• Database Portability in Exchange Server 2007
• Pre-Order Henrik Walther's Exchange Server 2007 book
• MSExchange.org Learning Zone Articles of Interest
• KB Articles of the Month
• Tip of the Month
• MSExchange Links of the Month
• Ask Henrik Walther a question

1. Database Portability in Exchange Server 2007

Welcome to the first 2007 edition of the MSExchange.org newsletter! I hope all of you had a nice holiday.

In this edition I want to talk about the improvements made in Exchange Server 2007, when it comes to database portability.

As those of you with plenty of disaster recovery experience from Exchange 2003 might be aware, Mailbox Database portability (that is mounting a Mailbox Database to an alternative Exchange Server) was rather limited in this version of Exchange, actually the only options available were to mount the respective Mailbox Database into a Recover Storage Group (RSG), into a Storage Group on a server with the same name as the server failed server, or into the Storage Group on an Exchange Server in the same administrative group. Although mailbox databases were portable between Exchange 2003 servers (on the same Service Pack level) in the same administrative group, there were tasks involved with this procedure. You had to rename the Mailbox Databases appropriately as well as re-link each mailbox in the database to an Active Directory user account before the mailbox was accessible to an end user. In addition there could be several issues if the Mailbox Database contained a System Attendant mailbox. Finally depending on what type of 3rd party applications that were running on the particular Exchange server, it was also best practice to reboot the server, once the Mailbox Database move was completed.

With Exchange 2007 the Mailbox Database portability feature has been improved drastically. Now you can port and recover a Mailbox Database to any server in the Exchange 2007 organization, and because of the new Autodiscover service all Outlook 2007 clients will be redirected to the new server automatically the first time they try to connect after the Mailbox Database has been mounted on another Exchange 2007 server.

Note:
Some of you might wonder if Exchange 2007, unlike Exchange 2003, allows one to port or recover a Public Folder database to another server, and the answer is no, doing so is still not supported, as it will break Public Folder replication. The proper method used for moving a Public folder database to another server is to add the respective server to the Public Folder replica list.

To see the steps required in order to restore a Mailbox database to another server using database portability, see this section in the Exchange Server 2007 Online Documentation.

Should you have any ideas for content in future editions of the MSExchange.org newsletter, you're more than welcome to shoot me at email at Henrik@msexchange.org.

2. Pre-Order Henrik Walther's Exchange Server 2007 book

By Henrik Walther Are you among the persons who like the articles I write for MSExchange.org? Then this book is definitely for you. It provides you with step by step instructions on how you get going with Exchange Server 2007, and importantly, how you properly manage it after deployment. The TOC for the book: Table of Contents 1. Introducing Exchange Server 2007 2. Installing Exchange Server 2007 3. Managing Recipients in Exchange Server 2007 4. Managing the Mailbox Server 5. Managing the Client Access Server 6. Managing the Hub Transport Server 7. Managing the Edge Transport Server 8. High Availability for Exchange 2007 Mailbox Servers 9. Disaster Recovery with Exchange Server 2007 10. Transitioning from Exchange 2000 or 2003 to Exchange 2007 11. Introduction to Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging 12. Publishing Exchange Server 2007 Using ISA Server 2006

To pre-order the book today click here

3. MSExchange.org Learning Zone Articles of Interest

We have a great group of articles in the Learning Zone that will help you get a handle on your most difficult configuration issues. Here are just a few of the newer and more interesting articles:

• PFDavAdmin tool (Part 1)
• Transitioning from Exchange 2000/2003 to Exchange Server 2007 (Part 1)
• Explaining Exchange Message formats
• Exchange 2007 Message Classifications (Part 2)
• Implementing Custom Recipient Policies
• Exchange 2007 Store Related Changes and Improvements
• Exchange 2007 Message Classifications (Part 1)
• Dealing with NDRs on Microsoft Small Business Server 2003
• Exchange 2007 Transport Rules

4. KB Articles of the Month

Here are some interesting and useful MSExchange related articles posted by Microsoft in the last month:

