by Joel Stidley
September 4, 2012 in Exchange Server 2010, System Center
If you are using System Center for management you will want to check out the updated Exchange Server 2010 management pack. The latest iteration was posted August 31, 2012.
You can find it here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=692
by Joel Stidley
August 6, 2012 in Exchange Server 2010, Exchange Server 2013, MEC
You might have heard that MEC is back! The old skool Exchange administrators will no doubt reflect on what MEC used to be, and the newer Exchange administrators may have not heard of MEC.
What is MEC? It is the Microsoft Exchange Conference, a conference sponsored by Microsoft and dedicated to Microsoft Exchange Server. The last MEC was 10 years ago in Anaheim, California. Since then the hardcore Exchange administrators have had to rely on content from TechEd or from Exchange Connections. Now Microsoft has taken charge and brought back MEC to drive quality content to the community. For 2012 MEC will be held in Orlando, FL from September 24 to 26th.
Just think, 10 years ago:
A lot has changed and yet email hasn’t become that much easier. Don’t you think it is time for another MEC?
Why should you go to MEC? Because that where you will learn about cool things like:
I was at the last MEC and met some great people that share my passion for Exchange Server. I still keep in contact with many of them, ten years later. A truly valuable experience that I’d love to repeat.
Do you want to go but need a discount? Send me an email!
Let me know if you are going
Loading ... by Joel Stidley
June 21, 2012 in PowerShell
Windows Server 2012 has a ton of new Windows PowerShell cmdlets to accomplish both common and uncommon tasks. There are some quick start guides available here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30002
Here are a few of my favorite cmdlets available for common tasks:
What are your favorite new cmdlets?
by Joel Stidley
June 8, 2012 in Exchange Server 2010, Outlook
Over the years we keep more stuff in our mailboxes. As an Exchange administrator, I was very rigid with my mailbox quotas. I kept my own mailbox clean and expected everyone else to do the same so that I could meet my performance and recovery SLAs. Over the years though I have continued to amass more and more junk in my mailbox. This is partly because Exchange and the hardware make this possible, and just the sheer amount of stuff we get in our mailboxes today. I’d love to achieve Inbox Zero, but it rarely happens.
I am doing a little non-scientific poll to see how mailbox sizes have grown over the last 12 years. I will share my results once I have compiled them.
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by Missyk
May 2, 2012 in Exchange Server 2010
Long time no post! Here’s a quick one…
We’ve been testing integration between Exchange 2010, Cisco Unity Connection Server, and Cisco SpeechView. We could see the messages flowing, but were seeing a “sender format error” in the path, so messages weren’t being delivered as expected. It seems that Unity Connection cannot accept the “AUTH=<>” command (Exchange 2010 Hub, by default, uses the extended SMTP feature set, which starts conversations with an EHLO, and includes the AUTH command). If you don’t already have a dedicated send connector set up in Exchange to talk to Unity Connections Server , you’ll need to create one to resolve this. Once you have the send connector configured to talk to Unity, you need to set it so that it will send an HELO instead of EHLO when talking to Unity.
set-sendconnector “Unity” -forceHELO 1
(change the send connector’s name above as appropriate!)
And bazinga! It all works now.
by Joel Stidley
November 8, 2011 in Books, Exchange Server 2010
Great news for those of you that purchased Exchange Server 2010 Administration: Real World Skills for MCITP Certification and Beyond! We listened to your feedback and heard there was some confusion with a few of the exercises. There has also been a changes to how we think things should be done since we published the book over a year ago. Since we want you to have the latest and greatest information available, we’ve refreshed some of the exercises in the book. We have posted these updates for you to use while you read the book.
You can download the latest exercise updates here.
If you are a teacher using this book in your classroom you can download the latest Instructor Support Materials here.
As always, we are keen to hear your feedback and your questions on our book!
Content Update History
by Joel Stidley
September 2, 2011 in Uncategorized
Although there were serveral great books targeted at Exchange 2007 and PowerShell, the market dried up for Exchange 2010.
After writing two other and some training material on Exchange 2010, there wasn’t enough time to update our PowerShell book, “Professional Windows PowerShell for Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1“ . And the other great Exchange 2007 PowerShell book “Exchange Mangement Shell: TFM” from Ilse Van Criekinge was also not updated for Exchange 2010. So, I was very happy to see that Packt Publishing got a book on the market to fill the void in the market with “Microsoft Exchange 2010 PowerShell Cookbook“.
Serious Exchange administrators need to embrace and understand PowerShell to optimize their administrative tasks. This book covers the basics about PowerShell and also gives a number of recipies that you can use in your own environment. This is a very practical guide and will equip you to start make use of PowerShell in your daily administrative tasks.
If you are serious about getting started with PowerShell specific to Exchange 2010, you will want to take a look at this book.
by Joel Stidley
May 16, 2011 in Exchange Server 2010, Hyper-V
A large number of companies are now either already virtualizing or looking to leverage virtualization for their Exchange deployment. Up until now there had been little direction from Microsoft on the best way to do this. Today the company released the first version of a best practices guide with the updated understanding that the Unified Messaging role can now be virtualized!
Read the Best Practices for Virtualizing Exchange Server 2010 with Windows Server® 2008 R2 Hyper V™ guide.
by Missyk
April 6, 2011 in Uncategorized
I wrote these white papers a few years ago; the original content host no longer makes them available, so I thought I would post them here as I still get requests for copies. Enjoy!
by Joel Stidley
November 15, 2010 in Books, Exchange Server 2010
My new book was released earlier this month. For those of you not only looking to get started with Exchange 2010 but also take the exams it is a great place to start.
You can purchase it from Amazon or your favorite book store. If you have any suggestions or questions, please send me an email.
UPDATE (10/30/11)
There were a few errors in the exercises, and we didn’t want you to be confused so we are going through the chapters and updating the exercises. You can be download the latest here (Updated 1/29/2013). The updated Instructor Supported Materials for teachers using the book in their class room can be found here.
If you are having problems setting up your lab for the book, be sure to download and review the updated exercises and the latest instructor support materials.
UPDATE (3/22/11)
If you have purchased the ebook from Amazon you aren’t provided the content on the CD shipped with the printed copy of the book. There are two ways around this.
Also, you can now check out Chapter 1 of the book before buying.
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