Over the past few days, I have answered some questions on the Exchange 2010 forums in regards to scheduling mailbox moves.   In Exchange 2007 and below, users would be affected by mailbox moves (which are required for migrations, fixing an issue with a mailbox or database, etc.), so we would be forced to either interrupt the end-user or schedule these moves in off-peak hours.  Once we are in Exchange 2010, we can now perform online moves which allows the user to continue to work throughout the move; follow the link for an excellent deep dive guide on online moves written by Amit Tank.

Many organizations tend to skip a generation when it comes to upgrading technologies, therefore a lot of Administrators are now looking at moving from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2010.   They are now realizing that while it is great that Exchange 2010 supports online mailbox moves, they still have to get there the old-fashioned way with an offline move.  Now here is where the dilemma comes in.  The interface for Exchange 2007 and below allowed for us to delay the start of the moves to a specific time, but the new-moverequest feature used for mailbox moves in Exchange 2010 has no ability to schedule the start of the moves.  Understandably, migrations from Exchange 2007 SP2 supports online moves to Exchange 2010, but how about the bulk of Exchange deployments which are Exchange 2003?  Read on as I have a solution for you.

The full execution of a mailbox move in Exchange 2010 involves three steps:

1. Creating the move request.
2. Checking that the execution of the move request completed successfully.
3. Clearing the move request.

This can all be accomplished with a pre-built powershell script that is included with the installation of Exchange 2010 called MoveMailbox.ps1.  This script supports the ability to move a single mailbox or a group of mailboxes, but will only work for local move requests, therefore you cannot use this solution for cross-forest mailbox moves.  The script itself does not support the ability to schedule the mailbox moves, but it does simplify the move so that the entire move is performed in one automated command.  Once we have formulated our MoveMailbox.ps1 command, we can plug this into a batch script that can of course be scheduled by Windows Task Scheduler.

Lets say we have an Exchange 2003 server called Server1 with a Storage Group called SG1 that contains a database called DB1.  Now, assuming we have a default installation of Exchange 2010 that has a database called DB2, then the following executed in an Exchange Management Shell would move all mailboxes from the source database to the target database:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V14\MoveMailbox.ps1 -MailboxDatabase Server1\SG1\DB1 -TargetDatabase DB2

Taking this command and appending it to a Remote Exchange powershell execution would be accomplished as follows:

 PowerShell.exe -command “. ‘C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V14\bin\RemoteExchange.ps1′; Connect-ExchangeServer -auto; ‘C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V14\Scripts\MoveMailbox.ps1 -MailboxDatabase Server1\SG1\DB1 -TargetDatabase DB2′

We can then place the above within a batch script and schedule it with Windows Task Scheduler, thus allowing us to schedule our mailbox moves.  Keep in mind that the mailbox moves will follow the settings contained within the following file C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V14\Bin\MSExchangeMailboxReplication.exe.config which would default the maximum simultaneous moves to five mailboxes at a time.

Your friendly neighbourhood Exchange Admin.

As of yesterday, Microsoft annouced the global availability of Exchange 2010 at TechEd Europe.  Personally, I am filled with mixed emotions.  On one hand, it is an amazing product and I am excited that it is finally available for all to use, but on the other, I am saddened as the community of Beta testers that I have been involved with has now come to an end.  I wanted to extend a congratulations to the Exchange team for their best product to date and well wishes to all those that I have had an opportunity to work with.

To anyone that wants to try this product, by all means, go for it!  You will find that you will have a wide array of resources available in the form of articles and an amazing group of experts that are able to provide guidance and answer your questions.  Feel free to ask me anything or post a question on the Exchange 2010 forums.

Your friendly neighbourhood Exchange Admin.

Microsoft released the Office 2007 Cumulative Update for October 2009 which includes an Outlook 2007 hotfix package.  This is of particular interest to any organization that uses a document management system like InterWoven and are looking to deploy Communicator to their end users.  The following bug is resolved in this patch:

You install an Office Outlook add-in to open Microsoft Office Word documents from Outlook 2007. However, when you run Office Outlook 2007 and Microsoft Office Communicator at the same time, you cannot open Office Word documents by running the add-in.

