Posted on June 26th, 2008 by Ron Bertino
Windows Server 2008 has a whole variety of new features, and one of the most talked about features is the vastly improved virtualization technology which is now built-in to Windows 2008, called Hyper-V.
You can download Hyper-V starting today, and will be available via Windows Update on July 9th.
Hyper-V supports a number of virtual machine (VM) guests, such as:
- Windows Server 2008
- Windows Server 2003
- Windows 2000 Server
- Windows Vista
- Windows XP
- Novell SUSE Enterprise Linux
Many people have been wondering whether Microsoft will update their support of virtualization technology when it comes to Exchange 2007.
During the TechEd 2008 conference, Microsoft said that they would be releasing the updated Exchange 2007 virtualization support document 60 days after the release of Hyper-V. So mark your calendars for 60 days from today.
Here’s some unofficial news from Microsoft regarding what is expected to be supported with Exchange 2007 in virutalized environments.
Filed under: Microsoft, virtualization, Exchange |
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Posted on May 18th, 2007 by Ron Bertino
Microsoft Exchange 2007 can be managed via the graphical user interface (GUI), like any other Microsoft application, but it also allows management via the command line.
Exchange 2007 leverages Windows Powershell, such that you now have an extremely powerful (sorry for the pun) way of being able to manage your Exchange environments. When Exchange is installed, it adds many “commandlets” that extend the default commands available in Windows Powershell.
If you would like to see a prior video overview of the new management features available in Exchange 2007, then please take a few minutes to watch it.
Here are many useful examples of Exchange Powershell commands:
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Filed under: Microsoft, Exchange, Powershell |
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Posted on April 27th, 2007 by Ron Bertino
The most basic type of Exchange 2003 installation you can do is to simply install it on one server.
If that Exchange 2003 server experienced a higher load, you could split off to two or more Exchange 2003 servers, each running a separate mailbox stores and therefore “statically” splitting the load between these two or more servers.
It’s important to note though that these multiple servers are running an identical version and installation of Exchange 2003. They are all “fully-featured” Exchange 2003 servers.
Another scenario is when users want to split the load between clients accessing services such as Outlook Web Access and the servers running the mailbox stores. The former would be called the “front-end Exchange server” and the latter would be called the “back-end Exchange server”.
Since the front-end server doesn’t normally run any mailbox stores, then these two installations could be considered to be two different “roles” for Exchange 2003.
Exchange 2007 fully adopts the role methodology, and uses 5 different roles which can each be hosted on a separate server, if you so wish.
In this next video review, I’ll walk you through:
- edge transport role
- hub transport role
- unified messaging role
- mailbox role
- client access role
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Filed under: Microsoft, Exchange |
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Posted on April 24th, 2007 by Ron Bertino
Most viruses and malware these days tend to spread the most by means of email.
Since almost everyone actively uses email these days, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that if viruses use email as a transport/delivery mechanism, then infection can spread extremely quickly.
Virus and malware content in email is therefore a big problem we all need to deal with.
On top of that, we have our good friend: spam emails.
I must have a lot of people out there that like me because I get lots of sexy invitations, people offering to help me grow my private body parts to gigantic proportions, even more people offering to teach me how to become rich overnight, and I’ve lost count of how many lotto jackpots I’ve already won.
It is estimated that 50% to 80% of all internet email is spam content.
Dealing with the above two problems typically meant one 3rd party product for anti-virus and anti-malware, and another 3rd party product to deal with anti-spam.
Microsoft have now come to market with two different products/services to deal with the above.
In this next video review, I’ll walk you through:
- Exchange Hosted Services
- Microsoft Forefront Security for Exchange
- Exchange 2007 Edge Transport role
- sample network topology configurations
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Filed under: Microsoft, Exchange |
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Posted on April 23rd, 2007 by Ron Bertino
We live in a world where compliance requirements keep getting more and more stringent.
From Sarbanes-Oxley in the USA through to CLERP9 in Australia, and the many other international standards such as ISO 9000 and Sarbanes-Oxley hybrids, it seems that compliance requirements are getting tougher as we go.
