Microsoft | Ward Vissers

Microsoft Office 365 Jump Start

The Microsoft Office 365 Jumpstart series provides an excellent perspective of the overall value Office 365 provides to modern organizations in terms of productivity, access, familiarity, security, control and reliability.

Exchange Video’s from TechEd North America 2011

Some interesting video’s from TechEd North America 2011 about Exchange 2010 Smile

EXL302 Archiving and Discovery in Microsoft Exchange 2010 SP1 and Exchange Online | Krish Sundaresan
EXL306 Best Practices for Virtualization of Microsoft Exchange 2010 | Jim Lucey, Jeff Mealiffe
EXL307 Load Balancing with Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 | Andrew Ehrensing
EXL309 Microsoft Exchange Online in Microsoft Office 365: Migration Case Study | John Logan, Danny Kim, Ann Vu
EXL310 Microsoft Exchange Online in Microsoft Office 365: Simple Migration Live! | Ram Poornalingam
EXL311 Microsoft Exchange Server and Microsoft Office 365: How to Set Up a Hybrid Deployment | Jim Lucey
EXL312 Designing Microsoft Exchange 2010 Mailbox High Availability for Failure Domains | Ross Smith IV
EXL313 Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Tips and Tricks | Scott Schnoll
EXL322 Microsoft Exchange Online: Unified Messaging in Microsoft Office 365 | Michael Wilson
EXL324 Top 10 Insights on Development of Microsoft Exchange Server and Microsoft Lync Server 2010 against Microsoft Office 365 | Albert Kooiman, Robin Thomas
EXL326 What’s New in Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 SP2: Featuring GAL Segmentation | Greg Taylor
EXL327 Real-World Site Resilience Design in Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 | Robert Gillies
EXL401 Exchange Server 2010 High Availability Management and Operations | Scott Schnoll

Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2012 Beta 1 Available

Microsoft has just released as a public beta the newest version of Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2012 with a few important updates:

Supporting System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) 2012.
Using Lite Touch Installation (LTI), great improvements in the client side look-n-feel.
Also for LTI, behind-the-scenes enhancements for partitioning, UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface), and user state migration.
Some minor bugs fixed.

MDT 2012 Requirements

Same as MDT 2010:

Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK) 2.0. You can download it from here.
Note: The download page indicates that the WAIK version is “1”; but don’t worry, the actual version is 2.0.
MSXML 6.0
PowerShell.
.Net Framework 3.5 SP1. Available for download here.
Note: Even though .Net Framework 2.5 SP1 is not a requirement for MDT 2010 installation; one of its features, User-Driven Installation (UDI), does requires the latest Microsoft Framework installed.

MDT 2012 Look-n-Feel

For what I’ve seen so far, the user experience of the Deployment Workbench console is pretty much the same.

MDT 2012 Beta 1 Download

The beta is available in this link from Microsoft Connect,

Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) 6.0 Beta: Accelerate the adoption of Microsoft private and public cloud platforms

Planning your journey to the cloud just got a bit easier. The next release of the Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit—version 6.0 Beta—includes assessment capabilities to evaluate workloads for both public and private cloud platforms. With MAP 6.0 Beta, you now have the ability to identify workloads and estimate the infrastructure size and resources needed for both Windows Azure and Hyper-V Fast Track. Also new to MAP 6.0 Beta is the Office 365 client assessment, enhanced VMware inventory, and Oracle schema discovery and reporting. Expanded assessment and discovery capabilities from MAP help you streamline planning for your next migration project. Plan what’s next with MAP.

New features and benefits from MAP 6.0 Beta release help you:

· Analyze your portfolio of applications for a move to the Windows Azure Platform

· Accelerate planning to private cloud with Hyper-V Cloud Fast Track onboarding

· Identify migration opportunities with enhanced heterogeneous server environment inventory

· Assess your client environment for Office 365 readiness

· Determine readiness for migration to Windows Internet Explorer 9

· Discover Oracle database schemas for migration to SQL Server

Download the beta materials on Connect:http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=219165

Kemp LoadMaster Sizing Guide for MS Exchange 2010

Kemp released a cool tool: LoadMaster Sizing Guide for MS Exchange to see which of our products is best for you.

