MSExchange.org Monthly Newsletter of September 2008 Sponsored by: Red Gate

Welcome to the MSExchange.org newsletter by Henrik Walther, Exchange MVP, MCA: Messaging (Exchange Ranger) Apprentice, MCTS Windows Server 2008, MCITP Exchange 2007, MCSE 2003 Messaging/Security. Each month we will bring you interesting and helpful information on Exchange Server. We want to know what all *you* are interested in hearing about. Please send your suggestions for future newsletter content to: henrik@msexchange.org

1. Microsoft Exchange Online & Exchange Labs

As some of you probably recall, back in September 2007, Microsoft laid out the next phase in its strategy for online services, offering a road map for new offerings that synthesize client, server and services software for people and businesses. They mentioned that these offerings would combine elements of client-based programs with software that runs large servers and new services delivered over the Internet. As can be read in the press release, Microsoft talked about two key families of service offerings: "Live" and "Online":

"Live" services are designed primarily for individuals, business end-users and virtual work groups. Live offerings span entertainment, communication and productivity. These services emphasize ease of use, simplicity of access and flexibility, and are ideally suited for situations where people either don't have access to professional technical expertise or don't require high levels of system management.

"Online" services are for organizations with more advanced IT needs where power and flexibility are critical. Online services from Microsoft give businesses the ability to control access to data, manage users, apply business and compliance policy, and meet high availability standards while providing performance, scalability, enhanced security, management features and service-level capabilities to support mission-critical applications and systems. Microsoft is providing business customers with the flexibility to choose between traditional on-premise implementations, services hosted by Microsoft partners and now Online services that reside in Microsoft's datacenters.

Amongst the "Live" offerings, Microsoft mentioned that the Microsoft Exchange Labs was a new research and development program for testing next-generation messaging and unified communications capabilities in high-scale environments. Amongst the "Online" offerings, they mentioned Microsoft Exchange Online, which is a hosted enterprise messaging solution based on Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 that helps give your business the protection it demands, the anywhere access employees want, and the operational efficiency your IT staff needs. The Online services were intended for businesses with more than 5,000 users.

Later on (more precisely in March 2008), from the annual Microsoft Office SharePoint Conference, Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft Corp., announced that the company would offer Microsoft Online Services to businesses of all sizes. This announcement marked a significant step for Microsoft towards expanding its software plus services strategy.

So where are we today? Well, today the Microsoft Exchange Online service is available as a Standard and Dedicated offering. The Standard offering is for customers who want rapid service adoption and a standardized administrative console. The Dedicated offering is for customers with more than 5,000 employees who are interested in having a dedicated architecture. You can read more about these offerings as well as sign up for a trial here. Bear in mind though, the Exchange Online service is only offered to companies based in the US. But Microsoft is pretty close to offering the service in Europe.

Regarding the Exchange Live offerings, it is currently only available to educational institutions that enroll with Microsoft Live@edu as well as Microsoft full time employees (FTEs) and their families and friends. For the sake of curiosity, you can read more about the Exchange Labs offering here. The Exchange Labs will be opened up to a broader audience later on.

As you can see Microsoft are moving aggressively into the Exchange Hosting world!

In a future newsletter, I will talk about my personal experiences with moving/migrating a couple of my domains to the Exchange Labs environment.

Cheers,
Henrik Walther

Note:
Should you have any ideas for content in future editions of the MSExchange.org newsletter, you are more than welcome to shoot me an e-mail at Henrik@msexchange.org

2. Order Henrik Walther's Exchange Server 2007 book

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:

• Exchange 2007 Online Maintenance Database Scanning (Part 2)
• Managing Receive Connectors (Part 2)
• Exchange 2007 Online Maintenance Database Scanning (Part 1)
• 12 Tips to Optimize an Exchange 2007 Infrastructure (Part 2)
• Managing Receive Connectors (Part 1)
• Accessing and Using Shared Email Addresses (Part 1)
• GroupWise to Exchange 2007 - Interoperability and Migration (Part 9)
• Managing Unified Messaging Auto Attendant (Part 4)
• 12 Tips to Optimize an Exchange 2007 Infrastructure (Part 1)

4. KB Articles of the Month

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

Exchange 2007

• Error message when you try to access Outlook Anywhere on an Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1 computer that is running Windows Server 2008: "The connection to Microsoft Exchange is unavailable"

Exchange 2003

• How to open Arabic OWA in Exchange 2003 Server
• How to set encoding for incoming and outgoing messages for POP3 and IMAP4 for specific users

5. MSExchange News of the Month

• Outstanding spam capture rate and low false positives with GFI MailEssentials' two anti-spam engines
• November 2008 MMMUG Meeting 
• Exchange Hosted Services at Microsoft
• A quick look at the free SolarWinds Exchange Monitor dashboard tool
• Taking email archiving to another level with GFI MailArchiver 6
• Cisco to Buy Exchange-Alternative Vendor PostPath

6. Ask Henrik Walther a question

QUESTION:

Hi Henrik,

Hope you are well.
You don't need a MSDTC with E2K7 CCR on W2K3 (MNS Cluster) do you?
I recently configured Node1 of the above with MNS but notice that it has also created a Local Quorum?

ANSWER:

Hi Tim,

Yes you are correct, MSDTC is not required by a CCR Cluster. This resource would only be required if you for instance had an application installed in your cluster based on MSDTC.

In regards to the local quorum, in the Cluster Group itself you should have a resource of type ?Majority Node Set? not a local quorum.

So it sounds like something went wrong when you formed the cluster.