Exchange

White Paper Announcement - CCR and DAS

Missy Koslosky — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 21:28:48 GMT

My new white paper on CCR and DAS is now available!!

Continuous Cluster Replication and Direct Attached Storage: High Availability Without Breaking the Bank can be found on 3Sharp's Notable Accomplishments page, or downloaded directly from the link I've provided. Here's a quick synopsis of the paper:

The days of 2GB drives, tiny user mailbox sizes, and limiting Exchange Server to run on a single database have long since passed; storage options now abound, and disk space is cheap. Over the past ten years, storage area networks (SANs) have become ubiquitous, and IT management has often been persuaded that all data should reside on the SAN. However, the idea that the SAN is the best option for Exchange Server storage needs to be revisited; there are other options available today that provide the necessary reliability at greatly reduced cost.

The choice of building Exchange Server 2007 as a 64-bit architecture, and the availability of massive, cheap RAM, leads to greatly-reduced input/output operations per second (IOPS) for disk access. The synchronicity between this fact, and the availability of cheap disk space allows organizations to rethink their approach to storage. In this whitepaper, we explain the benefits of using Direct Attached Storage (DAS) as opposed to a SAN for Exchange Server Cluster Continuous Replication (CCR). We argue the use of DAS for CCR clusters, and provide a counterpoint to the idea that a SAN is the best storage option for CCR deployments.

White Paper Announcement - CCR or SCC?

Missy Koslosky — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 21:23:32 GMT

My new white paper on CCR vs. SCC is now available!!

High Availability Choices for Exchange Server 2007: Continuous Cluster Replication or Single Copy Clustering can be found on 3Sharp's Notable Accomplishments page, or downloaded directly from the link I've provided. Here's a quick synopsis of the paper:

With today's reliance on e-mail services, the need for highly available systems where messaging services must be accessible at all times has become more apparent, and organizations are making significant investments in their messaging systems. Many organizations have come to the conclusion that redundancy is the only reliable way to keep e-mail services continuously available to their users. Exchange Server 2007 includes numerous high availability options that provide continuity of service and redundancy to help ensure messaging services are always up and operational. This whitepaper describes the benefits of Cluster Continuous Replication (CCR) for Exchange Server 2007, in contrast with Single Copy Clustering (SCC), and details the advantages and disadvantages of each.

Testing Exchange Connectivity

Missy Koslosky — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 21:22:25 GMT

The Microsoft Exchange Product Group has a pretty cool tool available online (in Beta) that I learned about at the E14 Airlift (don't worry, it's not for Exchange 14), called the Microsoft Exchange Server Remote Connectivity Analyzer. This tool offers several tests that can be run against your Exchange infrastructure to see if things are configured correctly, including:

MS Exchange ActiveSync Test, which simulates a mobile device connecting to Exchange Server
MS Exchange ActiveSync Autodiscover Test, which simulates the steps a mobile device takes to connect to the AutoDiscover service
MS Outlook 2007 Autodiscovery Connectivity Test, which simulates the steps Outlook 2007 takes to connect to the AutoDiscovery service
MS Outlook 2003 RPC/HTTP Connectivity Test, which simulates the steps Outlook 2003 takes to connect to Exchange using RPC over HTTP
Inbound SMTP Email Test, which simulates sending e-mail to your Exchange Server using SMTP

It's a pretty cool tool - you first choose one of the radio buttons, then simply click Next. You're then presented with fields where you enter your server name (obviously, use the Internet-facing name here) and your credentials (they do want a domain password, but they promise to not store it and to use SSL to encrypt it, as always YMMV, and use caution). There's also a challenge in the form of one of those annoyingly garbled strings of letters that are hard to see, but that keep automated systems from using the form. I hate these things and always mess up the first try, but understand why they're there.) Once you've filled out the forms and agreed to the terms of service, a simple click is all it takes to start the test. I just ran through the test, using 3Sharp as the target, and here's a snippet from our results (with some of the fields changed, which I've italicized. My goal is to show you what kind of results you'd see, not to show you everything we do here at 3Sharp):

Attempting to Resolve the host name server.3sharp.com in DNS.
Host successfully Resolved
Additional Details
IP(s) returned: 1.1.1.1

Testing TCP Port 443 on host server.3sharp.com to ensure it is listening/open.
The port was opened successfully.

