Exchange 2010 Public Folder Database requirement

Current Status: Issue with mitigation

Unlike Outlook 2007 and 2010, Outlook 2003 clients rely on public folders. If a public folder database doesn’t exist, Outlook 2003 users will be blocked from connecting to their Exchange 2010 mailbox and receive the error message shown in Figure 8.


Figure 8:
Error message when an Outlook 2003 user connects to an Exchange 2010 mailbox

There are several reasons why a public folder database is required for Outlook 2003 client. First, Outlook 2003 in cached mode uses the “OFFLINE ADDRESS BOOK” system folder to download the offline address book (OAB) and the “SCHEDULE+ FREE BUSY” to retrieve and update free/busy information.


Figure 9:
Offline Address Book and Schedule+ Free Busy system folders

Second, if you’re installing Exchange 2010 into an existing Exchange organization running Exchange 2007, it’s important you add the Exchange 2010 public folder database to the replica list of the “SCHEDULE+ FREE BUSY” folder. If this step isn’t completed, users who use Outlook 2003 cannot publish their free/busy data in Exchange Server 2010. Instead hash marks appear in the free/busy data for these users. More information as well as the steps that can be used to remediate this issue can be found in the following KB article:

Special Thanks to Henrik Walther

Concern: Is having Outlook 2003 clients going to prevent me from deploying Exchange 2010

OVERALL STATUS: No, having Oulook 2003 clients is not a deployment blocker. However, you need to understand the following sections and make configuration changes as applicable.

Back since November 9th, 2009 where Exchange Server 2010 released to manufacturing (RTM), there have been a growing concern around whether enterprises are prevented from upgrading or migrating their current Exchange 2003 or Exchange 2007 based messaging infrastructure to Exchange 2010, if Outlook 2003 clients is used within the organization.

But in  this article includes are a few additional concerns about Exchange 2010 and Outlook 2003

Exchange 2010 lack support for UDP Notifications

Exchange 2010 Exchange Server name appears as Instance – <GUID>

Exchange 2010 & Outlook 2003 Offline Address Book (OAB)

Exchange 2010 RPC over HTTP Connectivity

Exchange 2010 Opening multiple shared calendars & additional mailboxes

Exchange 2010 RPC Encryption Requirement

Exchange 2010 Public Folder Database requirement

exchange 2010

Special Thanks to Henrik Walther

Exchange 2010 lack support for UDP Notifications

Current Status: Issue with mitigation


Important
With Exchange 2010 SP1 RU3 UDP notifications is being re-added to to Exchange 2010 (read more here). This means that the below symptoms will be resolved, once Exchange 2010 SP1 RU3 becomes available in March 2011.

With Exchange Server 2010, there is no longer support for User Datagram Protocol (UDP) notifications. When opening a mailbox using Outlook 2003, Outlook 2003 tries to register itself to receive new message notifications. By default Outlook 2003 tried to register for UDP notifications but since this notification method isn’t supported with Exchange 2010, Outlook 2003 will instead revert to polling the Exchange server for changes in the mailbox. Despite the fact that Outlook 2003 initiates the polling behavior, the Exchange server will dictate the polling frequency. By default Outlook 2003 polls the Exchange server every 60 seconds.

Since Exchange 2010 doesn’t support UDP based notifications, Outlook 2003 won’t be able to register itself using this method, which means changes made to any of the folders in the mailbox won’t be reflected before Outlook 2003 polls the Exchange server for changes. The result of this is that notifications about new messages etc. will be reflected in the Outlook 2003 client with delays of up to 60 seconds.
More specifically, you will see the following symptoms:

  • Outgoing e-mail messages stay in the Outbox for up to 1 minute
  • New e-mail messages do not arrive in the Inbox for up to 1 minute
  • Items that are deleted from folders do not disappear from the folder for up to 1 minute
  • Items that are moved from one folder to another folder take up to 1 minute to disappear from the original folder

Two methods exist to remediate the polling issue described above:

Method 1: Change the Polling Frequency

The issue can be remediated by installing Exchange 2010 Service Pack 1 which includes support for a new registry key that can be used to lower the polling frequency to 5 seconds.


