8TB drives will be available very soon and with the existing recommended maximum database size for Exchange databases at 2TB, you are looking at wasting about 5TB of precious space on these disks!!

An excellent example of this configuration at work is documented on https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd638137(v=exchg.150)

Automatic Reseed is another fantastic feature that we bring with Exchange 2013! Have a spare disk? We will use it when needed by Exchange J. We have all been paged for failed disks and sometimes database corruption that requires a database reseed. Sometimes, this has been at 3.00 AM in the morning!

Automatic Reseed comes to our rescue! With this feature, YOU provision spare disks on the Exchange Server and when we detect a failure we will attempt to pull the spare in to production, create the mount points etc. and reseed the databases automagically for you without any manual intervention!

This feature too is well documented on https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd638137(v=exchg.150)

NOTE: There are specific configuration tasks that need to be executed for this to work. Also note that Multiple Databases per volume is a great thing, but requires a great deal of planning and design too! As usual, I hope the above helps!

Now, Welcome Exchange 2010!! This is where we made a conscious change and made a decision to treat “hidden as really hidden”. In Exchange 2010, if you have hidden recipients as members in a DL, they are not shown in the membership of the DL. You are not able to mine the GAL and “find out” hidden recipients. The whole idea was to use the new Address Book Policy feature offered with the product!

But, in my case the customer did not want to use ABPs and requested that this feature be allowed as a “toggle”. I worked with some senior Escalation Engineers and PMs to figure out a “supported” method to achieve this. Remember, this is NOT what we want our customers to do, the Address Book Policy feature provides most of this functionality. Anyway, here is how we figured it out

As an example, I have 2 external contacts created in the GAL, one if hidden; the other is not.

I have a DL that includes both of these objects as a member

When the user logs in to OWA, as you see below; they are able to see both the objects when they mine the object

On the other hand, when a 2010 user logs in to OWA, this is what they see

External Contact 1 is hidden; we treat it as such in Exchange 2010.

The business requirement was stated as “We need to be able to see external contacts who are members in a DL”

There are 2 ways that this can be done really. One, unhide the object from the GAL, add a custom attribute to the object and modify your address list and the global address list filters to display only objects with the custom attribute set, we have a problem with that and I will talk a little more about it below. Two, we simply remove the address list and modify the default global address list to not include contacts in the filter that it uses.

Let’s talk about the problem with these approaches. The Default Global Address List in Exchange 2010 CANNOT be modified (through a supported method), but a new one can be created with a recipient filter that matches objects to the requirement.

Here is what we did. We first decided to unhide all the objects from the GAL, we then set CustomAttribute10 to a value of “Test”. Then, we created a New GAL using https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb232063(v=exchg.141), we also updated the filter for the All Contacts Address List to only include objects that have CustomAttribute10 set to “Test”

Below are the example recipient filters that were used to set up the GAL and the AL respectively.

• ·         ((Alias -ne $null) -and (((((((((((ObjectClass -eq 'user') -or (((ObjectClass -eq 'contact') -and (CustomAttribute10 -eq 'Test'))))) -or (ObjectClass -eq 'msExchSystemMailbox'))) -or (ObjectClass -eq 'msExchDynamicDistributionList'))) -or (ObjectClass -eq 'group'))) -or (ObjectClass -eq 'publicFolder'))))
• ·         ((CustomAttribute10 -eq 'Test') -and (RecipientType -eq 'MailContact'))

Below are the high level steps to achieve this.

1. Remove the Hide from Address list option from All Contacts and any other users that you want to have seen in the DL membership.

2. Create a new Global Address list using the Commandlet New-GlobalAddresslist

3. Now we need to set the new GAL as the default GAL.  Open Adsiedit locate the New GAL and set the MSExchRecipientFilterFlag to 3 for the New GAL, and 0 for the Original Default Global Address List.

                Location is in: Configuration – Services – Microsoft Exchange – Org Name – Address list container – All Global Address lists.

4. Run Remove-GlobalAddresslist “Default Global Address list” (You cannot execute this while the MSExchRecipientFilterFlag is set to 3, as it would not allow it to be run.  Once the Default Global Address list MSExchRecipientFilterFlag is set to 0 it will allow the execution of this command.)

6.  Run the Update-GlobalAddresslist command to force the GAL to be re-populate, restart the Address book service, and recycle the App pools on your CAS servers (if you want to test it all immediately), if you just want to wait the ~2 hours for all things to Reset their cached data and the like just run Update-GlobalAddresslist.  Restarting these services will have limited impact on users.

7. Update the OAB, You will have to reset the OAB to pull from the New Default Global Address list (right click on the Default OAB in EMC open Properties then Address list Tab, then Ensure that the Include the Default Global Address list is Checked, the New GAL which we set as the Default in step 3)  Then right click and Update the OAB. 

8. Run the command Update-FileDistributionService -Id <CasServer> (so that the OAB is pushed out to all Web distribution points)

From here the Outlook clients will download the new OAB; this can be a bandwidth consumer depending on the new size of the OAB.  You might want to look at Staging this or throttling it by site, or placing CAS servers in the remote locations to avoid WAN link saturation.

