8 de março de 2010

27 de fevereiro de 2010

Exchange Server Pre-Deployment Analyzer

A Microsoft disponibilizou recentemente o Exchange Server Pre-Deployment Analyzer, uma ferramenta que analiza todo o ambiente de uma organização Exchange e alerta para o caso de existirem potenciais problemas que possam impedir a instalação do novo Exchange 2010.

Para mais informações, sugiro a leitura deste 2 posts:

Brief Description
The Exchange Pre-Deployment Analyzer performs an overall topology readiness scan of your environment and provides you with a list of decisions that need to be made before you deploy Exchange Server 2010.

Overview
You can use the Exchange Pre-Deployment Analyzer to perform an overall topology readiness scan of your environment. When you run the Exchange Pre-Deployment Analyzer, it provides a detailed report that will alert you if there are any issues within your organization, which could prevent you from deploying Exchange 2010. For example, the Exchange Pre-Deployment Analyzer will notify you if you haven't deployed the minimum required Exchange service pack on all your existing Exchange servers.
The checks performed by ExPDA are similar to the pre-requisite checks implemented (via Exchange Best Practices Analyzer) in the Exchange 2010 Setup program; in fact ExPDA is based off the Exchange Best Practices Analyzer (ExBPA) engine. However, unlike Exchange 2010 setup, this tool focuses only on overall topology readiness and not the ability to run Exchange 2010 on the local computer. The scan also performs a deep analysis of each existing Exchange 2003/2007 server to verify that it has the necessary updates and configuration in-place to support Exchange 2010. The end report is structured as follows:

  • Critical - A configuration problem that will prevent Exchange 2010 from being deployed in the organization. For example, the Active Directory Forest is not operating in Windows Server 2003 Forest Functional Mode or higher.
  • Warning - A configuration item that may prevent customers having the best possible experience with Exchange 2010. A warning may also reflect some functionality that is not available in Exchange 2010.

ExPDA is another component in our vision to provide a seamless upgrade experience that reduces the complexities in deploying Exchange 2010. To start planning your upgrade, please utilize the Exchange Deployment Assistant. The Deployment Assistant allows a customer to create Exchange 2010 on-premises deployment instructions that are customized to their environment. The Assistant asks a small set of questions, and based on the answers, it provides a finite set of instructions that are designed to get a customer up and running on Exchange 2010. Running the Exchange Server Pre-Deployment Analyzer is now a recommended step within the pre-requisites section of the Deployment Assistant.

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21 de fevereiro de 2010

Exchange 2010 Mailbox Server Role Requirements Calculator v4.5

Mais uma vez, o Ross Smith IV anunciou no Microsoft Exchange Team Blog que a ferramenta Mailbox Server Role Storage Requirements Calculator foi actualizada para a versão 4.5

Enhancements

There are only three improvements to the calculator in this release:

  • Added the calculations to help you determine the minimum number of global catalog cores you need to deploy with your architecture.
  • Added the ability to define different RAID parity settings for your Restore LUN architecture.
  • Improved the calculation of the formatted capacity of a disk drive.

Bug Fixes

  • The following issues were identified and addressed in this release:
  • For HA solutions that chose to deploy in JBOD configuration, two fixes were made:
    • In certain scenarios, the calculator would calculate the number of mailboxes per database to be higher than the total amount of random IO available on the disk. As a result the calculator couldn't recommend a JBOD configuration. This has been corrected by rounding down the number of mailboxes per disk from an IO perspective calculation.
    • In certain situations the JBOD disk configuration isn't applicable. In past versions, the calculator would simply tell you this was because of "Insufficient Disk Capacity". This has been corrected to tell you if the insufficiency is based on disk capacity or IO capacity.
  • Addressed several CPU calculation related errors:
    • Fixed the issue where #VALUE was reported in the secondary datacenter processor core ratio table when you deployed only a lagged copy in the secondary datacenter.
    • Fixed the required mailbox CPU calculations to take into account certain site resilient scenarios where neither datacenter could support a single server failure (e.g. 2 member DAG).
  • Fixed an issue with the total disk count calculations with dedicated lagged copy servers as a result of rounding error.
  • Fixed an issue where /DAG LUN space totals didn't take into account the 2 LUNs / Backup Set architecture.

