11 Jan 2015
By Yendis

Using an Azure VM as a DAG Witness Server

Microsoft, ,
I’m happy to announce support for use of an Azure virtual machine as an Exchange 2013 Database Availability Group witness server. Automatic datacenter failover in Exchange 2013 requires three physical sites, but many of our customers with stretched DAGs only have two physical sites deployed today. By enabling the use of Azure as a third physical site, this provides many of our customers with a cost-effective method for improving the overall availability and resiliency of their Exchange deployment. You can learn more about the deployment and configuration process, as well as learn about our best practices in the TechNet Library…
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08 Jan 2015
By Yendis

Microsoft Exchange Server Performance on VMware Virtual SAN

VMware, ,
Microsoft Exchange Server is a commonly found email server and is considered a business-critical application by many organizations. Virtualized instances of Exchange Server can be successfully deployed using VMware vSphere 5.5 and it has been shown that Exchange Server performs well in a virtualized environment with shared SAN storage. With the release of VMware Virtual SAN, the next logical step is to study the performance of Exchange Server on this storage platform. This white paper shows that virtualized Exchange Server 2010 on vSphere 5.5 with VMware Virtual SAN scales well while maintaining very good application response time as more Exchange…
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04 Sep 2014
By Yendis

Exchange Updates

Microsoft, ,
As you may have seen Microsoft released its Exchange Server 2013 Cumulative Update 6 quickly followed by two patches due to issues raised by customers Exchange Server 2013 databases unexpectedly fail over in a co-existence environment with Exchange Server 2007 (KB2997209) Exchange Online mailboxes cannot be managed by using EAC after you deploy Exchange Server 2013 CU6 (KB2997355) To find out what issues were fixed in CU6 click HERE To download CU6 click HERE As the hotfixes are now available I would strongly recommend installing them taking all the necessary precautions i.e. backups etc. Updates also came out for Exchange 2010 and Exchange 2007,…
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23 Mar 2013
By Yendis

Exchange 2010 SP2 upgrade error

Microsoft, ,
I was performing an SP2 upgrade on a clients Exchange 2010 Sp1 environment today and whilst upgrading the first "Mailbox Server Role" in the DAG the upgrade process came up with the following error:- Error:       The following error was generated when "$error.Clear();              if ($exsSid -eq $null -or $exsSid -eq "")             {             $exsSid = get-ExchangeServerGroupSID -DomainController $RoleDomainController             }            start-setupservice -ServiceName MSExchangeADTopology -ServiceParameters                  $exsSid,$RoleDomainController " was run: "Service 'MSExchangeADTopology' failed to reach status 'Running' on this server.".  Service 'MSExchangeADTopology' failed to reach status 'Running' on this server. Looking at the exchange setup logs it was discovered that the Exchange Trusted Subsystem was not a member of the Builtin Administrators…
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10 Oct 2012
By Yendis

Microsoft Re-Releases Exchange Server Update Rollups Due to Code Signing Issue

Microsoft,
In a brief blog post the Microsoft Exchange team has announced the re-release of the latest round of update rollups for Exchange Server. Earlier today we re-released the following Rollup Updates. These updates address an issue in which digital signatures on files produced and signed by Microsoft will expire prematurely, as described in Microsoft Security Advisory 2749655. Update Rollup 4-v2 for Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 2 (KB2756485) Update Rollup 7-v2 for Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 1 (KB2756496) Update Rollup 8-v2 for Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 3 (KB2756497) For further information Paul Cunningham over at ExchangeServerPro.com has covered this in a bit more detail. Thanks…
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06 Oct 2012
By Yendis

New iOS 6 Exchange bug surfaces

Microsoft, ,
Apple released the new iPhone and a new version of its mobile operating system a couple of weeks ago, but since then there have been a number of glitches affecting the software that has left a number of users somewhat frustrated. Now a new iOS 6 Exchange bug has come to light that has led a company to advise employees against upgrading to the software. Click HERE to read more    
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06 Sep 2012
By Yendis

Exchange schema version numbers

Microsoft,
Whilst on the subject of schema versions I thought I would also include the Exchange schema version numbers You can check the version with one of the following methods. dsquery: dsquery * CN=ms-Exch-Schema-Version-Pt,cn=schema,cn=configuration,dc=domain,dc=local -scope base -attr  rangeUpper ADSIEdit: open ADSIEdit and navigate to “CN=ms-Exch-Schema-Version-Pt,CN=Schema,CN=Configuration,DC=domain,DC=local”, right-click “Properties” and locate “rangeUpper” attribute value  
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02 Jul 2012
By Yendis

Exchange Server and Update Rollups Build Numbers

Microsoft
Whilst I was doing an upgrade to my Exchange environment I needed to know a particular build number of a rollup update. After many google searches I cam across a good article on Technet which gave me the information I needed so I thought I would share it. The technet article is here http://bit.ly/MNRV9g
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