Options for dealing with the OAB download.

Staging the OAB files: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa996976(v=EXCHG.65).aspx

OAB throttling: https://blogs.msdn.com/b/dgoldman/archive/2009/10/21/how-can-we-try-to-control-the-network-consumption-by-using-oab-throttling.aspx

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee791758(v=WS.10).aspx

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb232155.aspx

Caveats:  Please test these changes thoroughly when applying service packs or Update Rollups, or even Interim Updates, as if any of them make a manipulation to the "Default Global address list" you may need to re-run through these steps to ensure that the contacts are not part of the GAL, so ensure that this is tested in a non-production environment before implementation.

Hope the above helps!

The use of DAGs and database copies along-with features like Single Item Restore, lagged copies, retention policies continue to provide HA and SR. The high availability platform, the Exchange Information Store and the Extensible Storage Engine (ESE), have all been enhanced to provide greater availability, easier management, and to reduce costs. These enhancements include:

• Reduction in IOPS over Exchange 2010 – Passive copies in Exchange 2010 DAGs have a very low checkpoint depth (5 MB) which was required for fast failover; this also means that we are aggressively pre-reading the data to be able to keep up with the low checkpoint depth. With Exchange 2013, the checkpoint depth is now 100 MB!! This was possible with some major improvements in ESE/JET. With this higher depth, passive copies are no longer required to be as aggressive with pre-reading the data and this results in a passive copy requiring about 50% of the IOPS compared to an active copy of the mailbox database
• Managed Availability –Think of this as some “monitoring” (word used loosely :)) for the user experience and not just for the server uptime. I plan to post more on this at a later time as well. In theory, this is a check by the application, against the application to ensure that the service that is provided (eg. OWA) is available to the user and take corrective actions like App Pool recycles Service restarts and in some cases DB failovers to main service to the user.
• Managed Store - The Managed Store is the name of the newly rewritten Information Store processes in Exchange 2013. The new Managed Store is written in C# and tightly integrated with the Microsoft Exchange Replication service (MSExchangeRepl.exe) to provide higher availability through improved resiliency.
• Support for multiple databases per disk – We know that 8 TB drives will soon be a reality! We will now be able to have multiple DBs on the same disk, including a combination of active and passive DBs on the same disk
• AutoReseed – Have a hot spare? Let’s put it to use while you sleep peacefully. Consider a failed disk with an active DB on a server; if we have a hot spare we will put it to use and automatically reseed the DBs on the new disk.
• Automatic recovery from storage failures – This feature continues the innovation introduced in Exchange 2010 to allow the system to recover from failures that affect resiliency or redundancy. In addition to the Exchange 2010 bugcheck behaviors, Exchange 2013 includes additional recovery behaviors for long IO times, excessive memory consumption by MSExchangeRepl.exe, and severe cases where the system is in such a bad state, threads cannot be scheduled.
• Lagged copy enhancements – Lagged copies can now care for themselves to a certain extent using automatic log play down. Lagged copies will automatically play down log files in a variety of situations, such as page patching and low disk space scenarios. If the system detects that page patching is required for a lagged copy, the logs will be automatically replayed into the lagged copy to perform page patching. Lagged copies will also invoke this auto replay feature when a low disk space threshold has been reached, and when the lagged copy has been detected as the only available copy for a specific period of time. In addition, lagged copies can leverage Safety Net, making recovery or activation much easier.
• Single Copy Alert enhancements – The single copy alert introduced in Exchange 2010 is no longer a separate scheduled script. It has been integrated into the managed availability components within the system and is now a native function within Exchange.
• DAG network auto-configuration – DAGs networks can be automatically configured by the system based on configuration settings. In addition to manual configuration options, DAGs can also distinguish between MAPI and Replication networks and configure DAG networks automatically.

There are a few more that you can read about on https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd638137.aspx

What’s new in Exchange 2013.

Traditionally we have known Exchange to serve the core purpose of communication; this changes with Exchange 2013. Exchange is now evolving and is more focused on collaboration; and not just on communication. Right from merging all your contacts from different sources to SharePoint and Lync integration; Exchange 2013 provides all of this. We also continue to build on the familiar Exchange Server 2010 platform and redesigned it for simplicity of scale, utilizing the powerful hardware available today and in the near future and finally allowing for failure isolation.

First, let’s talk about the Exchange Administration Center, which I will refer to as EAC going forward

• EAC is optimized to allow management of on-premises, hybrid or online deployments
• List view in EAC is up to 20,000 objects
• There is a new and cool Notification Center in the EAC. The status of long running processes are shown in the notification center and you can also choose to receive an e-mail when the process completes

Talking about the new Setup…

• Up-to-date setup! What that means is that we are not able to update setup J. When you run setup for Exchange 2013, you will have the option to download and use the latest rollups, security fixes and language packs
• There are also improved readiness checks that run a lot quicker and provide you with details on what needs to be installed prior to setup, and of course you can choose to have setup install the pre-requisites for you
• New and modern wizard

Batch Mailbox moves

This is a new concept with Exchange 2013. Built on top of the Mailbox Replication Service, it features the following enhancements

• Move multiple mailboxes in large batches
• Email notification with reporting
• Move primary and archive mailboxes together or separately

These are a few of my favorites. I will continue to post more as I read. I hope this is useful!