Some info about Kemp:
KEMP LoadMaster combines versatility with ease-of-use to speed deployment (see our step-by-step guidelines in the LoadMaster Deployment Guide for Load Balancing MS Exchange 2010) of the complete portfolio of advanced messaging applications and protocols used by Exchange 2010, including Outlook Web Access, Outlook Anywhere, ActiveSync, SMTP, POP3 and IMAP and RPC Client Access (Native MAPI). With built-in SSL acceleration and/or overlay, the LoadMaster offloads a key source of CPU drain to improve the capacity of Client Access Servers. Layer 7 healthchecking at the LoadMaster ensures that should one of the servers become inaccessible, the load balancer will take that server off-line, while automatically re-routing and reconnecting users to other functioning servers. Not quite ready to make the move to Exchange 2010? KEMP LoadMasters integrate seamlessly with earlier versions of Exchange as well.

Screenshot from de sizing tool:

ActiveSync Random Password Prompts Fixed

Some users were getting random prompts for passwords in ActiveSync on Windows Mobile 6.1 & 6.5 en Windows Phone 7. Environment: Exchange 2007, and TMG and Kemp Load balancers, but this problem showed up months after changing ISA 2006 to TMG. It seemed random. The error on ActiveSync was the generic:

Error:
please log in access was denied 0×85010002

In the TMG Monitoring you would see a denied connection on your ActiveSync rule with this status:

12239 The server requires authorization to fulfill the request. Access to the Web server is denied. Contact the server administrator.

I tested with Windows Mobile Emulator from outside the firewall and was able to reproduce the error within hours (just letting it sit there).

I first thought this was the HTTP session timeout that changed with the Kemp Loadbalancers.

I poked around the web listener settings some more and noticed the timeout settings for forms authentication were set (this same web listener was used for OWA). TMG is supposed to be smart enough to not apply any of the forms auth settings to clients that don’t support it (falling back to basic auth as with ActiveSync).

The forms auth timeout was indeed affecting ActiveSync. To find it, look for the web listener of your ActiveSync rule, go to properties>Forms tab>Advanced> and make sure “apply session timeout to non-browser clients” is unchecked.

Windows Phone app for the Exchange Team Blog

The Exchange Team Blog” app for your Windows Phone. You can download it from here or directly from the Marketplace on your Windows Phone.

The app allows you to read our blog posts on the go. Some notable features are:

Favorite posts you love and refer them quickly
Follow our tweets from the same app
Quickly filter and read posts by tags/categories
Send us your suggestions
Share posts with your social networks

Here are some screenshots:

Source: The Exchange Team Blog

System Center Data Protection Manager 2010 Doesn’t Detect Tape Drives In Library

I’ve used System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM) since the 2007 beta, primarily for SharePoint and SQL backups & Exchange Backups. At a customer they have one DPM server which backs up to disk and additionally to a HP MSL2024 Tape Library for long term protection. The runs Windows Server 2008 R2 with DPM 2010 since its release.

After updating de DPM Server with SP1 for Windows 2008 R2 en updated the drivers. I had some issues with DPM. What I found was that although DPM installed correctly it couldn’t see all the tape drives in the VTL. All the tape drives were visible in Device Manager and none were showing errors. I use the RECOMMENDED * HP StorageWorks Tape Drivers for Windows

In the DPM console under Management -> Libraries, the library was listed, but Total Drives was 0, rather than the expected 2. The DPM console showed the following error:

I followed the instructions to remap the drives here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb795782.aspx. The DPMLA.xml file produced by the tool was correct, showing the correct SCSI IDs, serial numbers etc. but DPM still couldn’t see the drives.

I found the solution to the problem on the DPM forum here: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/dpmtapebackuprecovery/thread/1d599443-7bf6-437a-bf12-52847fa7c8e5/ What I did is update the tape drive driver to the Inbox LTO driver as described on the forum and below:

1) Open device manager
2) Locate the tape drive
3) Right-click and look at the properties.
3) Under the DRIVER tab, select UPDATE DRIVER
a) Select the Install from list or specific location (Advanvced) – next.
b) Select Don’t search. I will choose the driver to install. – next.
c) Uncheck the Show comtabile hardware checkbox.
d) Highlight LTO under the manufacturer.
e) Highlight the LTO tape drive under model – then next.
f) This should install the Microsoft ltotape.sys driver.
4) Rescan the tape library in the DPM console – try to take another backup.

After following the above steps, all the two tape drives were visible in the DPM console.

