July 2010 Updates to Communicator and OCS (Cumulative Update 6)

0
Posted by Christian Pedersen on July 29, 2010 – 15:49
Filed under OCS 2007

There has been a new round of updates for Communicator 2007 R2, OCS 2007 R2, and OCS 2007 R2 Group Chat – known as Cumulative Update 6 (CU6).

** July 26, 2010 Update **:  There have been several reports of problems (failure of the Front End Service to start) after applying the CU6 updates on the server. Consider holding off applying this update until more information is known.  It is important to install the CU 6 update to the back end database role first (see Description of the cumulative update package for Office Communications Server 2007 R2 database: July, 2010).  So far, the problems appear to be related to this, but more information to come.

Client Updates

Communicator 2007 R2:

Communicator 2007 R2 Phone Edition:

Communicator 2007 R2 Mobile:

OCS 2007 R2 Group Chat Client:

Server Updates

OCS 2007 R2 Server:

OCS 2007 R2 Group Chat Server:

OCS 2007 R2 Group Chat Admin Tool:

Publishing Exchange 2010 with Forefront UAG 2010 and Forefront TMG 2010

0
Posted by Christian Pedersen on July 19, 2010 – 18:17
Filed under Exchange 2010, Forefront TMG and UAG

Allowing access to corporate resources from any location, perhaps using devices that are not controlled by the organization, presents additional risk to the security of the data and services being accessed. Therefore it’s critical to take measures to ensure that the data is being accessed securely, which means implementing technologies such as certificates, firewalls, enforcing pre-authentication, and device or endpoint validation. This white paper provides detailed information about publishing Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 using Forefront Unified Access Gateway 2010 and Forefront Threat Management Gateway 2010, including how to choose between them for different scenarios, and provides specific steps you can take to configure Forefront TMG and Forefront UAG to publish Exchange 2010.

This white paper provides information about publishing Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 using Forefront Unified Access Gateway 2010 and Forefront Threat Management Gateway 2010, including how to choose between them for different scenarios, and provides specific steps you can take to configure Forefront TMG and Forefront UAG to publish Exchange 2010.

Download the whitepaper here

Exchange ActiveSync Client Comparison Table

0
Posted by Christian Pedersen on July 16, 2010 – 14:16
Filed under ActiveSync

This Exchange Wiki page contains information about which Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) features are available in each Exchange Server version as well as which of these features are supported by Windows Mobile and other devices in the market.

The idea is to have the community help keep this table updated, so please feel free to contribute.

Link to comparison table

Exchange Server 2010 Design and Architecture at Microsoft

0
Posted by Christian Pedersen on July 16, 2010 – 09:54
Filed under Exchange 2010

Microsoft IT maintains a complex Exchange environment that consists of several geographic locations and multiple Active Directory forests. There are 16 data centers, four of which host Exchange servers, to support more than 515 office locations in 102 countries with more than 180,000 users.

By replacing Exchange Server 2007 servers with servers running Exchange Server 2010, Microsoft IT created new opportunities to drive down costs and system complexities while at the same time increasing security and deploying new features not available in previous versions of Exchange Server.

Download the whitepaper here

BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0 SP2 released

0
Posted by Christian Pedersen on July 13, 2010 – 10:50
Filed under Blackberry

What’s new in SP2

Download here

Mount point design and MSSearch

0
Posted by Christian Pedersen on July 12, 2010 – 10:34
Filed under Exchange 2007, Exchange 2010

Source: Tim McMichael

The use of mount points for Exchange is becoming more common place in many installations.  Some customers feel the best implementation of mount points consists of a small root disk with mount points created from folders on that disk.

 

For example, I may have a Drive L: that is 10 megs and I may create 4 folders on this drive (Database1 / Database2 / Database3 / Database4).  I will then create mount points utilizing the folders created from the L drive.

There are certain processes in Exchange that often check for free drive space prior to performing certain operations.  Unfortunately these processes are not necessarily mount point aware – therefore they end up querying the free drive space of the lettered volume rather than the mount point.  One of these processes is MSSearch.

 

MSSearch by default creates a catalog data folder co-located with each EDB file.  In our example above the catalog data folder and the edb file would be in L:\Database1 (where Database1 is the mount point).  In this this case the L drive has 10 megs free space but the Database1 mount point has 1.5 terabytes of free space.  When MSSearch attempts to initialize the initial catalog this operation fails as the drive space reported by the disk L is not sufficient (even though there is plenty of space where the actual catalog is stored).

 

Here is an example of some events you may see when this occurs.

