June 2009 - Posts
Always nice for a good discussion : should you virtualize Exchange or not? We had the discussion many times before with some Communified.net writers. Last week a whitepaper was released and featured on You had me at EHLO:
Is reducing or controlling the high cost of the power to run and cool computer hardware is a top priority for your organization? Are you considering server virtualization solutions to reduce your server footprint and the associated power and cooling costs?
Because the virtualization of Microsoft Exchange servers rarely results in a reduction of physical processors, there is some question as to whether there is significant hardware, power, cooling, or space savings from virtualizing correctly-sized Exchange Server 2007 server roles. The answer to this question can be found in a new White Paper MSFT just released about a study that was done internally, entitled "Comparing the Power Utilization of Native and Virtual Exchange Environments." This study compared the power utilization of native and virtual Exchange server environments in a scenario in which the number of physical servers was reduced from eight to two, but the total number of logical processors and the amount of memory remained the same. It examined power utilization of native and virtual Exchange 2007 environments in a scenario where physical servers were reduced from 8 to 2 but the total number of logical processors remained constant at 32. There was no processor core consolidation, and storage power utilization was not included. In this scenario, there was a 50 percent reduction in server power utilization and a projected savings of 8,582 kWh/year.
For more details about the study and its conclusions, check out the White Paper, "Comparing the Power Utilization of Native and Virtual Exchange Environments."
Related article: Should You Virtualize Your Exchange 2007 SP1 Environment?
Astrid McClean, Senior Exchange Technical Product Manager did some nice Exchange 2010 demo vid's over at Technet Edge. Be sure to check them out!
Exchange 2010 Management Console Demo
Exchange 2010 Management Remote PowerShell Demo
Exchange 2010 Control Panel Demo
Update: links working now :)
Microsoft Learning has just launched their Exchange Server training portal, which includes training for both Exchange Server 2007 and Exchange Server 2010. Visit the portal, take advantage of new Exchange 2010 training resources, and become an expert on Exchange 2010!.
While you're there, be sure to check out the Special Offers, such as the free online clinic for Exchange 2010.
Microsoft Press 25th Anniversary "Free E-Book of the Month" Offers
This will be our last month to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Microsoft Press with a free e-book offer. This monthly offer can be found in the top right corner of this monthly newsletter. It expires on June 24, 2009, so download the e-books today:
Programming for Unified Communications with Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2
By Rui Maximo, Kurt De Ding, Vishwa Ranjan, Chris Mayo, Oscar Newkerk, and the Microsoft Office Communications Server team
Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Resource Kit
By Rui Maximo, Rick Kingslan, Rajesh Ramanathan, and Nirav Kamdar with the Microsoft Office Communications Server Team
Note: You will need to temporarily allow pop-ups in order to download the free e-book offer.
Apple made news on on lots of fronts at its Worldwide Developers' Conference Monday, with the new iPhone 3GS, a $100 iPhone 3G, and major notebook announcements. Almost lost in the iPhone and Mac Book announcements were several moves that add up to an assault on the enterprise, long Apple's weakest market.
The most intriguing announcement, partly because it was completely unexpected, is that Snow Leopard, the next version of the OS X operating system for Macs, will include built in support for Exchange, Microsoft's enterprise mail and collaboration system. Snow Leopard is scheduled to ship in September and will cost $29 for a single copy or $49 for a family pack for up to five machines. And new iPhone features seem to take aim at both Microsoft and Research In Motion, maker of the enterprise-oriented BlackBerry.
If the Exchange support works as promised, it will be a very big deal. The difficulty of using Exchange, which is the dominant mail system in corporations and many other large organizations, has been a serious barrier to the adoption of Macs. You can use either the built-in OS X Mail program or Entourage, the mail component of Microsoft's Office suite for Macs, to handle Exchange mail, but neither does it very well. The best solution has been to run a Windows virtual machine on your Mac, using Parallels or VMware software, and then use Microsoft Outlook. It works fine, but it's a bit of a pain.
By building support for the Exchange infrastructure directly into the operating system, Apple has done something that Microsoft itself has never attempted. Apple says that in addition to reading mail, Mac users will see Exchange contacts in the Mac Address Book and Exchange calendar items in iCal. Integration extends to the ability to create meeting invitations simply by dragging contacts into an iCal appointment. You sure can't do that in Outlook.
The big question, of course, is how well this will really work. Exchange and it's Mail Application Program Interface a notoriously complicated beast and developers have long complained that MAPI's technical documentation is incomplete. Even developers within Microsoft grumble about the difficulty of working with it.
Apple Senior Vice-President Phil Schiller did confirm that the Exchange integration in Snow Leopard will only work with the latest Exchange software, Exchange 2007 which will be mostly likely due to the depedency on Exchange Web Services
The technical documentation to help you understand, plan, deploy, and operate Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 servers was updated 2 days ago.