Figure 3:
Lowering the polling frequency value


Note
The registry key doesn’t reinstate UDP in Exchange 2010; it only lowers the polling frequency.

Method 2: Enable Cached Mode in Outlook 2003 Clients

The cached mode synchronization process uses a different architecture to update folders versus Outlook 2003 clients in online mode. So another option is to enable cached mode for all Outlook 2003 clients within the organization.

The following KB article describes the symptoms and remediation in detail:

Update: Rollup 3 for Exchange 2010 SP1 is gereleased

Special Thanks to Henrik Walther

Exchange 2010 & Outlook 2003 Offline Address Book (OAB)

Current Status: Issue with mitigation

If the client machine on which Outlook 2003 is installed has been configured to use a proxy server), you must enable "Bypass proxy server for local addresses" under Internet Options > Connections > LAN settings or add the CAS server or CAS arrays to the exception list shown in Figure 10.


Figure 10:
Proxy server settings in Internet Explorer

If a proxy server is used in the organization and you haven’t done one of the following:

  • Enabled “Bypass proxy server for local addresses”
  • Added the CAS server or CAS array to the “Exceptions list”

The Outlook 2003 clients will get an error when trying to download the offline address book (OAB). For more information about the error messages and the steps necessary to remediate the issue, see the following KB article:


Note
This issue also affects Outlook 2007 and 2010 clients.

Outlook 2003 clients will also receive an error message when trying to download the OAB if the correct OAB hasn’t been specified for the Exchange 2010 database(s). For more information and steps required to remediate this issue, see the following KB article:

Special Thanks to Henrik Walther

Exchange 2010 RPC over HTTP Connectivity

In some situations Outlook 2003 users connecting to an Exchange mailbox using RPC over HTTP receive the following error message:

“Server Unavailable”

Although this is an Outlook 2003 specific client issue, the issue is not specific for Exchange 2010 organizations. It could also appear in organizations running Exchange 2003 or 2007.

The problem occurs if the RPC proxy server extensions do no load correctly. You can find more details and a description of how the issue can be remediated in the following KB article:

Special Thanks to Henrik Walther

VMware vCenter XVP Manager and Converter

    VMware vCenter XVP Manager and Converter provides basic virtualization management capabilities for non-vSphere hypervisor platforms towards enabling centralized visibility and control across heterogeneous virtual infrastructures. It also simplifies and enables easy migrations of virtual machines from non-vSphere virtualization platforms to VMware vSphere.

    Features

    • Management of the following Microsoft Hyper-V platforms:
      • Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008
      • Microsoft Windows Server 2008 (64-bit) with Hyper-V role enabled
      • Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2
      • Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V role enabled
    • Familiar vCenter Server graphical user interface for navigating through and managing non-vSphere inventory
    • Ease of virtual machine migrations from non-vSphere hosts to vSphere inventory
    • Compatible with VMware vCenter Server 4.0 & 4.1
    • Scalable up to management of 50 non-vSphere hosts

For more detailed information refer to the vCenter XVP Manager and Converter Technology Preview Release Notes and Installation Guide (included in zip file download).

VIDEO’s

Installation

Host Operations

Convert HyperV VMs to vSphere

Guest VM Operations inside HyperV

Download: HERE

VMware View 4.6 New Features

VMware released VMWare View 4.6

Updated Features:
Security servers can now accommodate PCoIP connections – Security servers now include a PCoIP Secure Gateway component. The PCoIP Secure Gateway connection offers the following advantages:

  • The only remote desktop traffic that can enter the corporate data center is traffic on behalf of a strongly authenticated user.
  • Users can access only the desktop resources that they are authorized to access.
  • No VPN is required, as long as PCoIP is not blocked by any networking component.
  • Security servers with PCoIP support run on Windows Server 2008 R2 and take full advantage of the 64-bit architecture.

