at least in name.

 

Around late 1995 Cairo, and its attendant directory service, were cancelled.  This left the OS team with an urgent need for a DS (for Windows 2000) but no plans to build one.  To fill the hole, the week after Exchange 4.0 shipped two of us from the Exchange DS dev team made a copy of the DS sources and moved to the Windows group, where we got re-christened Active Directory, and the rest is history.

 

In summary:

  • AD has no relation to Novell NDS/eDirectory.  Novell was a competitor (the competitor), not a licensee/licensor.
  • AD has no relation to Banyan StreetTalk.  Although both Jim Allchin and one member of the AD dev team were former Banyan employees, there was no license or co-work between Microsoft and Banyan.
  • AD has no relation to Cairo, except the relation that mammals have to dinosaurs.
  • AD did not inherit code or functionality from Site Server or MCIS.  It did inherit their customers.
  • AD is a direct descendant of the DSA in Exchange 4.0  (Note that LDAP support got added separately to the two branches of the directory in Exchange 5.something and Windows 2000.  Anything that important is clearly worth doing twice.)

 

Don

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Limiting external users from sending mail to Exchange objects

Posted on 08/03/2008 by Jason Sherry
This article goes over how to allow only known external users to be able to send to internal users and groups with Exchange 2007.
 
See the full post here on outlookexchange.com
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