• How to configure mail forwarding in Exchange Server 2007
• How to determine whether an Exchange Server 2007 cluster is a "cluster continuous replication" cluster or a "single copy clusters" cluster
• How to remove Exchange 2007 from a computer
• Moving an Exchange 2007 server to another domain is not supported
• You may receive an error message when you try to attach a large file to an e-mail message in Outlook Web Access in Exchange Server 2007
• Guidelines about how to install and to uninstall Forefront Security for Exchange Server on an Exchange 2007 cluster continuous replication (CCR) cluster
• The Exchange store is dismounted, and event ID 1159 is logged in Exchange Server 2007
• The Exchange 2007 Setup program unexpectedly exits when you run commands to prepare Active Directory for the installation of Exchange 2007
• Installing Exchange 2007 Management Tools On a 32 Bit Operating System
• When you use Outlook with an Exchange 2007 mailbox, you cannot connect to Exchange 2007, and you receive an error message
• Outlook 2007 and Exchange 2007 Certificate issue

5. Tip of the Month

Did you know that with Exchange Server 2007, the message queue is now stored in an ESE database (formerly known as JET)? Most of you probably remember that the messages (.EML files) were stored in NTFS format in previous versions of Exchange.

The ESE database file name for the queue is called mail.que, and can be found in C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\TransportRoles\data\Queue on an Exchange 2007 Server with either the Edge Transport or Edge Transport server role installed.

Figure 1: ESE Database for Message Queue

The rest of the files in this folder are described below:

Trn.chk - The checkpoint file.
Trn.log - The current transaction log file.
Trntmp.log - The next provisioned transaction log file that is created in advance.
Trnnnn.log - Other transaction log files that are created when Trn.log reaches its maximum size.
Trnres00001.jrs - The placeholder log file.
Trnres00002.jrs - The placeholder log file.
Temp.edb - This queue database schema verifier file is located with the transaction log files.

Note that in order to save valuable disk space, circular logging is enabled for the queue database.

You use the Queue Viewer or Exchange Management Shell (EMS) to view information about queues and messages. The Queue Viewer can be found in the Toolbox work center in the Exchange Management Console. To manipulate message queues using the EM, use the Get-Queue, Resume-Queue, Retry-Queue and Suspend-Queue cmdlets.

6. MSExchange Links of the Month

Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging Video

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=1cfb4779-b760-4884-8146-53997c802b65&displaylang=en&tm

Exchange 2007: Platforms, Editions, Product Keys and Versions

http://blogs.technet.com/scottschnoll/archive/2006/12/31/exchange-2007-platforms-and-product-keys.aspx

A primer on the Exchange Management Shell

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/exchange/articles/exmgmtshell.mspx

New owner's guide to the Exchange Management Console

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/exchange/articles/exmgmtconsole.mspx

Exchange 2007 Mailbox Server Role Storage Requirements Calculator

http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2007/01/15/432207.aspx

Configuring, validating and monitoring your Exchange 2007 storage

http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2007/01/15/432199.aspx

OPATH recipient filtering for Exchange Server 2007

http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2007/01/10/432143.aspx

A quick tour of Queue Viewer in Exchange Server 2007

http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2007/01/09/432124.aspx

7. Ask Henrik Walther a question

QUESTION: I've just finished reading your article "Installing a Two Node Exchange Server 2007 Single Copy Cluster (SCC) in a Virtual Server Test Environment - Part 1: Preparing the virtual environment" and I have a very quick question.

In the note in the article you say that "Exchange Server 2007 doesn't support active/active clusters like is the case with previous Exchange versions, only active/passive". Does this mean that the configuration is much like CCR in that there are only ever two nodes in the cluster and that they just share the storage as Active and Passive?

Thanks for your help.

ANSWER: Not exactly. A Single Copy Cluster (SCC) is similar to the cluster features in previous versions of Exchange, although it has been changed and improved further. The biggest difference is the lack of support for an active/active cluster, which very few of us will miss! :-)

An SCC still requires a shared disk storage sub-system such as an SAN, and can, unlike Cluster Continuous Replication (CCR), include more than two nodes