Welcome to Neil Hobson's Section

Neil is a Principal Consultant with Silversands, a UK-based Microsoft Gold Partner and is responsible for the design, implementation and support of Microsoft infrastructure systems, most notably Microsoft Exchange systems. He has been in the IT industry since 1987 and has worked with Exchange since v4.0 days. He has been an Exchange MVP since 2003 and spends some of his spare time helping others in various Exchange mailing lists, the public Exchange newsgroups and also contributes to the MSExchange Blog.

In April 2005, Neil gave a talk on “Managing Exchange 2003 with MOM 2005” at Exchange Forum 2005, a two-day Exchange and Sharepoint conference in Stockholm, Sweden. In addition, he regularly works on the Ask The Experts booth at TechEd Europe, so do come and say hello if you attend this event.

He has also been a technical reviewer for the following Exchange books:

Exchange 2003 Server Distilled, by Scott Schnoll (Addison-Wesley Professional, March 2004)
Learning Exchange Server 2003, by William Boswell (Addison-Wesley Professional, September 2004)
Configuring Exchange 2000 Server, by Liz Mason (Syngress, January 2001)

Neil welcomes comments on his articles below. You can contact Neil at neil.hobson @ silversands.co.uk. However, please direct all general support questions to the MSExchange.org forums.

Neil Hobson's Latest Contributions

Clustered Continuous Replication Failover with Standby Continuous Replication (Part 2): Date - May 06, 2008; Section - Exchange 2007 Articles / High Availability & Recovery; The processes required to seed the SCR target and then recover the CMS onto the standby cluster.
Clustered Continuous Replication Failover with Standby Continuous Replication (Part 1): Date - Apr 22, 2008; Section - Exchange 2007 Articles / High Availability & Recovery; A look at how site failover can be achieved by using Standby Continuous Replication from a Clustered Continuous Replication source.
The Exchange Pickup Folder: Date - Apr 08, 2008; Section - Exchange 2007 Articles / Management & Administration; A look at the purpose of the SMTP pickup folder in Exchange 2007, how you can configure it and how you can use it to test mail flow.
Troubleshooting Out of Office: Date - Mar 25, 2008; Section - Exchange 2007 Articles / Tools; How to troubleshoot a non-functioning Out of Office message using various tools and techniques including MFCMAPI and MDBVUE32.
Storage Group Copy Checksums in Exchange 2007: Date - Mar 04, 2008; Section - Exchange 2007 Articles / Management & Administration; A look at a method to manually perform a consistency check against a database that has been enabled for continuous replication.
Getting Mailbox Statistics in Exchange 2007: Date - Feb 19, 2008; Section - Exchange 2007 Articles / Management & Administration; A look at the Get-MailboxStatistics Exchange Management Shell cmdlet and how to manipulate its output in various ways.
Exchange 2007 Availability Services: Date - Jan 31, 2008; Section - Exchange 2007 Articles / Mobility & Client Access; A look at the new availability service within Exchange 2007.
Moving Mailboxes in Exchange 2007, Part 2: Date - Jan 15, 2008; Section - Exchange 2007 Articles / Management & Administration; Looking at the log files generated by the move mailbox process as well as moving mailboxes via the Exchange Management Shell.
Moving Mailboxes in Exchange 2007, Part 1: Date - Dec 20, 2007; Section - Exchange 2007 Articles / Management & Administration; A look at using the Exchange Management Console to move mailboxes in Exchange 2007.
Exchange 2007 Issues: Mailbox Management: Date - Dec 06, 2007; Section - Exchange 2007 Articles / Management & Administration; Two common issues related to mailbox management, together with their resolutions, that are seen in Exchange 2007.
Migrating from Domino to Exchange 2007 (Part 6): Date - Nov 22, 2007; Section - Exchange 2007 Articles / Migration & Deployment; The conclusion of this article with the migration of Domino mailbox contents into Exchange 2007 mailboxes.
Migrating from Domino to Exchange 2007 (Part 5): Date - Nov 06, 2007; Section - Exchange 2007 Articles / Migration & Deployment; Migration of the Domino users to Active Directory.
Migrating from Domino to Exchange 2007 (Part 4): Date - Oct 09, 2007; Section - Exchange 2007 Articles / Migration & Deployment; Preparing the Exchange 2007 environment, then the creation and configuration of the free/busy connector.