Enhanced USB device compatibility – View 4.6 supports USB redirection for syncing and managing iPhones and iPads with View desktops. This release also includes improvements for using USB scanners, and adds to the list of USB printers that you can use with thin clients. For more information, see the list of View Client resolved issues.

Keyboard mapping improvements – Many keyboard-related issues have been fixed. For more information, see the list of View Client resolved issues.

New timeout setting for SSO users – With the single-sign-on (SSO) feature, after users authenticate to View Connection Server, they are automatically logged in to their View desktop operating systems. This new timeout setting allows administrators to limit the number of minutes that the SSO feature is valid for.
For example, if an administrator sets the time limit to 10 minutes, then 10 minutes after the user authenticates to View Connection Server, the automatic login ability expires. If the user then walks away from the desktop and it becomes inactive, when the user returns, the user is prompted for login credentials. For more information, see the VMware View Administration documentation.

VMware View 4.6 includes more than 160 bug fixes – For descriptions of selected resolved issues, see Resolved Issues.

Support for Microsoft Windows 7 SP1 operating systems (Not Experimental of RC wrong on the VMware site)

VDI Documentation
VMware View 4.6 Release Notes
VMware View Architecture Planning
VMware View Administration
VMware View Installation
VMware View Upgrades
VMware View Integration
View4_Marketecture_05

NTFS Chkdsk Best Practices and Performance

Claus Joergensen, one of the founding fathers of Windows Storage Server, had a great post today about a new white paper, available here, discussing the best practices and guidance for sizing NTFS volumes. The paper also has details on self-healing NTFS and Chkdsk execution times on Windows Server 2008 R2.

When planning Windows file server deployments, we are often asked questions such as “How large can I make my volumes?” or “How long will it take to repair a volume?”. This white paper helps answer these questions.

Table of Contents:

  • Self-Healing and Chkdsk
  • How to run Chkdsk
  • Chkdsk Exit Codes
  • Improving General Availability of the Server
  • Chkdsk performance on Windows Server 2008 R2
  • Block Caching Improvements in Windows Server 2008 R2
  • Effect of Volume Size on execution time of Chkdsk
  • Effect of Number of files and Different OS versions on execution time of Chkdsk
  • Effect of Physical Memory at different Number of files on execution time
  • Effect of short file names on Chkdsk execution time
  • Effect of Enabling/Disabling short file names
  • Conclusion
  • Call to Action
  • Resources   

If you are planning a Windows file server deployment or is looking to upgrade an existing Windows file server deployment to Windows Server 2008 R2, you should consult the white paper. It outlines how with Windows Server 2008 R2, NTFS can scale to easily support 15 TB file systems with 10 million files! Even with hundreds of millions of files the Chkdsk execution times are really fast. My favorite statistic is that a volume with 300 million files is able to Chkdsk in about 6 hours, that is so much faster than the old days.

SOURCE: http://blogs.technet.com/b/storageserver/archive/2011/02/23/guidance-for-sizing-ntfs-volumes.aspx

Exchange 2010 Opening multiple shared calendars & additional mailboxes

Current Status: Issue with mitigation

Exchange 2010 SP1 together with the resolutions mentioned later in this section, allows you to open as many as 16 shared calendars or additional mailboxes simultaneously independent on whether the mailboxes are located on Exchange 2003, 2007, or 2010. If you have more than 16 calendars or additional mailboxes opened, you may randomly see error message similar to the one shown in Figure 4.