What this fix refers to is the fact that Communicator tends to monopolize the DDE (Dynamic Data Exchange) channel to Outlook which prior to this patch caused other applications to fail to execute a call to DDE.  For example, a document management system that uses Outlook to call Word would fail to launch Word because Communicator would be blocking the DDE channel.

Your friendly neighbourhood Exchange Admin.

While attending a recent workshop, a discussion on the topic of Exchange Unified Messaging and BlackBerry compatibility for playback of voice mail messages occurred. During this discussion, it was mentioned that BlackBerry devices require the audio codec of the associated dial plan to be set to either G.711 or GSM. While this is true for BES 4 and Exchange 2007, the playing field has changed in recent months. The introduction of Exchange 2010 and BES 5 has provided us some greater flexibility in the choice of codec for playback on the BlackBerry. Below is a table that I have created which outlines codec compatibility based on which version of Exchange and BES your mailbox/handheld resides on.

Codec	Exchange 2007 & BES 4	Exchange 2007 & BES 5	Exchange 2010 & BES 5
GSM	Yes	Yes	Yes
G.711	Yes	Yes	Yes
WMA	No	Yes	Yes
MP3	No	No	Yes

 

Please note that Exchange 2010 and BES are not compatible as of the writing of this post, but a voice mail in MP3 format will open through a BES attachment server. This allows the option of moving Non-BlackBerry mailboxes to Exchange 2010 and utilizing MP3 to encode their voice mails. If a user of an Exchange 2010 mailbox decided to forward a voice mail (MP3) to a user with an Exchange 2007 mailbox and BlackBerry, the recipient would be able to playback the voice mail on their BlackBerry. You should also be aware that BES 5 does require Windows Media Player version 9 or later installed on the Attachment Server to support voice mail messages encoded in WMA format.

 

Your friendly neighbourhood Exchange Admin.

 

As Exchange 2010 approaches GA, RIM has created a news item where you will find their compatibility matrices available for download.  It states,

October 20, 2009 – Research In Motion (RIM) is pleased to notify you that we are working in close collaboration with Microsoft on compatibility and support for BlackBerry® Enterprise Server for Microsoft® Exchange Server 2010. Compatibility is expected later this year. BlackBerry® Technical Support Services for BlackBerry Enterprise Server for Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 is expected within 30 days following the global availability of Microsoft Exchange Server 2010.

This is excellent news for all those RIM customers out there that are looking to move to Exchange 2010.  Not only will we now be receiving T-Support for environments with Exchange 2010 within 30 days after the release date, but we know that RIM is hard at work with Microsoft to ensure BlackBerry Enterprise Server is compatible with Exchange 2010. 

Exchange 2010 brings about many changes to its architecture, but specifically replacing CDO, WebDAV, ExOLEDB, and Store Event Sinks in favor of EWS (Exchange Web Services) requires many 3rd party applications to update for compatibility.  Many might disagree with me, but in my opinion it is a great move for Microsoft to take this stance.  EWS is available and encouraged for use in since the release of Exchange 2007 and the public became informed that this is the technology that Microsoft will be investing in.  We now only need to learn one technology for all client applications instead of the multitude of protocols in the past.

Current versions of BES (BlackBerry Enterprise Server) make use of Exchange MAPI for all communication with the mailbox, with the exception of any additions, deletions or changes to calendaring data from the handheld which is handled by CDO (Collaboration Data Objects).  Many administrators for years have been struggling with implementations of BES within their environment due to problems with this method of communication with Exchange.  First, the additional load which the BES places on Exchange requires provisioning of additional resources on the mailbox server and second, CDO itself lends itself to a variety of problems with calendar operations.  Examining any Production Exchange mailbox server that includes a BES will  reveal that the application logs contains many 8206 EXCDO errors and you are likely to see a variety of calendaring issues in their environment.

