Here is the Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Cost Savings calculator designed explicitly for customers to know how much they can save if upgrading to Exchange Server 2010. Simply use your mouse to enter the required values and get the cost of upgrading to Exchange Server 2010.
Friday, 20 March 2015
Jetstress in Exchange Server 2010
As
we know, with Exchange Server 2010 disk input/output requirements has
been significantly dropped, but still the disk subsystem is very
critical for any organization.
Jetstress
verifies the performance and stability of a disk subsystem by
simulating Exchange disk input/output (I/O) load before you actually
deploy Exchange Server 2010 for production use. It simulates the
Exchange database and log files produced by a specific number of users.
It is always recommended to use System Monitor and Event viewer in conjunction with Jetstress reports to validate the expected and actual load.Jetstress testing should always be performed before you install
Exchange server in your organization. There are lots of well-known
risks associated with installing Jetstress on system having Exchange
installed.
Load Generator in Exchange Server 2010
As the name implies, it generates the load against a test Exchange server deployment
to evaluate how Exchange server performs in a given environment or
load. Also, we can analyze the impact of any change in Exchange
configuration on its behavior and performance. LoadGen can be used to
simulate Microsoft Outlook, POP3, IMAP, SMTP, Activesync and OWA connectivity.
One
important you should remember that LoadGen should always be run on test
environments, but not in production. LoadGen reports then can be used
to verify the Exchange deployment plan and validating Exchange Server settings and configurations.
Microsoft Outlook Configuration Analyzer Tool
OCAT provides a detailed report of your current Outlook profile; detects and highlights any known problem. It also provides the link to Microsoft Knowledge Base (KB) article for finding fix to that problem. This tool looks like Microsoft Exchange Best Practices Analyzer (ExBPA). OCAT supports MS Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2010 (32/64 bit). This tool is best suited for Help Desk to identify possible issues in Outlook proactively.
Visit this link to download Microsoft Outlook Configuration Analyzer Tool.
Database Availability Group In Exchange Server 2010
One
of the nice feature which I like most in Exchange Server 2010 is the
new Database Availability Group (DAG) high availability and site
resilience feature which has replaced LCR/SCR/CCR.
Cluster is no longer required before installing
the MBX server role in DAG. Cluster heartbeat and quorum are configured
by-default to the DAG when adding first Mailbox Server and hence more
or less visible to the administrator.
A
DAG is a group of 16 Mailbox servers that can each maintain up to 100
databases (up to 1600 databases in a DAG) and each database can have 16
copies of a Mailbox database with DAG using continuous replication. In
addition, we can also have other Exchange 2010 servers such as Hub
Transport and CAS which can be the member of a DAG. DAG members can be
on different subnets or on different Active Directory sites.
As
we know, Exchange Server 2007 introduced a number of new options for
availability, which includes Cluster Continuous Replication (CCR),
Single Copy Cluster (SCC), Standby Continuous Replication (SCR) and
Local Continuous Replication (LCR). You can read more about them from
this link.
How the DAG differs from Exchange Server 2007 SP1 availability options, let’s see:-
1. With
CCR, we can have only two highly available copies of the database
within the cluster, but DAG there can be up to 16 copies of each
database.
2. SCR required manual administrative intervention for activation, whereas DAG provides automatic database failover.
Therefore
we can conclude that Exchange Server 2010 provides database-level
failover within the DAG which means failure of single database no longer
affects all mailbox databases on a server. Also, DAG handles both
in-site and inter-site replication for implementing site failover.
A
DAG is initially empty, and a directory object is automatically created
in Active Directory that represents the DAG. This object is used to
store related information about the DAG, such as server membership. A
failover cluster is automatically created when an administrator adds the
first server to a DAG. The failover cluster heartbeat mechanism and
cluster database are then used to track and manage information about the
DAG that can change quickly, such as database mount status, replication
status, and last mounted location.
- No more Exchange Virtual Server/Cluster Mailbox Server
- Database is no longer associated to a Server but is an Org Level resource
- There is no longer a requirement to choose Cluster or Non Cluster at installation, an Exchange 2010 server can move in and out of a DAG as needed
- The limitation of only hosting the mailbox role on a clustered Exchange server
- Storage Groups have been removed from Exchange
Continuous
replication creates a passive database copy on another mailbox server
in the DAG and uses asynchronous log shipping to maintain the copies.