Figure 4:
Error message when opening more than 16 calendars

With Exchange Server 2010 RTM deployed into an Exchange 2003 or Exchange 2007 organization, it was a common issue that when an Exchange 2003 or Exchange 2007 user tried to open more than two additional Exchange 2010 mailboxes or shared calendars using Outlook 2003, she would receive one of the following error messages:

  • The set of folders could not be opened
  • The information store could not be opened
  • Unable to display the folder. The information store could not be opened

When an Exchange 2007 user tried to send an e-mail using Outlook 2003, she would sometimes also receive the following error message:

  • Task ‘Microsoft Exchange Server – Sending’ reported error (0x800C8100): ‘Unknown Error 0x800c8100’

These issues were resolved with Update Rollup 2 for Exchange 2007 Service Pack 2 and a hotfix that were released for Exchange 2003 SP2. More information about the issues and how they are resolved can be found in the following KB articles:

    Although the above mentioned issues were resolved, some customers, partners, and individuals in the Exchange communities reported they still experienced issues when trying to open approximately multiple shared calendars and/or additional mailboxes using Outlook 2003.

    For most organizations, the issue can be remediated by installing Exchange 2010 SP1 as this service pack includes a fix that makes it possible for an Exchange 2003, 2007, or 2010 user to open as many as approximately 16 shared calendars or additional mailboxes using Outlook 2003.


    Figure 5:
    By default approximately 16 Calendars can be opened using Outlook 2003

    If you have users that needs to open more than 16 shared calendars or additional mailboxes using Outlook 2003, you can adjust the RPC related throttling policy settings using the Set-ThrottlingPolicy cmdlet. Specifically, you need to increase the value for “RCAMaxConcurrency” which by default is set to “20”. The RCAMaxConcurrency parameter indicates how many concurrent connections an RPC Client Access user can have against a server running Exchange 2010 at one time.


    Figure 6:
    Default setting for the RCAMaxConcurrency throttling policy value

    For instance, to increase the value of the “RCAMaxConcurrency” setting in the default throttling policy from 20 to 2147483647, open the Exchange Management Shell and run the following command to first create a variable for the policy:

    $a = Get-ThrottlingPolicy | where-object {$_.IsDefault -eq $true}

    Then pipe the variable to the Set-ThrottlingPolicy commandlet:

    $a | Set-ThrottlingPolicy -RCAMaxConcurrency 2147483647


    Figure 7:
    Increasing the value for the RCAMaxConcurrency throttling policy setting

    In order to apply the changes, restart the “Microsoft Exchange Throttling” service on each CAS server in the organization.

    You can read more about Exchange 2010 SP1 throttling policies in the Exchange 2010 documentation on Microsoft TechNet.

    If you still have issues opening shared calendars or additional mailboxes, you may want to increase the value of the RCAMaxConcurrency throttling policy setting to 100 or even higher. Read more in Error message when Outlook 2003 clients try to open multiple shared calendars in Exchange Server 2010: "The connection to the Microsoft Exchange server in unavailable. Outlook must be online or connected to complete this action".

    If you see event 4696 with a description similar to the following logged in the application log on the Mailbox servers in the organization:

    "Mapi session "00cc8dde-64d7-4353-8050-00fc2057aae3: /O=xxxx/OU=xxxx/cn=Recipients/cn=ward" exceeded the maximum of 32 objects of type "session"."

    You need to increase the maximum allowed sessions per user and/or maximum allowed service sessions per user limit from "32" to "64" or even higher. See more information at: Exchange 2010 SP1 Store Limits.

    but when I tried to add the “szMaxAllowedSessionsPerUser and/or “szMaxAllowedServiceSessionsPerUser”, I still saw 9646 in the app log.

    Guess why? yes the registry keys are actually listed with wrong names in that article. Instead of:

    • szMaxAllowedSessionsPerUser
    • szMaxAllowedServiceSessionsPerUser

    You need to use:

    • Maximum Allowed Sessions Per User
    • Maximum Allowed Service Sessions Per User

    And then everything worked as expected…

    Hopefully the TechNet page is updated soon.

    Special Thanks to Henrik Walther

    Translate »