Log Name:      Application
Source:        MSExchange Search Indexer
Date:          6/14/2010 12:11:20 PM
Event ID:      104
Task Category: General
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      server.company.com
Description:
Exchange Search Indexer failed to enable the Mailbox Database DATABASE(GUID = 58c0ed8a-dbfc-4d55-b265-8a80f1dc477b) after 1 tries. The last failure was: System.ComponentModel.Win32Exception: Unable to SetProperty FTE_PluginList on catalog ExSearch-58c0ed8a-dbfc-4d55-b265-8a80f1dc477b-26fc1c62-d3e8-4711-b3c9-3bb0b32aec0a. Error = -2147215320
   at Microsoft.Exchange.Msfte.CFTEAdmin.SetProperty(CatalogState catalogInfo, PropertyScope propertyScope, String propertyName, Object propertyValue, Boolean throwOnFailure)
   at Microsoft.Exchange.Msfte.CFTEAdmin.CreateCatalog(CatalogState catalogInfo)
   at Microsoft.Exchange.Search.Globals.CreateCatalog(CatalogState state, String reason)
   at Microsoft.Exchange.Search.Globals.RecreateCatalogAndPropertyStore(CatalogState catalogInfo, String reason)
   at Microsoft.Exchange.Search.CatalogState.CreateNew(String reason)
   at Microsoft.Exchange.Search.CatalogState.Reset(String reason)
   at Microsoft.Exchange.Search.CatalogState.HandleMountCatalogException(Exception exception)
   at Microsoft.Exchange.Search.Globals.CheckAndInitializeCatalog(CatalogState catalogInfo)
   at Microsoft.Exchange.Search.Driver.ProcessNewCatalogInternal(CatalogState catalog, List`1 mdbsToCrawl, Int32& numberOfDisabledMDBs). It will retry after 10 minutes.

 

Log Name:      Application
Source:        ExchangeStoreDB
Date:          6/14/2010 12:12:51 PM
Event ID:      222
Task Category: Database recovery
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      server.company.com
Description:
At ’6/14/2010 11:12:50 AM’ the Microsoft Exchange Information Store Database ‘DATABASE’ copy on this server experienced a corrupted search catalog. The error returned by failover was “There is only one copy of this mailbox database (DATABASE). Automatic recovery is not available.”. Consult the event log on the server for other “ExchangeStoreDb” and “MSExchange Search Indexer” events for more specific information about the failures.

 

The important information is actually contained in the first event – the error code –2147215320.  This error code translates to CI_E_CONFIG_DISK_FULL.

 

To resolve this issue you can:

 

  • Increase the space allotted to the root disk hosting the mount point.
  • Change from utilizing mount points to drive letters.

 

Once this is done restarting the MSSearch services may be necessary so that initial catalog creation can occur.

Exchange 2007/2010 Performance Data Collection Script

0
Posted by Christian Pedersen on July 12, 2010 – 10:29
Filed under Exchange 2007, Exchange 2010

Source: Mike lagase

In efforts to help streamline performance data collection on Exchange 2007/Exchange 2010 servers, I have created a powershell script that will automate the data collection for you. One of the nice features of the script is that you do not have to tell the script what roles are installed as it will automatically detect what is installed locally on the server, thus adding the appropriate counters for you. Previously, you had to manually select an XML file from here for Exchange 2007 servers and here for Exchange 2010 servers and then import it in to the performance console.

I’ve seen a lot of cases that use the previous Perfwiz utility, but unfortunately, this was originally designed to collect data for Exchange 2003 servers and was never updated to support the later versions of Exchange. This older version of Perfwiz should never be used to troubleshoot performance issues for versions later than Exchange 2003 as the pertinent counters are not being collected to accurately troubleshoot a performance issue.

During the development phase of this script, it was found that starting with Windows 2003 x64 that the log roll mechanism no longer worked properly and stopped once the maximum log file size was hit. Even though this worked previously in on Windows 2003 x86 versions, something changed on the 64-bit platform which prevented this from working. This problem is also inherent in the Windows 2008 operating system, but eventually was resolved in Windows 2008 R2. The script works around all of these issues to help you collect the right data at the right time by doing the following:

  • If Windows 2003 x64 and –circular switch not specified, then roll log to next log file once maxsize is reached or duration time is hit, whichever one is first.
  • If Windows 2008 RTM/SP1/SP2 and –circular switch not specified, then roll log every 4 hours. If Interval is set to less than 30 seconds, then roll log every hour.

IMPORTANT: To help save on the disk space consumed to write these log files out, the *default duration* is set to 8 hours. This time duration should be enough to capture most performance cases during the day, but if longer durations are needed, then refer to the switches listed in the table below to help set the desired configuration for your needs.

Listed below are the switches that can be used with this script at the time of this posting. New switches will be added as time goes on. These switches should help allow you to collect the right data at the right time and also allows the flexibility to set the appropriate settings.

Parameter

Description

-help or -?