Unlike in Exchange Server 2007 which uses SMB (file share) protocol for
transactional log shipping, Exchange Server 2010 uses TCP sockets
default port 64327 for replication. Current used port can be checked by
running the Get-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup -Status | Format-List command.
Block
mode which was introduced in the Exchange Server 2010 SP1- which
reduces the exposure of data loss during failover by replicating all
logs to the passive database copies in parallel to writing them locally.
In other words, it reduces the possibility of any data loss during a
failover and the time it takes to perform a switchover.
Message Retention and Backup Strategy In Exchange Server 2010
Most of the customers have change their message retention and backup strategy. They have reduced the deleted items retention windows, yet they maintain long backup retention time periods which very from weeks to months and to years.
Let's
take an example where a customer that currently maintains backups for
90 days and retains deleted items for 5 days. Customer is taking backup
restores on a weekly basis to recover deleted items for end users. If
the customer moved to Exchange 2010 they could move that process into Exchange by simply increasing their mailboxes capacity for dumpster:
- Users send/receive 200 messages per work day and have an average message size of 60KB
- Single Item Recovery is enabled and the deleted retention window is configured to be 90 days
- 10% of items are edited
- Mailbox capacity calculations
- 5 work days * 200 emails = 1000 emails / week
- For Purges:
- 1000 emails / week * 13 weeks = 13000 emails / retention period
- 1300 emails * 50KB ? 636MB
- For Versions:
- 1000 emails / week * 13 weeks = 13000 emails / retention period
- 13000 emails * .1 = 1300 emails
- 1300 emails * 50KB ? 65MB
- Total Space Required per mailbox: 700MB
By increasing each mailbox's capacity by a minimum of 700MB, backups are no longer needed for single item recovery. Single item recovery can be maintained and performed within Exchange.
Shadow Redundancy in Exchange Server 2010
Exchange Server 2010 has introduced a new feature, Shadow Redundancy,
which provides redundancy for the entire message while it is in
transit. This feature delay the message deletion from the message queue
(mail.queue) on Hub Transport or Edge Transport
Server until Exchange server has verified that message has completed
all the hops and only then message will be deleted. Message will be
resubmitted if any of the count fails.
Let us try to understand how Shadow Redundancy actually works:-
1. Mike wants to send a message to John.
2. Mike messages is first delivered to its hub transport server, Server-A.
3. Server-A sends that message to the next hub transport server, which is Server-B and retains a shadow copy of that message.
4. Server-B sends that message to the next hub transport server, which is Server-C and queue a discard status for the Server-A.
5. Server-A queries the Server-B for discard status and upon receiving the discard notification from Server-B, it can remove the shadow copy of the message from its database.
High Availability Tips in Exchange Server 2010
Exchange Server 2010 offers lots of highly availability (HA) feature that ensures availability of messaging services. HA
can be achieved by deploying multiple Hub Transport, Edge Transport and
Client Access servers and placing the additional servers within the Active Directory sites, which in turns ensure availability if any of the Exchange Server 2010 roles fails.
· Deleted Item Retention allows users to recover their deleted items or an entire folder from the Microsoft Office Outlook.
· Deleted Mailbox Retention allows administrators to restore entire mailbox if accidently deleted without restoring it from the backup.
· Database Availability Group (DAG) creates one copy of a database that is hosted and active on another member server. Continuous replication maintains copies of databases on each Exchange Server.
· Archive Mailboxes are used to store users old messages to comply company policies or legal requirements.
· Message Retention Policy is applied when retention period is reached and messages are processed based on the actions defined in the Message Retention tags.
· Multiple Mailboxes databases,
configuring storage appropriately and distributing users across these
databases can significantly reduce the impact of failover.
How to Recover Deleted Mailboxes in Exchange Server 2010
Deleted mailboxes and user accounts are retained as disconnected mailboxes and we can recover them within the mailbox
retention intervals. We can use Exchange Management Shell to recover
deleted mailboxes. Deleted items are kept in dumpster till the retention
period. The default retention period is 30 days.
We can use Cmdlet or Exchange Management Console to reconnect the disconnected mailbox to an existing Active Directory user.