    Para obter instruções detalhadas sobre a utilização da ferramenta, consultem Exchange 2010 Mailbox Server Role Requirements Calculator.

    Para fazer download da ferramenta, cliquem aqui.

    20 de fevereiro de 2010

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    TechNet Magazine – Cloud Computing

    A TechNet Magazine publicou uma edição especial sobre Cloud Computing.

    Destaques:

    Colunas:

    12 de fevereiro de 2010

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    1 de fevereiro de 2010

    Exchange 2010 Mailbox Server Role Requirements Calculator v3.5

    O Ross Smith IV anunciou no Microsoft Exchange Team Blog que a ferramenta Mailbox Server Role Storage Requirements Calculator foi actualizada para a versão 3.5

    Version 3.5 introduces the following fixes:

    • Improved the text on the input tab with regards to the number of database copy instances you would like for both HA and lagged copies.
    • Fixes an issue where in a high availability architecture the calculator may size the solution based on activating more database copies during a second server failure event than the total number of database copies deployed on the server.

    Para obter instruções detalhadas sobre a utilização da ferramenta, consultem Exchange 2010 Mailbox Server Role Requirements Calculator.

    Para fazer download da ferramenta, cliquem aqui.

    25 de janeiro de 2010

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    12 de janeiro de 2010

    Actualização do filtro Junk Email do Outlook (Janeiro 2010)

    Está disponível uma nova actualização para o filtro Junk E-mail do Outlook 2003/2007.

    "This update provides the Junk E-mail Filter in Microsoft Office Outlook with a more current definition of which e-mail messages should be considered junk e-mail."

    O download está disponível para as versões Outlook 2003 e Outlook 2007, ou através do Microsoft Update. Como é habitual, está acompanhado pelo respectivo artigo da Knowledge Base:

    Apresentações do TechNet Roadshow Belga

    O conteúdo técnico (apresentações PowerPoint e gravação das sessões) do TechNet Roadshow Belga que ocorreu no passado mês de Dezembro está disponível para download (idiomas: EN, FR and NL).

    AGENDA:

    SPEAKER:

    Ilse Van Criekinge has recently joined Microsoft as a Technology Advisor - Microsoft Unified Communications. Before that she worked as an ICT Trainer and Consultant for Global Knowledge. Being an MCT, Ilse has offered several companies guidance in their Exchange and MOM deployments, as well as auditing the disaster recovery capabilities in their mail environment. During the last couple of years she has ignited many IT Professionals with the power of Exchange and OCS, by delivering training and by co-founding a new user group Pro-Exchange in Belgium, focused on Microsoft Unified Communications. Ilse has held the Exchange MVP award for three years since April 2007. Ilse has co-authored an Exchange Exam Prep Guide, written Sapien's Exchange Management Shell: TFM book.
    She blogs her experiences in the Unified Communications field on
    http://blogs.technet.com/ilvancri

    TechNet Magazine – Janeiro 2010

    A edição de Janeiro 2010 da TechNet Magazine já está disponível para ser lida online.

    Destaques:

    Colunas:

