Remember the old days (by which I mean last week) when the process to force a DirSync to run from your DirSync server was to run the .\DirSyncConfigShell.psc1 then you could access the Start-OnlineCoexistenceSync commandlet? Well, Semper Gumbi (pseudo-Latin for “always flexible”) faithful readers because things have changed.
Read moreNew SSL certificate causing mail flow to fail in hybrid deployments
This is a problem that I have seen, and just came up on the Exchange master list, so I thought it would be something that might save others some time and headaches. Renewing your SSL certificate on your Exchange hybrid server can cause mail flow to stop. Here’s why…
Read moreExchange Online and the staged migration
I do a lot of Exchange Online migrations. I’m not really sure how many I have done, but I would guess the number is between 50 and 100 over the last 3 years. Over 90% of those migrations have been Hybrid. In fact, I’m pretty sure only one or two of those migrations have not been hybrid. Recently I had occasion to do a staged migration. I’d like to go through that process and discuss why I ended up making the choices I did.
Read moreCreating a function to connect to Exchange Online
OK so I’m way behind on this. I do migrations to Office 365/Exchange Online almost constantly, but I have been opening Remote PowerShell connections to Exchange Online the hard way. What I am about to post below is in no way original or timely. I am mostly posting it here so I can find it again without having to do too much searching.
Read moreExchange 2013 CU5
Earlier this week Microsoft released CU5 for Exchange 2013. Overall CU5 is mostly bug fixes and clean-up items left after SP1. There is not a whole lot of new functionality in this release. That being said, there are a few new things worth noting.
Read moreSelf Service Password Reset writeback to Windows Server AD using DirSync
As soon as I heard about password sync for DirSync, my first feature request was password write back. It’s been just about a year since password sync capabilities were added to DirSync and how we have password reset writeback available in public preview. There are a couple of caveats that we need to cover, but for the most part this feature is here and ready to go.
Read moreRecovering a from a datacenter failure
In previous posts (before I got all busy writing my sessions for IT connections), I promised to detail the process for recovering from a datacenter failure. For the purposes of this post I’ll assume we’re talking about a 2 site Exchange deployment with 2 Exchange servers at each site. All 4 Exchange servers are members of the same DAG, and all databases are replicated to all servers. We are also assuming that the DAG in question is running DAC mode.
Read moreMy sessions at Exchange Connections conference
As Tony Redmond recently posted on his blog, the sessions for the Exchange Connections conference in Las Vegas have been set for this fall. I was honored to find out that my session submissions were accepted.
My two sessions are titled; “Identity and Authentication Management for Office 365”, and “Performance Counters You Never Knew and Why they are Important”
Even though the conference is a little over four months away, I am starting to work on my sessions now. To that end, if you have any questions that would fit into either session, please email them to me at nathan@mcsmlab.com
Strong speaker line-up for Exchange Connections 2014 | Tony Redmond's Exchange Unwashed Blog →
Some tremendous session proposals were received for Exchange Connections 2014, so I think the set that has made it to the agenda is top-class. MEC provided the Microsoft view of the world and a glimpse into the future; Connections sets out to tell the current story so that you can make the best possible use of on-premises, hybrid, or cloud Exchange. The sessions we have lined up should make for a great conference. See you in Vegas in September!
Exchange 2013 and the 3rd site witness
Recently Microsoft published an Exchange Preferred Architecture. This post on the ehlo blog explains what Microsoft thinks is the best way to deploy Exchange 2013. This is a great post packed with awesome information that I think everyone who would bother with my silly little blog should go out a read right away. It’s OK, I’ll wait…
Read moreDatacenter Activation Coordination
This might be a controversial statement, but I kind of think it is too easy to setup database availability groups in Exchange 2010 and later. It’s not that I would want DAGs to be harder to setup, it’s just that the ease with which one can setup a basic DAG allows too many people to stop there and not work on really understanding the deeper features and configurations of high availability for mailboxes. With that in mind, I want to cover what I think might be the least understood DAG configuration feature, DAC.
Read moreSetting up 2 factor authentication for Office 365
Recently Microsoft has enabled 2 factor authentication for all Enterprise Office 365 tenants at no additional cost. Their offering is based on PhoneFactor’s 2 factor authentication system, a company Microsoft bought a couple of years ago. Setting this feature up for Office 365 accounts is fairly easy, but there are a couple of “tricky” parts that could use a bit of clarification so I thought I would run through the process for you here.
Read moreCorrecting an email alias in Exchange Online
I recently ran into an issue with a customer that took me a while to get a solution for. While doing a hybrid migration from Exchange 2003 to Exchange Online, I had one user whose email alias showed up as alias3834@domain.com instead of the expected alias of alias@domain.com in the Exchange Online tenant.
Read moreSending encrypted email from Exchange Online
Microsoft has recently included email encryption in all Enterprise Office 365 tenants. Since then, I have had several customers ask me how to send encrypted email. The process is somewhat less clear than that I would expect, so here is a quick guide on how to setup and configure email encryption in Exchange Online.
Read moreNotes from MEC: Exchange 2013 Sizing Guidance
I’m writing a series of blog posts going over some of the things we learned at the Microsoft Exchange Conference this year. The next announcement from MEC I want to highlight is Microsoft updated sizing guidance for Exchange 2013 SP1. There are two main areas around which Microsoft has updated the guidance for Exchange 2013 SP1 server sizing; CAS processors and pagefile.
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