The download includes the following:
- Communications_Server_2007_R2_Documentation.chm
- OCS 2007 R2 Administering CWA.doc
- OCS 2007 R2 Administering Group Chat.doc
- OCS 2007 R2 Administering OCS.doc
- OCS 2007 R2 Backup and Restoration.doc
- OCS 2007 R2 Command Line Reference.doc
- OCS 2007 R2 Deploying Archiving Server.doc
- OCS 2007 R2 Deploying CWA.doc
- OCS 2007 R2 Deploying Dial-In Conferencing.doc
- OCS 2007 R2 Deploying Edge Servers.doc
- OCS 2007 R2 Deploying Enterprise Edition.doc
- OCS 2007 R2 Deploying Enterprise Voice.doc
- OCS 2007 R2 Deploying Group Chat Server.doc
- OCS 2007 R2 Deploying Monitoring Server.doc
- OCS 2007 R2 Deploying Response Group Service.doc
- OCS 2007 R2 Deploying Standard Edition.doc
- OCS 2007 R2 Getting Started - Documentation Roadmap.doc
- OCS 2007 R2 Getting Started - New Client Features.doc
- OCS 2007 R2 Getting Started - New Server Features.doc
- OCS 2007 R2 Getting Started - Technical Overview.doc
- OCS 2007 R2 Getting Started - Uniified Communications Glossary.doc
- OCS 2007 R2 Migration from 2005.doc
- OCS 2007 R2 Migration from 2007.doc
- OCS 2007 R2 Planning.doc
- OCS 2007 R2 Preparing Active Directory Domain Services.doc
- OCS 2007 R2 Security.doc
- OCS 2007 R2 Supportability.doc
- OCS 2007 R2 Troubleshooting.doc
- OCS 2007 R2 Upgrading the Evaluation to Full Released Version.doc
Download here
Heads up everybody, it seems that I finally managed to kill the "Resource not found" error that was buggin us from the beginning! After searching, mailing, chatting en googling on what might cause the problem I decided to go over the redirection config once more and found a lousy /Main instead of /main pointer in the code. Seems like that little capital caused a LOT of trouble.
If you encounter other problems on the site, feel free to drop me a line!
A new webcast series on Exchange 2010 is starting at the beginning of June and we wanted to make sure you do not miss it. Here are the dates, titles, abstracts and registration links for the entire series:
6/3/09 - 9:00am PT: TechNet Webcast: Exchange 2010 Overview
This webcast will introduce you to Exchange Server 2010, reviewing the major areas of investment for this release and highlighting marquee features.
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032416679&Culture=en-US
6/8/09 - 1:00pm PT: TechNet Webcast: Exchange 2010 Management Tools
Exchange 2010 includes new capabilities that make the operation of your Exchange environment more efficient. Learn how we've made the Exchange Management Console more powerful, extended the reach of PowerShell, and made it easier to delegate management tasks.
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032416687&Culture=en-US
6/10/09 - 9:00am PT: TechNet Webcast: Exchange 2010 Archiving and Retention
This webcast will introduce new ways to address archiving and retention with Exchange Server 2010.
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032416694&Culture=en-US
6/15/09 - 9:00am PT: TechNet Webcast: Exchange 2010 Outlook Web Access
Exchange 2010 brings new features and functionality to Outlook Web Access. See product demonstrations of the latest capabilities and understand how browser-based communication and collaboration gets better than ever in Exchange 2010.
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032416702&Culture=en-US
6/17/09 - 9:00am PT: TechNet Webcast: Exchange 2010 Architecture
This webcast describes the overall architecture of Exchange 2010 and key considerations for the scalability and performance of each server role. This webcast will provide the background and framework for the other Exchange 2010 webcasts, serving as a bridge between the overview session and drill-downs in each product area. This webcast is a recommended pre-requisite for the Exchange 2010 transition and deployment webcast.
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032416706&Culture=en-US
6/22/09 - 9:00am PT: TechNet Webcast: Federation in Exchange 2010
Federation is a key part of the architecture of Exchange 2010, powering new organization-to-organization sharing scenarios. Learn how federation enhances the capabilities of Exchange 2010 and enables advanced coexistence between Exchange Server and Exchange Online.
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032416724&Culture=en-US
6/24/09 - 9:00am PT: TechNet Webcast: Exchange 2010 Voice Mail enabled by Unified Messaging
Exchange 2010 Unified Messaging is Microsoft's second generation unified messaging and voice mail solution. In this webcast, learn about the features, benefits, and architecture of Unified Messaging in Exchange 2010.
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032416726&Culture=en-US
6/24/09 - 9:00am PT: TechNet Webcast: Exchange 2010 Information Protection and Control
This webcast will introduce you to new ways to address information protection and control with Exchange Server 2010. A discussion of the use of encryption and rights management in parallel with Exchange will be included as well as an introduction to new functionality in Exchange that supports information protection scenarios.
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032416728&Culture=en-US
7/1/09 - 9:00am PT: TechNet Webcast: Exchange 2010 Transition and Deployment
In this session we will cover the migration planning and deployment path to move an organization from Exchange 2003 or Exchange 2007 to Exchange 2010.
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032416708&Culture=en-US