How to Connect a Disconnected mailbox from Exchange Management Console
1. Open the Exchange Management Console.
2. Expand Recipient Configuration and click on Disconnected Mailbox.
3. From the Action pane, select the Connect Mailbox wizard.
How to Connect a Disconnected mailbox from Cmdlet
Syntax:
Connect-Mailbox -Identity OrigMailboxIdentity  -Database DatabaseIdentity -User NewUserIdentity
[-ActiveSyncMailboxPolicy PolicyId] [-Alias Alias] [-DomainController DCName]
[-ManagedFolderMailboxPolicy PolicyId] [-ManagedFolderMailboxPolicyAllowed <$true | $false>]
[-Archive <$true | $false>] [-Equipment <$true | $false>] [-Room <$true | $false>] [-Shared <$true | $false>] [-ValidateOnly <$true | $false>]
[-LinkedCredential Credential] [-LinkedDomainController DCName]
[-LinkedMasterAccount UserId]
Usage:
Connect-Mailbox -Identity "Sachin Mehn"
-Database "Manager Mails" -User "TECHPEOPLES\sachm -Alias "sachm"
Connect-Mailbox -Identity "Sachin Mehn"
-Database "Manager Mails" -LinkedDomainController Exch001
-LinkedMasterAccount "TECHPEOPLES\sachm"
We can also delete the disconnected mailboxes from the mailbox database by using Remove-Mailbox cmdlet.
Legal Hold in Exchange Server 2010
Legal
Hold feature can be used to preserve mailbox items deleted be the users
(soft or hard deletion), and placing mailboxes on hold as well.
Unlike previous Exchange versions which use dumpster, Exchange Server 2010 uses a new feature called, Recoverable Items Folder for legal hold. The Recoverable Item Folder is hidden by default to the users when they try to view it from Microsoft Outlook, Outlook
Web App or any other e-mail clients. When a message is soft or hard
deleted by a user, that message is moved to the Recoverable Items
Folder, and from that it can be recovered within 14 days, by default.
User and Recoverable Items Folder have their own quota in Exchange Server 2010. An Application log event is generated on the Mailbox server when Recoverable Items Folders exceeds its warning level of quota. The default RecoverableItemsWarningQuota is 20GB whereas; default RecoverableItemsQuota value is set to 30GB. We can change these values by using Set-MailboxDatabase Cmdlet.
Failover Redundancy and Load Balancing Methods in Exchange Server 2010
Microsoft
Exchange Server 2010 provides us lots of tools for failover redundancy
(in case of server failure) and load balancing (distributes traffic
between servers). In this article, we will try to know a little bit
about on these methods to get an idea of them:-
1. High Availability and Site Resilience
Exchange
Server 2010 offers us Database Availability Groups (DAGs) where we can
deploy two Active Directory sites in two different locations,
and keeping their mailbox data synchronized. In case one site fails,
other site will take over its role. We can achieve high availability by
configuring up to 16 mailbox servers for automatic recovery without installing any new servers. DAGs provides us local and site-level high availability.
2. Online Mailbox Move
We
can now move the mailboxes whilst the users are logged in. This is only
possible if source mailboxes are residing on Exchange Server 2007 SP2
or later, or Exchange Server 2010. It will give users the continuous
access to their mailboxes while their mailbox is in the moving process.
3. Shadow Redundancy
It
protects the messages when they are in the deletion process. Before
they are actually deleted from the transport database, the transport
server first verifies that all the next hops for the message have been
completed. If next hop is not completed, the message is resubmitted for
delivery to the next pending hop. This is very similar to Transport Dumpster. In shadow redundancy, the source server will delete the shadow copy of the message after it receives the discard status notification from the next hop.
4. Load Balancing
As
the name suggests, it provides balancing of network load or traffic
across different servers. Unlike previous Exchange versions, where
Mailbox servers were directly connected with the Outlook, Exchange
Server 2010 Client Access Server is now used for connecting internal or
external Outlook connections.
5. Block mode
It
was introduced in the Exchange Server 2010 SP1- which reduces the
exposure of data loss during failover by replicating all logs to the
passive database copies in parallel to writing them locally. In other
words, it reduces the possibility of any data loss during a failover and
the time it takes to perform a switchover.