Testing SSLCertificate for validity.
The certificate passed all validation requirements.
Additional Details
Subject: CN=server.3sharp.com, OU=Domain Control Validated, O=server.3sharp.com, Issuer SERIALNUMBER=12345678, CN=Go Daddy Secure Certification Authority, OU=http://certificates.godaddy.com/repository, O="GoDaddy.com, Inc.", L=Scottsdale, S=Arizona, C=US

Testing Http Authentication Methods for URL https://server.3sharp.com/Microsoft-Server-Activesync/
Http Authentication Methods are correct
Additional Details
Found all expected authentication methods and no disallowed methods Methods Found: Basic realm="server.3sharp.com"

Attempting an Activesync session with server
Errors were encountered while testing the ActiveSync session
Test Steps
Attempting to send OPTIONS command to server
Testing the OPTIONS command failed. See Additional Details for more info
Additional Details
A Web Exception occured because an HTTP 401 - Unauthorized response was received from IIS6

All in all, it's a pretty cool tool, and alleviates the need for you to get to a remote desktop to test your environment's connectivity. I was surprised I hadn't heard about it before, and thought I'd share this so more folks can try out the site!

Microsoft Certified Master in 'da House!

Missy Koslosky — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 20:45:32 GMT

A quick note of congratulations to my teammate Devin Ganger who recently passed the (grueling, I'm sure) lab to achieve Microsoft Certified Master status for Exchange Server 2007. This is a great achievement, and I'm thrilled for Devin!

Who, me? I have fantasies about becoming an MCM for Exchange, but the intensive three-week class keeps scaring me away - not because I don't think I could handle the technical aspect of the training, but more because it's hard on the family when I'm gone that long.

That said, if the opportunity arises to attend the training, I don't think I could turn it down. It's just too awesome to miss if you get the chance to go!

New Version of Exchange 2007 Storage Cost Calculator

Missy Koslosky — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 04:11:08 GMT

W00t! A new version of the Exchange Server 2007 Mailbox Server Storage Cost Calculator (sheesh, that's a lot of words) has been released, and the Exchange team has updated their original blog post on the subject to reflect the changes in the tool. (The calculator can be downloaded here.)

Why am I so excited? Well, I've been doing a lot of work around clustering and storage as of late (and having a lot of fun with it), and the work Microsoft has done for the calculator helps back up some of the work that I've done. Also, there seems to be a feeling among much of the Exchange community that SANs are best for Exchange, and I disagree with that viewpoint - I think a solution that the Exchange administrator can remain in control of is the best solution. Storage administrators don't really get Exchange, and have a tendency to say stuff like, "disk is disk", which drives me right up a tree. So my preference has always been to let the storage folks play with their bits, and have other folks let THEIR stuff reside on the SAN, and to keep Exchange away from their unappreciative hands. The storage cost calculator shows that there really are HUGE savings to be gained by following my preferred model, so I dig that too.

Anyway, the storage cost calculator is pretty cool stuff, and it definitely worth an afternoon's time to play with!

Quick Message Journaling Note

Missy Koslosky — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 03:58:24 GMT

There are two types of message journaling for Exchange; message envelope journaling is the preferred method if you need to capture messages for compliance purposes, because it captures not only the message (the P2 information, i.e. the message contents), but also the message "envelope" (the P1 information, which contains specifics about who a message was sent to, including recipients who were blind copied, and expanded distribution list membership). Think about a letter you'd get in the mail - the envelope would be addressed to you, at your address, but the letter inside could say "Dear John, ...". Without envelope journaling, all you've got for reference is the "Dear John" portion of the message, but knowing who the message (i.e. letter) was actually addressed to (i.e. who received it) is also important contextual information.

If you're implementing a third-party archiving product, it will (or should - don't pick one that doesn't understand message envelope journaling) know how to handle messages that are journaled with the envelope data.

If you're not implementing a separate archiving product, and plan to use the journal mailbox as an archive, there will be some hoops to jump through to read the actual messages. However, if you're saving these messages for
compliance-related purposes, you want the envelope data, and I would strongly advise you that the journal mailbox is an inadequate long-term archive, especially for compliance-related purposes.

Exchange 2007 Database Corruption - Options for Getting Back to Life

Missy Koslosky — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 03:48:30 GMT

Database corruption is the bane of Exchange Administrators – and recovering from any type of corruption is complex and time-intensive. When either logical or physical corruption is present, administrators must determine the best path to database recovery. Recovery options include:

· Repairing the database by running the Exchange Server Database Utilities (ESEUTIL). This process entails taking the database itself offline (and thus, not providing messaging services to the users) and using ESEUTIL in repair mode (ESEUTIL /p). ESEUTIL can be destructive in certain circumstances, as database pages that cannot be repaired are discarded. After ESEUTIL has completed in repair mode, it should then be run again in defragment mode (ESEUTIL /d). ESEUTIL. It should be noted that ESEUTIL can process about 9GB of data per hour, so two different ESEUTIL operations on a 50GB database would take approximately 11 hours to complete. After both ESEUTIL operations have completed, database integrity should then be performed by using the Information Store Integrity Checker (ISINTEG) with the “–fix” and “–test alltests” switches. If ISINTEG is able to fix all database errors on the first pass, a report will be presented that shows the error count as zero – if all errors were not able to be corrected with the first ISINTEG operation, ISINTEG will need to be run again until the error count is zero. ISINTEG performance is roughly equivalent to that of ESEUTIL, depending upon the number of errors that must be corrected.