DPM 2010 Fix: Disk based recovery points are not deleted as per retention goals

When using System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 or 2010 (DPM) to backup your production servers, you might encounter a situation where the recovery point volumes for your protected data source keep running out of space and the number of days that DPM has recovery points for exceeds the desired retention range. If you run vssadmin list shadows, or run diskshadow.exe followed by list shadows all command, you can see that there are more shadow copies than there should be based on the desired retention goal. Also, if you manually run the DPM Power Shell pruneshadowcopies2010.ps1 script, no recovery points are removed, but there are no errors.

So what’s going on here? Most likely this is happening because the NetBIOS name of the DPM server is longer than 15 characters.

Resolution

To resolve the problem perform the following to truncate the name to the 15 character limit.

1) Using notepad, open C:\Program Files\Microsoft DPM\DPM\bin\pruneshadowcopiesDpm2010.ps1 (For DPM2010) or pruneshadowcopies.ps1 (For DPM 2007).

2) Locate the following entry:

$dpmservername = &"hostname"

3) Replace the &"hostname" with the truncated 15 character NetBIOS name of the DPM server. For example, if the DPM Server’s host name is "Long-DPM-server-name" then modify the entry as follows:

$dpmservername = "ward-dpm01.wardvissers.local"

4) Save the modified script.

5) Either run the script manually, or wait for it to run at midnight – then verify the shadow copies are being pruned as expected.

Now I have nice Green Protection Groups

Special Thanks to J.C. Hornbeck

Microsoft Office 365 Deployment Readiness Tool

The Office 365 Deployment Readiness Tool provides analysis of your on-premises environment in preparation for an Office 365 enterprise deployment. The readiness tool is integrated with the guidance provided in the web edition of the Microsoft Office 365 Beta Deployment Guide.

Download HERE

I run the tool in my test environment. See below the results

Microsoft Office 365 Deployment Readiness Tool

Beta

Office 365 Deployment Resource Kit build 01.00.00.00
Click here for the Microsoft Office 365 Beta Deployment Guide for Enterprises

Domains

Deployment Guide: Adding Your Domain(s) to Office 365
All email domains discovered in your environment:
Total: 3

All primary email domains discovered:
Total: 2

Primary email domain suffixes with greater than 50 users:
wardvissers.local
Total: 1

User Identity and Account Provisioning

Active Directory

Statistics

Total number of domains discovered in your forest: 1
Estimated total number of users: 59
Estimated total number of contacts: 0
Estimated total number of groups: 54
Estimated total number of mailboxes: 53
Estimated total number of objects for Directory Synchronization: 113

Note: Filters were applied to obtain the above object counts for an Office 365 deployment.

Forest and Domains

The following domains were discovered in your Active Directory forest:
wardvissers.local
Total: 1

Trusts

No forest trusts found

You may deploy AD FS 2.0 and Directory Synchronization without multi-forest constraints

Schema and Forest/Domain Functionality Levels

Active Directory forest schema level: Windows Server 2008 R2
Exchange schema level: Exchange Server 2010 SP1
Domain Functionality:Windows Server 2008 R2
Forest Functionality:Windows Server 2008 R2
Domain Controller Functionality:Windows Server 2008 R2

It appears that your Active Directory schema is prepared for Exchange Rich Coexistence
Deployment Guide: Exchange Rich Coexistence Requirements

Active Directory Cleanup

Deployment Guide: Active Directory Cleanup

samaccountname (user name) Attribute

Character length test passed

Unsupported character test passed

givenname (first name) Attribute

Character length test passed

Unsupported character test passed

sn (last name) Attribute

Character length test passed

Unsupported character test passed

displayname Attribute

Character length test passed

Unsupported character test passed

mail (email address) Attribute

Character length test passed

Unsupported character test passed

No duplicates found

mailnickname Attribute

Character length test passed

Unsupported character test passed

proxyaddresses (email addresses) Attribute

No duplicates found

Unsupported character test passed

Directory Synchronization

Object count assessment:
Estimated number of objects for Directory Synchronization (entire forest): 113
Deployment Guide: Object Count Considerations
Enterprise Admin rights:

It appears that you are an enterprise admin
Directory Synchronization admin requirement met!
Deployment Guide: Directory Synchronization Required Permissions
Active Directory recycle bin:

Active Directory recycle bin is enabled in your forest this may impact your total object count quota for Directory Synchronization.