If you’re a multinational company, you could be looking at a situation where you have to deal with distinct compliance regulations procedures that you need to follow per country. What a nightmare….
Fortunately, Exchange 2007 has a whole variety of new compliance features built in, which can greatly assist you with the above needs.
In this next video review, I’ll walk you through:
- transport rules
- message classification
- journaling
- archiving
- managed folders
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Filed under: Microsoft, Exchange |
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Posted on April 20th, 2007 by Ron Bertino
When you talk about management features most people won’t get as excited about this as other new sexy features such as unified messaging or the new disaster recovery features available in Exchange 2007.
But considering that admins tend to spend 70% of their time maintaining existing systems, it becomes very important to try to maximise the productivity of the admins during this time.
It’s even better if, by implementing more powerful management tools, you can knock down the overall time spent managing systems from 70% to a lower number. More solitaire time for your admins are bound to make them happy….
In this next video review, I’ll walk you through:
- the Exchange 2007 installation procedure
- how to migrate mailboxes from prior editions of Exchange
- changes to the management user interface
- integration with the MS Operations Management Server
- the new powerful scripting capabilities (PowerShell)
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Filed under: Microsoft, Exchange |
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Posted on April 18th, 2007 by Ron Bertino
New servers have been built with 64-bit capabilities for at least one year, yet we rarely see servers built with the 64-bit version of Windows Server.
Part of the reason for this is that there were never clear benefits of going down the 64-bit road. The performance improvements were marginal, yet we would have to also deal with potential application compatibility and driver compatibility issues.
It may come as a bit of shock that Exchange 2007 requires a 64-bit installation. A 32-bit production installation is not supported by Microsoft.
Once you see the clear benefits of running Exchange 2007 under a 64-bit environment, you will very likely change your mind regarding the whole 64-bit dilemma.
In this next video review, I’ll walk you through:
- the difference between 32-bit and 64-technology
- operating system and application limits
- disk input/output reduction by implementing 64-bit tech
- cache and storage benefits
I will also walk you through another new feature called Outlook AutoDiscovery, which I managed to squeeze onto this video as well.
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Filed under: Microsoft, Exchange |
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Posted on April 16th, 2007 by Ron Bertino
Researchers have stated that “nearly 90% of professionals will carry mobile devices capable of receiving mobile messages by 2008″.
You may think that in order to be able to push email out from Exchange to mobile devices you need to purchase Blackberry devices and an expensive Blackberry server to sit next to your Exchange system…..but those days are over.
In this next video review, I’ll walk you through:
- changes to the mobile messaging features
- “WebReady” and “LinkAccess” functionality via mobile technology
- the basic architecture of how direct push works
- how you are no longer limted by the RAM on the mobile device
- Out of Office Assistant integration
- quick flag support
- full calendaring support
- new granular management capabilities
- new self provisioning and self service features
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Filed under: Microsoft, Exchange |
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Posted on April 13th, 2007 by Ron Bertino
Outlook Web Access just keeps getting better and better.
In this next video review, we’ll take a look at:
- how the user interface has changed
- calendaring improvements, and the new resource scheduler
- address book improvements
- new powerful search capabilities
- access to the improved Out of Office Assistant
- a new feature called “LinkAccess”, which allows Exchange to act as a proxy to internal file servers and Sharepoint servers
- a new feature called “WebReady”, which provides on-the-fly HTML rendering of attachments
So let’s dive right into it.
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Filed under: Microsoft, Exchange |
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Posted on April 12th, 2007 by Ron Bertino
At the moment you will find yourself having to go to your email client on your computer to check emails, walk across the office to the corner fax machine to check on any incoming faxes, and punch a few numbers on your desk phone in order to check your voicemail.
Wouldn’t it be great if you could check all of the above from a single place, and get access to this from anywhere (even when you’re not in the office)?
Well, if you are saying “hell yeah” then I’ve got some good news for you; Exchange 2007 gives you exactly that capability.
Let’s take a look though my introduction of the new Unified Messaging features in Exchange 2007 (2 mins 22 secs).
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Filed under: Microsoft, Exchange |
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