As mentioned earlier, CDO support is now removed from Exchange 2010, therefore RIM will need to update the BES to make use of EWS for pushing calendar updates from the handheld.  Now, this is the minimum requirement that RIM must do for interoperability, but they may (hopefully) choose to leverage EWS for much more and potentially include the following based on current functionality:

• Availability Service (Free/Busy Lookups and Publishing)
• Folder Operations (Search/View mailbox folders)
• Item Operations (Create, Update, Delete, Copy, Get, Move, and Send items that consist of either Message, Contact, Calendar or Task message classifications)
• Notification Operations (Delivery of new content from the mailbox to the handheld)
• Synchronization Operations (Message reconciliation, PIM Data synchronization)

Converting the BES to use EWS for as many functions as possible would be ideal as these operations execute against the Client Access Server, thus reducing load on the Mailbox Server.  Furthermore, all the EWS functionality listed above is backwards compatible with Exchange 2007, thus existing Exchange 2007 organizations could benefit as well.  RIM could also decide to include more features into their product as there are a whole array of additional features available with EWS such as integration with Unified Messaging, Delegates, Permissions, etc.  An MSDN article detailing these features can be found here, but please be advised that the documentation is still pre-release as of the writing of this post.

Your friendly neighbourhood Exchange Admin.

Today is the big day for many people involved with Microsoft technologies.  A major milestone is here.  Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2 are now available to the public.  In recognition of the contribution of so many people, Microsoft is hosting launch parties around the world which can be viewed here, you can check out details on the earliest party in Japan this morning.

I personally would like to thank all those that I have had the pleasure of working with in these various products.  I strongly believe that this generation of products will be the best yet due to the scale of development, early adopters and all around feature set.   Just look at Exchange 2010, which has already been tested by over 10 million users, making it the largest Server Beta in Microsoft history.

Your friendly neighbourhood Exchange Admin.

I took this picture while onsite at Microsoft Canada last week, count down to party time for the employees

Update: Exchange 2010 which is part of the same campaign should be launching early November.  Thanks to David Strome for the clarification!

It has come to my attention that days before Exchange 2010 is set to go GA (General Availability), we already have a book published on this incredible product: Exchange Server 2010 Unleashed.  The book itself is not published by Microsoft Press or written by any direct employee of Microsoft, but the authors themselves have a wealth of experience and knowledge.  This just goes to show you that the early adoption program not only benefits the success of these products, but how quickly materials can be made available to someone wanting to learn and implement the latest and greatest technologies.

Your friendly neighbourhood Exchange Admin.

Welcome to my blog.  My goal is really to try and make my posts contain valuable information to the reader.  Being that this is my first time blogging, it might be a learning process for me and I do appreciate your patience.  However, I do enjoy challenges and I am sure that in the long run, this commitment of mine will turn into a positive experience for all.

Now to provide you a little background regarding who I am.  My name is Sean van Osnabrugge and I have been passionate about computers since a young age.  In fact, it probably was the sighting of my father’s first computer, a 286 taking 20 minutes to load a game that somehow captivated my interest.  Ironically, I do not have patience for slow computers and I would not suggest trying to get me to fix your spyware infested computer.  Professionally, I have been working in IT for about 9 years and began to specialize in messaging and communications early on.  Initially I was a jack of all trades, running my own business supporting anything and everything.  I was all over the place implementing and supporting whatever the job called for; I would either know it or learn it.  After I discovered Exchange server, I found my niche and began to specialize.

Exchange is one of those products that you cannot help, but gain respect for.  It may be cliché to make such a statement and I know there are Notes & Groupwise admins out there that still advocate for their respective products in some areas where Exchange has lacked (to those admin that may read this post, please keep an open mind in regards to Exchange 2010). Regardless, just stating the facts alone are compelling enough to become interested.  The vast majority of organizations now use Exchange primarily due to its reliability, feature set and proven maturation (since 1987 with MS Mail).  It has spun off a separate successful product called Communication Server which was part of Exchange 2000.  The Exchange Team themselves are a lively, proactive group with a passion for their product and apparently would be the 9th largest software company in the world if they were separate from Microsoft.  Lastly, being that they are so successful prompted for a massive community!

Now, this is where I come in.  I have always wanted to contribute to this community, but I feel there are so many out there and it is easy to find the answer to almost any topic with a quick google (or bing).  So, what can I contribute?  Well, I am hoping that my experience in the last few years of involvement with TAP/Betas and integrating Exchange and Communication Server with various products may be able to contribute towards some posts/articles that provide assistance.  At least that is the goal.

Your friendly neighbourhood Exchange Admin.