Office 365 Single Sign On and Identity

AD FS 2.0 Directory Cleanup Check:

UserPrincipalName (logon ID for Office 365) Attribute

Update values once you have verified your organization does not have any other application dependencies on the UserPrincipalName attribute.
Deployment Guide: Active Directory Cleanup

Unsupported characters test passed

Spaces in logon value test passed

Unicode character test passed

Note: All Unicode characters will be converted to underscores (_) in the UserPrincipalName field.

No UserPrincipalName duplicates found

Discovered users without a user logon name (blank value) for UserPrincipalName
You will need to provide each user a UserPrincipalName in order for these users to sign into Office 365.

Below is a list of your UserPrincipalName domain suffixes in use:
wardvissers.local
Total: 1

Note: During the Office 365 Beta only one namespace (root and child domains) per AD FS 2.0 farm
Example contoso.com and root.contoso.com would require 1 AD FS 2.0 farm and fabrikam.com would require an additional AD FS 2.0 farm

Password length per domain:

wardvissers.local = 7

Exchange Online

Discovered Exchange Server(s) on-premises:
Estimated total number of Exchange Servers: 1

Statistics:
Estimated total number of users with default mailbox size (True): 53
Estimated total number of users with larger than default mailbox size (False): 0
Estimated total number of objects with Exchange organization level quota: 6

Lync Online

Lync user assessment:
Estimated total number of users leveraging Office Communications/Lync on-premises: 2
Sip domains:

The following sip domains were discovered:
wardvissers.local
Total: 1

SharePoint Online

User object count assessment:

The number of user objects in your forest is supported.
Deployment Guide: Object Count Considerations

Client and End User Experience

Deployment Guide: Rich Experience Client Requirements

Summary of client computer readiness (Office 365 single sign-on and rich client checks):

Below is an estimate of computer operating systems NOT ready for Office 365 rich client experience:
Total: 0

Below is an estimate of computer operating systems ready for Office 365 rich client experience:
Windows XP Service Pack 3: 3
Windows 7 Service Pack 1: 3
Total: 6

Network

IP Configuration:
IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.150.60
IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.150.1
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.255
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.150.254

Trace route to your default gateway:
Tracing route to 192.168.150.254 over a maximum of 30 hops
1 1 ms 2 ms 2 ms 192.168.150.254

Trace Route test to Exchange Online:
Tracing route to outlook.com [65.55.94.40]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 3 ms 2 ms 1 ms 192.168.150.254
2 * 24 ms 25 ms 82.169.11.254
3 25 ms 26 ms 26 ms 195.69.145.20
4 145 ms 146 ms 144 ms 10.14.234.234
5 * * * Request timed out.
6 * * * Request timed out.
7 10.14.234.234 reports: Destination net unreachable.
Trace complete.

For additional tests utilize the Exchange Remote Connectivity Analyzer

Port Query Tests:

Deployment Guide: Ports and Protocols

portal.microsoft.com
Made a TCP 443 connection to portal.microsoftonline.com

Outlook.com
Made a TCP 443 connection to outlook.com

Outlook.com IMAP
Made a TCP 993 IMAP connection to outlook.com

Outlook.com POP
Made a TCP 995 POP connection to outlook.com

Outlook.com SMTP
Made a SMTP TCP 587 connection to outlook.com

Active Directory Federation Services End Point
Made a TCP 443 connection to nexus.microsoftonline.com

Directory Synchronization End Point
Made a TCP 443 connection to adminwebservice.microsoftonline.com

Office 365 PowerShell End Point
Made a TCP 443 connection to ps.microsoftonline.com

Outlook.com PowerShell End Point
Made a TCP 443 connection to ps.outlook.com

Office 365 Community End Point
Made a TCP 80 connection to community.office365.com

Lync Online SIP Connection
Made a TCP 443 connection to sipdir.online.lync.com

Lync Online Federation
Made a TCP 5061 connection to sipfed.online.lync.com
Domain Name System (DNS) name records checks:

Found the following MX DNS record(s):
Server: localhost
Address: 127.0.0.1
wardvissers.local
primary name server = ward-dc01.wardvissers.local
responsible mail addr = hostmaster.wardvissers.local
serial = 761
refresh = 900 (15 mins)
retry = 600 (10 mins)
expire = 86400 (1 day)
default TTL = 3600 (1 hour)
Information Gathered On:
WARD-DC01
Date: za 07-05-2011
Start Time: 18:19
End Time: 18:21

Category: Microsoft

Microsoft Office 365 Jump Start

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Exchange Video’s from TechEd North America 2011

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