    9 de janeiro de 2010

    Próximos Webcasts de Exchange 2010

    • TechNet Webcast: Addressing E-Mail Archiving and Retention with Exchange Server 2010 (Level 300)
      Start Date: Thursday, January 28, 2010 11:00 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada)
      Presenter: Kamal Janardhan, Principal Program Manager, Exchange Mailbox, Microsoft Corporation
      Event Overview: As e-mail volume continues to grow, Microsoft recognizes users' desires for an infinite inbox and IT administrators' goals to preserve and discover these mailboxes in a cost-effective matter. Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 introduces integrated archiving along with message retention and multi-mailbox discovery capabilities to help address these needs. In this webcast, we take a technical deep dive into e-mail archiving and retention in Exchange Server 2010, we demonstrate the archiving experience in Microsoft Office Outlook and Outlook Web Access (OWA) from the user and IT professional perspectives, and we demonstrate Exchange Management Console and Windows PowerShell. We also highlight the message retention capabilities using Move and Delete policies in Outlook, OWA, and Windows PowerShell.
    • TechNet Webcast: Exchange Server 2010 Upgrade and Coexistence with Exchange Server 2007 and 2003 (Level 200)
      Start Date:Thursday, February 04, 2010 11:00 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada)
      Presenter: Harold Wong, Senior IT Pro Evangelist, Microsoft Corporation
      Event Overview: In this webcast, we walk you through the process for introducing Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 into an organization that already has Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 or Exchange Server 2003. Learn the prerequisites, steps required, and the impact to client access for MAPI, Outlook Anywhere, Microsoft Office Outlook Web Access (OWA), ActiveSync, and POP/IMAP clients after the upgrade to Exchange Server 2010 has occurred.
    • TechNet Webcast: Introducing Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 (Level 200)
      Start Date: Thursday, January 21, 2010 11:00 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada)
      Presenter: Rand Morimoto, President, Convergent Computing
      Event Overview: In a time when your organization requires its communication tools to be cost-effective and flexible, Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 enables you to achieve new levels of reliability and performance by delivering features that can simplify your administration, help protect your communications, and delight your users by meeting their demands for great business productivity. In this webcast, we introduce you to Exchange Server 2010 and we highlight and demonstrate key investments made in this latest release.

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    2 de janeiro de 2010

    26 de dezembro de 2009

    eBooks GRÁTIS

                                           

    Uma vez que estamos em época de Natal, achei que gostariam de saber que têm estes 2 presentes à vossa espera:

    • First Look: Microsoft Office 2010 - For a limited time you can download this free e-book without stepping through any registration. First Look: Microsoft Office 2010, by Katherine Murray, offers 14 chapters of early content.
    • Windows PowerShell v.1 TFM - With the recent release of Windows PowerShell v.2 and the immanent publication of our well regarded Windows PowerShell v.2 TFM book by Don Jones and Jeff Hicks, SAPIEN is releasing our Windows PowerShell v.1 TFM eBook as a FREE download to the public. Even though this eBook is for version 1 of PowerShell, the book still contains loads of valuable information about PowerShell’s core workings and cmdlets.

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    13 de dezembro de 2009

    Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Server Best Practices Analyzer

    O Microsoft Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Server Best Practices Analyzer foi recentemente disponibilizado!

    Brief Description
    The FPE 2010 Best Practices Analyzer examines a local server running FPE 2010 and presents a list of warnings and errors for configurations that do not conform to recommended best practices.

    Overview
    The FPE 2010 Best Practices Analyzer examines a server running FPE 2010 and checks the server’s system configuration as well as the FPE 2010 product configuration. Any settings or combination of settings that do not conform to FPE 2010 best practices are summarized and displayed in a consolidated report, so that administrators can easily identify and address these issues.
    The FPE 2010 Best Practices Analyzer also includes documentation that explains each best practice, as well as the reasons why a setting might violate that best practice, so that administrators can judge whether that best practice applies to their server.

    Actualização do filtro Junk Email do Outlook (Dezembro 2009)

    Está disponível uma nova actualização para o filtro Junk E-mail do Outlook 2003/2007.

    "This update provides the Junk E-mail Filter in Microsoft Office Outlook with a more current definition of which e-mail messages should be considered junk e-mail."

    O download está disponível para as versões Outlook 2003 e Outlook 2007, ou através do Microsoft Update. Como é habitual, está acompanhado pelo respectivo artigo da Knowledge Base:

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    5 de dezembro de 2009

    TechNet Magazine – Dezembro 2009

    TechNet-Magazine

     

     

     

     

    A edição de Dezembro da TechNet Magazine já está disponível para leitura online ou, se preferirem, podem fazer download em formato  HTML Help (ficheiro .chm) para consulta posterior.

