Thoughtsofanidlemind's Blog

Category: Exchange

  • Coupons for Exchange 2010 Maestro training now available

    I guess there are coupons for just about everything these days so why wouldn’t I be surprised to see our marketing partners in Penton Media releasing coupons for the Exchange 2010 Maestro training events that Paul Robichaux and I are running in San Diego, London (England), and Greenwich CT.  Click…

  • Microsoft reveals the truth about single-role servers

    In the April 8 post on the Exchange team’s blog, a clear direction is given that single-role Exchange servers are not the preferred starting point for designs. In fact, a rather bold statement is made: “… always start design discussions with multi-role, and that is the recommended solution from the…

  • The changing need for backups

    New technology and different business requirements are seminal events that cause technologists to ponder on well-held tenets of their trade. The need for Exchange backups is one such instance. The technical developments are the elimination of streamed backups in Exchange 2010 (only VSS-based backups are now supported) allied to the…

  • Review: Spring 2011 Connections

    The Spring 2011 Connections event took place at the JW Marriott Grande Lakes complex in Orlando from March 27-30. I like this event because it’s a one-stop opportunity to get a broad overview of what’s happening in different aspects of the Microsoft-centric industry – ASP, SilverLight, SharePoint, and of course,…

  • Thoughts about having a dedicated archive server in a DAG

    An article covering some aspects of the deployment of archive mailboxes posted on SearchExchange by Brian Posey, a well-known and respected writer about Exchange, attracted my attention. While Brian makes some good points, I think the general thrust of his argument is flawed. Here’s why. His central point is that…

  • Exchange 2010, mailbox imports, and LocalSystem

    Anything posted on the Internet has a reasonably long half-life, a fact that I was reminded of when I researched some information about the Windows LocalSystem account and discovered an article that I wrote for Windows IT Pro magazine about Exchange 2000. In a nutshell, the article discussed a major…

  • Be careful with VM snapshots of Exchange 2010 servers

    Those who are considering virtualizing production Exchange 2010 servers should read the fine print contained in the TechNet article “Exchange 2010 System Requirements“. In particular, this text is crucial: “Some hypervisors include features for taking snapshots of virtual machines. Virtual machine snapshots capture the state of a virtual machine while…

  • Varying replication mode within a DAG

    Log shipping is a well-known method for data replication between Exchange servers (and other computers). It made its first appearance in Exchange in the Local Continuous Replication (LCR) and Cluster Continuous Replication (CCR) features of Exchange 2007, added to with Standby Cluster Replication (SCR) in Exchange 2007 SP1, and is…

  • Preparing for Spring Connections and first impressions of Office 365

    Earlier this week Brian K. Winstead, the author of the Exchange and Outlook blog on http://www.windowsitpro.com, contacted me to ask about the keynote that I’ll be giving at the Spring 2011 Exchange Connections event at the JW Marriott Resort hotel in Orlando from March 27 to 30. The resulting conversation…

  • Oooh… that’s some copy queue length!

    The Database Availability Group (DAG) is probably the best Exchange 2010 feature from both an impact and technology perspective. Microsoft took a really good decision by not limiting the DAG to enterprise editions of Exchange, even if you can only mount five databases on a server (counting both active and…