Migrating from Domino to Exchange 2007 (Part 3): Date - Sep 20, 2007; Section - Exchange 2007 Articles / Migration & Deployment; Configuring the Domino environment to prepare it for the installation of the Free/Busy Connector.
Migrating from Domino to Exchange 2007 (Part 2): Date - Sep 04, 2007; Section - Exchange 2007 Articles / Migration & Deployment; The completion of the directory synchronization process between Exchange 2007 and Lotus Domino.
Migrating from Domino to Exchange 2007 (Part 1): Date - Aug 14, 2007; Section - Exchange 2007 Articles / Migration & Deployment; A look at the new Microsoft Transporter Suite for Lotus Domino and how to use it to migrate to Exchange 2007.
Exchange 2007 Permissions and Roles (Part 2): Date - Jul 31, 2007; Section - Exchange 2007 Articles / Management & Administration; The new Exchange 2007 administrator roles and a few common permissions scenarios.
Exchange 2007 Permissions and Roles (Part 1): Date - Jul 12, 2007; Section - Exchange 2007 Articles / Management & Administration; The new Exchange 2007 administrator roles and a few common permissions scenarios.
Exchange Cluster Checks With ClusPrep and ClusDiag (Part 2): Date - Jun 26, 2007; Section - Exchange 2007 Articles / High Availability & Recovery; Using ClusPrep and ClusDiag to check an Exchange cluster configuration.
Exchange Cluster Checks With ClusPrep and ClusDiag (Part 1): Date - Jun 12, 2007; Section - Exchange 2007 Articles / High Availability & Recovery; Using ClusPrep and ClusDiag to check an Exchange cluster configuration.
Exchange 2007 Messaging Records Management (Part 2): Date - May 22, 2007; Section - Exchange 2007 Articles / Compliance, Policies & Archiving; A final look at the new Messaging Records Management feature of Exchange 2007.
Exchange 2007 Messaging Records Management (Part 1): Date - May 03, 2007; Section - Exchange 2007 Articles / Compliance, Policies & Archiving; The new Messaging Records Management feature of Exchange 2007.
Troubleshooting Mailbox Manager Policy Application: Date - Apr 12, 2007; Section - Exchange 2003 Articles / Management & Administration; Troubleshooting which Mailbox Manager policies are being applied.
Auditing Mailbox Access Using Exchange System Manager and Event Viewer: Date - Mar 27, 2007; Section - Exchange 2003 Articles / Monitoring & Operations; A look at how to audit mailbox access using Exchange System Manager and Event Viewer.
Exchange 2007 Message Tracking (Part 2): Date - Mar 01, 2007; Section - Exchange 2007 Articles / Management & Administration; The contents of a message tracking log file and how to actually search them.
Exchange 2007 Message Tracking (Part 1): Date - Feb 15, 2007; Section - Exchange 2007 Articles / Management & Administration; How to configure and use message tracking in Exchange 2007.
PFDavAdmin tool (Part 2): Date - Feb 01, 2007; Section - Exchange 2003 Articles / Tools; What the PFDavAdmin tool is and what it can do for you.
PFDavAdmin tool (Part 1): Date - Jan 18, 2007; Section - Exchange 2003 Articles / Tools; What the PFDAVAdmin tool is and what it can do for you.
Removing The First Exchange 2003 Server (Part 2): Date - Dec 05, 2006; Section - Exchange 2003 Articles / Migration & Deployment; The remainder of the tasks you need to perform to ensure the first Exchange server can be decommissioned cleanly and successfully.
Removing the First Exchange 2003 Server (Part 1): Date - Nov 16, 2006; Section - Exchange 2003 Articles / Migration & Deployment; What you need to watch out for when decommissioning the first Exchange 2003 server installed into an administrative group.
Sending 'As': Date - Nov 02, 2006; Section - Exchange 2003 Articles / Management & Administration; This article takes a look at methods for sending messages as another user, as well as distribution groups or public folders.
A Closer Look At Directory Service Access (DSAccess) - Part 2: Date - Aug 15, 2006; Section - Exchange 2003 Articles / Management & Administration; Here in part 2 of this article series we’ll take a look at how you can see the results of the tests that DSAccess performs, hard coding servers, cache information and a brief look at some performance counter information.
A Closer Look At Directory Service Access (DSAccess) - Part 1: Date - Jul 20, 2006; Section - Exchange 2003 Articles / Management & Administration; In this two-part article I will take a closer look at what DSAccess is and what it does.