Provides help regarding the overall usage of the script

-circular

Turns on circular logging to save on disk space. Negates default duration of 8 hours

-delete

Deletes the currently running Perfwiz data collection

-duration

Specifies the overall duration of the data collection. If omitted, the default value is (08:00:00) or 8 hours

-EseExtendedOn

Enables Extended ESE performance counters

-EseExtendedOff

Disables Extended ESE performance counters

-filepath

Sets the directory location of where the blg file will be stored

-full

Defines a counter set that includes all Counters/instances

-interval

Specifies the interval time between data samples. If omitted, the default value is (00:00:30) or 30 seconds

-maxsize

Specifies the maximum size of blg file in MB. If omitted, the default value is 512

-query

Queries configuration information of previously created Exchange_Perfwiz Data Collector

-start

Starts Exchange_Perfwiz data collection

-stop

Stops the currently running Perfwiz data collection

-StoreExtendedOn

Enables Extended Store performance counters

-StoreExtendedOff

Disables Extended Store performance counters

-threads

Specifies whether threads will be added to the data collection. If omitted, threads counters will not be added to the collection

-webhelp

Launches web help for script

For additional information, you can check out the website that includes the latest 1.3 version download at http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/ExPerfwiz.

If you have an issue with this script or have a feature suggestion, use the Discussions/Issue Tracker tabs on the Experfwiz page listed above. There are also additional examples of how to run the script with additional switches on the site.

iOS 4 and Exchange ActiveSync

0
Posted by Christian Pedersen on July 4, 2010 – 08:39
Filed under ActiveSync

Recently Apple released iOS 4 (the new name for the operating system that runs on iPhones, iPod touches, and iPads). Since its release there have been numerous reports (link, link, link) of a number of issues with new iPhone 4s (and older iPhone models running the updated software version) when using Exchange ActiveSync (EAS). I wanted to put up a quick posting about what issues users may be seeing and what we’re doing about it.

Issues:

  1. Exchange administrators are seeing heavier than normal loads on their servers from users with iOS devices: We are in contact with Apple’s engineering team and are trying to help them fix this issue. In the meantime Apple has released a support article (link) which directs administrators who are experiencing this issue to push an iOS profile (link) that changes the timeout their Exchange ActiveSync connection uses to their users to four minutes which should be long enough for the vast majority of users. Those that need longer can edit the XML file in any text editor by searching for ‘240.0’ (no quotes) and changing it to the desired number of seconds, or you can use Apple’s configuration utility editor (link) to make this change.

Update @1:10 PM: We had suggested using Apple’s configuration utility to make this change. Apple has informed us that you should not use the configuration utility to edit or install the update. Use a text editor such as Notepad to edit the timeout value in the update, if required.

  1. Email, calendar, or contacts are not syncing: We believe this is the same issue as #1. The support article and solution listed above are the current recommendation from Apple while a fix is being worked on.
  2. iPhone is not working with Google Apps over Exchange ActiveSync: Google licenses the server portion of Exchange ActiveSync from Microsoft (link) but Google wrote their own software to implement the protocol. Google is responsible for making sure their implementation of Exchange ActiveSync runs correctly and in this case Google claims that they had a server issue (link).

We have been in contact with Apple about each of these issues (as well as some others that seem to not be directly related to EAS but are more email related in general). Apple has assured us that a fix is being worked on though they have not commented on a release timeline for the fix. We will be continuing to work with Apple to help resolve the current issues relating to iOS 4 using Exchange ActiveSync.

Source: MsExchangeTeam

Hotfix Rollup 1 for Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Server released

0
Posted by Christian Pedersen on July 1, 2010 – 09:49
Filed under Forefront FSE

Description of Hotfix Rollup 1 for Microsoft Forefront Protection for Exchange: KB2181692

Forefront TMG Service Pack 1 released

0
Posted by Christian Pedersen on June 25, 2010 – 10:45
Filed under Forefront TMG and UAG
The service pack includes the following new features and feature improvements:

New Reports
• The new User Activity report displays the sites and site categories accessed by any user.
• All Forefront TMG reports have a new look and feel.

Enhancements to URL Filtering
• You can now allow users to override the access restriction on sites blocked by URL filtering. This allows for a more flexible web access policy, in that users can decide for themselves whether to access a blocked site. This is especially useful for websites that have been incorrectly categorized.
• You can now override the categorization of a URL on the enterprise level; the override is then effective for each enterprise-joined array.
• Denial notification pages can now be customized for your organization’s needs.

Enhanced Branch Office Support
• Collocation of Forefront TMG and a domain controller on the same server, which can help reduce the total cost of ownership at branch offices.
• When installed on a computer running Windows Server 2008 R2, SP1 simplifies the deployment of BranchCache at the branch office, using Forefront TMG as the Hosted Cache server.

Support for publishing SharePoint 2010
• Forefront TMG SP1 supports secure publishing of SharePoint 2010.

To read the release notes, see the Release Notes for Forefront TMG 2010 SP1

Download here