· Restoring an older database copy and letting the transaction logs generated since the backup was taken replay in order to bring the database back to the state when the failure occurred. These operations take less time than running database utilities; however there have been numerous instances where organizations that thought their backups were valid found that the backups could not be restored to operation when necessary. The speed of database recovery varies depending upon the type of backup performed – Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) allows third-party vendors to provide quick database backups, and these backups are also quick to restore – but they may only be restored to their original location. The Recovery Storage Group (RSG) introduced in Exchange Server 2003 reduced the complexity of previous recovery methods, however the RSG only works with streaming backups which take much longer to restore than VSS-based backups. Depending upon the number of transaction log files that must be replayed, there may be a significant amount of time that passes before a restored backup will be available to provide messaging services. (No lie - I once experienced a 10+ hour wait while transaction logs replayed. Not fun.)

· In cases where the database is still operational, the best option is often to move the mailboxes themselves to a different information store. This process involves less down time for users (while a mailbox is in the process of being moved, it will be unavailable to the individual with whom it is associated; mailboxes that are not in the process of being moved will remain available for access) and is the preferred path when available. If a database has dismounted due to physical corruption and cannot be remounted, this option will not be available.

Synchronization Problems with EAS or Entourage?

Missy Koslosky — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 00:11:17 GMT

Note: I've added an update from the nice folks at Vision Works Solutions to the end of this post. The complete information they sent along is in the comments, but I added it to this post so the information doesn't get overlooked.

Earlier today, I ran across an interesting issue - apparently several (mostly small - several running SBS) organizations have run into issues where Exchange ActiveSync or Entourage client sync fails when there are more than just a couple (and I mean as few as four) items in a folder. There is no correlation between the inability to synch and a specific folder or folder type - the issue has happened with contacts, the calendar, and just the standard Inbox folder. There aren't neessarily helpful error messages associated with this issue - timeouts are often seen, and the hex value 0×85010014 has also been seen.

This issue often is related to a third-party kernel driver - famv4.sys (File Access Manager, from Vision Works Solutions, Inc.). This file is used by some backup vendors to allow backup software access to open files. Generally, the backup vendors using this file are smaller vendors instead of the big-name software companies.

To isolate whether famv4.sys is causing problems with synch operations, you can disable famv4.sys through the registry:

Open regedt32 (or regedit, whichever) on the server
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services
Find "famv4" (no quotes)
Change the value of "Startup" for famv4 to 4 (this disables the service)
Close the registry editor
Open a command prompt on the server
Type "net stop famv4" (no quotes), hit enter

If your ActiveSync or Entourage (or both) clients can synchronize now, you've isolated the problem - the bad news is that your backup software isn't going to work right now, so make sure you either a) go back and re-enable famv4.sys in the registry or b) sort out a different way to back up the server -- which option you take depends upon what will work best in your environment.

If you experience this problem, you should contact your backup vendor to report the issue and request a fix. You may also want to contact Vision Works Solutions (link above) so they are also aware of the problem.

This problem is also discussed by someone who's experienced it here: http://www.mytechnicallife.com/2008/08/20/exchange-2007entourage-famv4sys-issue-summary-from-microsoft/

Here's hoping this one doesn't bite you.

(Question: Why is synchronization abbreviated sync instead of synch?? I really feel like the trailing "h" needs to be there; it just feels incomplete without it. So I use "synch" mostly. Except when I don't. I claim no reliability on this issue.)

Update:

File Access Manager allows backup applications to open exclusively opened files for backup. Several different backup software companies license our driver FAMv4.sys from us and distribute it.

This incompatibility is common with file system filter drivers and we already resolved the incompatibility in the latest release of File Access Manager. You can obtain Version 4.1.7 at the below link.

Updates can be found here: http://www.vwsolutions.com/FAM/trial.aspx

For any future updates or questions you can reach our support techs here:

http://www.vwsolutions.com/support/submitTicket.aspx

ESM on Vista

Missy Koslosky — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 21:42:19 GMT

Yay for the Exchange Team! There's now a version of Exchange System Manager that can run on Vista - I know most folks running Vista are now used to just terminaling into the server to do whatever they need to do administratively, but it's NICE to have options!