Finding Duplicate SMTP Addresses: Date - Jun 23, 2006; Section - Exchange 2003 Articles / Management & Administration; In this article, we’ll take a look at some of the methods available for finding which object within Active Directory currently owns a duplicate SMTP address.
MOM 2005 SLA Scorecard for Exchange: Date - Jun 01, 2006; Section - Exchange 2003 Articles / Monitoring & Operations; In this article, I will look at what this scorecard is and what it offers you.
System Center Capacity Planner 2006 Overview (Part 2): Date - Apr 04, 2006; Section - Exchange 2003 Articles / Planning & Architecture; In part 1 of this 2 part article, we looked at what System Center Capacity Planner (SCCP) 2006 is, its installation requirements and how to start a new design using the Model Wizard. We’ll conclude our look at SCCP here in part 2, where we’ll cover the Model Editor, the Hardware Editor and the running of a simulation.
System Center Capacity Planner 2006 Overview (Part 1): Date - Mar 28, 2006; Section - Exchange 2003 Articles / Planning & Architecture; In December 2005, Microsoft shipped System Center Capacity Planner (SCCP) 2006. In this two-part article, I want to give you an introduction to what SCCP 2006 is and how it can help the Exchange professional. Here in part 1, I’ll cover an overview of SCCP, its installation requirements and how to start a new design using the Model Wizard.
Exchange System Manager and Domain Controller Selection: Date - Feb 21, 2006; Section - Exchange 2003 Articles / Management & Administration; Exchange System Manager itself can be considered a client of many other different services, for it has to obtain different types of information from different sources. For example, Exchange System Manager uses the Messaging Application Programming Interface (MAPI) to display information about mailbox resources as well as Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) to display information about the queues within the Queue Viewer. As you might expect, it also has to contact Active Directory to retrieve information about the configuration of Exchange. In this article, I want to cover how you can determine which domain controller Exchange System Manager is communicating with to retrieve this information.
Public Folder Replication – Troubleshooting Basics: Date - Sep 06, 2005; Section - Exchange 2003 Articles / Management & Administration; Public folders are important to Exchange because not only do they contain user data, they also contain important system information required for the smooth operation of your Exchange environment. Replicating these folders between Exchange servers can sometimes be troublesome and so in this article I want to look at the initial steps you can take to troubleshoot your public folder replication issues.
The NoMAS Tool: Date - Jul 14, 2005; Section - Exchange 2003 Articles / Tools; Microsoft Product Support Services (PSS) can provide you with a useful tool called NoMAS. In this article I want to cover what the NoMAS tool is and under what circumstances you might want to use it.
Managing Exchange 2003 With MOM 2005 (Part 3): Date - Jun 09, 2005; Section - Exchange 2003 Articles / Monitoring & Operations; The Exchange Management Pack Configuration Wizard can make configuring the Exchange management pack really easy and here I show you how. When you’ve done that, you should also check out the Exchange Best Practices Analyzer (ExBPA) management pack.
Managing Exchange 2003 With MOM 2005 (Part 2): Date - May 31, 2005; Section - Exchange 2003 Articles / Monitoring & Operations; In the second part of this three part article, I will take a look at what drives MOM 2005 as far as Exchange management is concerned: the Exchange management pack. Understanding what’s contained within the management pack is key to obtaining a firm grasp of what MOM 2005 can offer the Exchange professional.
Managing Exchange 2003 With MOM 2005 (Part 1): Date - May 19, 2005; Section - Exchange 2003 Articles / Monitoring & Operations; We would like to welcome Microsoft MVP Neil Hobson to our team of authors as he presents his first article to MSExchange.org readers: In this three part article I will take a look at the highlights of what MOM 2005 can do for you, the Exchange professional. If you’re responsible for one or more Exchange servers and haven’t investigated MOM 2005 yet, then hopefully this series of articles will make you want to check out the product further.