    Apesar de existirem bastantes artigos sobre Windows 7 e Windows Server 2008 R2, o meu destaque vai todo para estas 2 colunas bastante interessantes sobre Exchange Server 2010:

    • Exchange 2010: A Closer Look - Microsoft’s latest Exchange features enable new levels of reliability, better performance, simplified administration, improved protection of communications, and greater business mobility for users. Read this article for the lowdown on what’s so great in Exchange 2010.
      by Henrik Walther
    • Exchange 2010: Ensuring High Availability In Microsoft Exchange 2010 - Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 incorporates a number of new high availability features that system administrators will find useful, including a new database availability groups (DAG) feature.
      by William R. Stanek

    eBook GRÁTIS: Exchange 2010 - A Practical Approach

    Para todos aqueles que se sentem entusiasmados pela nova versão de Exchange Server, está disponível para download um eBook grátis: "Exchange 2010 - A Practical Approach" da autoria do MVP de Exchange  Jaap Wesselius.

    The 180-page book from Red Gate Publishing provides practical information and pitfalls for system administrators who don’t have time to read a long textbook. Wesselius installs Exchange 2010 in various set ups and guides readers through the steps required for successful implementation.

    An area of special focus is coexistence with past Exchange versions, which Wesselius describes as “by far the most difficult part of transitioning to Exchange 2010.”

    Este eBook contém 5 capítulos:

    • Chapter 1 is an overall chapter – what’s new in Exchange Server 2010 and what has deprecated with respect to Exchange Server 2007. Also there’s some information regarding Active Directory, the three containers in Active Directory and some information regarding Active Directory sites.
    • Chapter 2 is an installation chapter dealing with a fresh installation of Exchange Server 2010 and the subsequent basic configuration to get it up and running.
    • Chapter 3 is the coexistence chapter and it probably deals with most scenarios; installing Exchange Server 2010 in an existing Exchange Server 2003 or Exchange
      Server 2007 environment.
    • Chapter 4 is about managing the Exchange environment using the Exchange Management Console, the Exchange Management Shell and the Exchange Control Panel. And, real cool in Exchange Server 2010, are the remote options in PowerShell version 2.
    • Chapter 5 is the high availability chapter. It deals with the new continuous replication when using Database Availability Groups, the best Exchange Server high availability solution ever made.

    26 de novembro de 2009

    Exchange 2010 Mailbox Server Role Requirements Calculator

    Há algumas semanas atrás, a equipa de Exchange Server da Microsoft anunciou a disponibilização pública da ferramenta Exchange 2010 Mailbox Server Role Requirements Calculator. Agora já podemos começar a planear e a desenhar servidores de mailboxes Exchange Server 2010.

    With Exchange 2010 you can deploy a solution that leverages mailbox resiliency and has multiple database copies deployed across datacenters, implements single item recovery for data recovery, and has the flexibility in storage design to allow you to deploy on storage area networks utilizing fibre-channel or SATA class disks or on direct attached storage utilizing SAS or SATA class disks with or without RAID protection. But, in order to design your solution, you need to understand the following criteria:

    • User profile - the message profile, the mailbox size, and the number of users
    • High availability architecture - the number of database copies you plant to deploy, whether the solution will be site resilient, the desired number of mailbox servers
    • Server's CPU platform
    • Storage architecture - the disk capacity / type and storage solution
    • Backup architecture - whether to use hardware or software VSS and the frequency of the backups, or leverage the Exchange native data protection features
    • Network architecture - the utilization, throughput, and latency aspects

    Previous versions of Exchange were somewhat rigid in terms of the choices you had in designing your mailbox server role. The flexibility in the architecture with Exchange 2010, allows you the freedom to design the solution to meet your needs.

    O post mencionado tem tudo o que é preciso saber sobre a utilização desta ferramenta. Para fazer o download da calculadora, basta seguirem este link.

    TechNet Magazine – Novembro 2009

    November2009

     

    A edição de Novembro da TechNet Magazine já está disponível para leitura online ou, se preferirem, podem fazer download em formato  HTML Help (ficheiro .chm) para consulta posterior.

    Se no número anterior o destaque foi todo para o Windows 7, nesta edição o seu irmão mais velho, Windows Server 2008 R2, é rei.

    Mas Novembro é também mês da nossa coluna favorita sobre Exchange Server Q&A: Exchange Queue & A -Transitions and Migrations.

    Boa leitura!