6. Multiple Exchange Server roles can now reside on servers providing high availability, thereby reducing servers cost.
7. High
availability can be achieved with only 2 servers in Exchange Server
2010, unlike in Exchange Server 2007, where 4 servers are required.
8. Exchange Server 2010 added more new options in the Exchange storage menu, like SATA hard disk drive and raid-less- JBOD. Application-level
redundancy allows RAID-less (JBOD) storage configuration by replicating
16 copies of each mailbox database resulting in cost savings.
9. Exchange Server 2010 reduced administrative overhead
cost by eliminating the need for creating failover cluster to achieve
high availability when Exchange 2010 High availability feature is
enabled.
10. Database Availability Groups (DAGs) provides failover on individual mailbox
database level, but not on storage group level which takes time to move
the failed mailbox server to the other clustered node or other option
was to restore from the backup leaving users offline for few minutes.
Messaging Records Management (MRM) in Exchange Server 2010
In
this exercise, we will perform below steps so that items in Deleted
Items folder are permanently deleted in 30 days and applying new
retention policy with the mailbox.
· Create a Retention Tag
· Create a Retention Policy
· Apply a Retention Policy to Mailboxes
· Schedule the Managed Folder Assistant
· Start the Managed Folder Assistant
Create a Retention Tag
Retention policy tags are created for default folders like, Inbox, Deleted Items, Sent Items etc, but no support for the Calendar and Tasks folders.
Default policy tags are applied to all items having no retention tag applied.
Personal tags are created for applying retention settings on custom folders.
You can't use the EMC to create a retention policy tag, default policy tags and personal tags.
In this example, we will create a new Retention policy tag, RETAG-DeletedItems for the default Deleted Items folder to permanent delete items in 30 days.
New-RetentionPolicyTag " RETAG-DeletedItems "
-Type "DeletedItems" -Comment "Permanent delete items in 30 days"
-RetentionEnabled $true -AgeLimitForRetention 30 -RetentionAction
PermanentlyDelete
Create a Retention Policy
This example will create a new retention policy RP-FIN and links the tag RETAG-DeletedItems
This
example creates the retention policy RP-VPs and links the tags
RPT-VPs-Default, RPT-VPs-Inbox, and RPT-VPs-DeletedItems to the policy.
New-RetentionPolicy "RP-Tech" -RetentionPolicyTagLinks " RETAG-DeletedItems "
You can't use the EMC to create a retention policy.
Apply a Retention Policy to Mailboxes
This example applies the retention policy RP-Tech to Sachin's mailbox:
Copy Code Set-Mailbox "Sachin" -RetentionPolicy "RP-Tech"
You can't use the EMC to apply a retention policy to a mailbox.
Schedule the Managed Folder Assistant
In
Microsoft Exchange Server 2010, the Managed Folder Assistant is
scheduled to run from 01:00 (1:00 A.M.) to 09:00 (9:00 A.M.) daily. You
can modify the schedule to suit your requirements.
Use the EMC to schedule the Managed Folder Assistant
You
need to be assigned permissions before you can perform this procedure.
To see what permissions you need, see the "Messaging records management"
entry in the Messaging Policy and Compliance Permissions topic.
1. Open the Exchange Management Console.
2. Click Server Configuration and then Mailbox.
3. Right-click on the Mailbox server where you want to schedule the Managed Folder Assistant, and then click on Properties.
4. Click on the Messaging Records Management tab.
5. Click Custom Schedule in the Schedule the Managed Folder Assistance box.
6. Select the times and days for Managed Folder Assistant to run.
7. Click Ok.
How to Schedule the Managed Folder Assistant from the Shell
You can use the Set-MailboxServer Cmdlet to schedule the Managed Folder Assistant. Below command will schedule the Managed Folder Assistant to start running at 15:00 (Sunday) until all mailboxes are processed or 16:00 (the following Sunday), whichever is first.
Set-MailboxServer -Identity EX01 -ManagedFolderAssistantSchedule "Sun.15:00-Sun.16:00"
Start the Managed Folder Assistant
Run the below command to start the Managed Folder Assistant
Start-ManagedFolderAssistant
You can't use the EMC to manually start the Managed Folder Assistant.
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