Mailbox User Creation

New-Mailbox -Name '2007MRMUSER2' -Alias '2007MRMUSER2' -OrganizationalUnit 'TAILSPINTOYS.LOCAL/Users' -UserPrincipalName '2007MRMUSER2@TAILSPINTOYS.LOCAL' -SamAccountName '2007MRMUSER2' -FirstName '2007MRMUSER2' -Initials '' -LastName '' -Database 'E2007\First Storage Group\Mailbox Database'

Custom Managed Folder Creation

New-ManagedFolder -Name '365 Day Retention' -FolderName '365 Day Retention' -StorageQuota 'unlimited' -Comment 'Move Items to this folder to retain for 1 Year'

Managed Folder Content Settings

New-ManagedContentSettings -Name '365 Day – Content Settings' -FolderName '365 Day Retention' -RetentionAction 'DeleteAndAllowRecovery' -AddressForJournaling $null -AgeLimitForRetention '365.00:00:00' -JournalingEnabled $false -MessageFormatForJournaling 'UseTnef' -RetentionEnabled $true -LabelForJournaling '' -MessageClass '*' -MoveToDestinationFolder $null -TriggerForRetention 'WhenDelivered'

Managed Folder Mailbox Policy

New-ManagedFolderMailboxPolicy -Name '365 Day – MRM Policy' -ManagedFolderLinks '365 Day Retention'

Managed Folder Policy Assignment to the user

Set-Mailbox 2007MRMUSER –ManagedFolderMailboxPolicy ‘365 Day – MRM Policy”

After the above steps have been executed, typically you would wait for the Managed Folder Assistant (MFA) to process the mailbox defined in the settings for the Managed Folder Assistant. NOTE: In my lab, I executed Start-ManagedFolderAssistant on the mailbox server hosting the database that the mailbox was created in (E2007\First Storage Group\Mailbox Database). Once the MFA processes the mailboxes, the user would see the Managed Folder in Outlook and Outlook Web Access like below

Figure 1: Managed Folders visible in Outlook 2010

Figure 2: Managed Folder visible in Outlook Web Access

This is usually the method adopted by customers to setup MRM for Exchange 2007 users. The interesting part is when we need to start planning for migration from MRM v1.0 to MRM v2.0. As we know Exchange 2010 introduced a completely new approach to MRM and greatly depends on end user interaction for managing their e-mail. Retention Policies and Retention Tags are the “new MRM” in Exchange 2010. Many customers ask “Well, we have been running Exchange 2007 for a long time and our users are accustomed to using Managed Folders and the MRM v1.0 functionality which in many respect meant that the Exchange Administrator would setup the policies and folders. The user would be required to move items to the Managed Folder. We would like to make the now legacy managed folders still available to our users in Outlook and OWA. We would also like to retain the content settings that were applied to those folders by automatically applying a retention policy on the folder. The user experience should remain very similar to how they have been using Managed Folders. We will educate out users about the new capabilities of MRM v2.0, retention tags and policies etc. but, continued uninterrupted managed folder experience needs to be maintained in the interim”

The key take away here is to maintain a similar experience for the user. This is absolutely possible with Exchange 2010 and we can use a simple method to achieve the required objective. Exchange 2010 introduced the concept of Porting a Managed Folder. But, before we get in to the details of how to accomplish this, let’s quickly take a look at a couple of important factors discussed here, especially the ones below

The RetentionAction parameter specifies one of the following actions:

• MarkAsPastRetentionLimit   If you specify this action for a retention tag, messages that have the tag applied are marked as past the retention limit.
• MoveToFolder   This action isn't available for retention tags.
• MoveToDeletedItems   This action isn't available for retention tags.
• DeleteAndAllowRecovery   This action deletes a message and allows recovery from the Recoverable Items folder.
• PermanentlyDelete   This action permanently deletes a message. A message that has been permanently deleted can't be recovered using the Recoverable Items folder. Permanently deleted messages aren't returned in a Discovery search, unless litigation hold is enabled for the mailbox.
• MoveToArchive   This action moves a message to the user's archive mailbox. You can use this action for retention tags of type All, Personal and RecoverableItems.

If this parameter isn't present and the RetentionEnabled parameter is set to $true, an error is returned.

The above highlighted items are very important to understand. The takeaway is that if you have specified either one of those possible actions to take in the Managed Content Settings of a folder, guess what? You are out of luck and the below procedure will not work!!

Figure 3: Managed Folder Content Settings

As you note above, my managed folder content setting was set to DeleteAndAllowRecovery. The steps outlined below explain how we can port the Managed Folder Content Settings to create a Personal Retention Tag. We will then create a new Retention Policy which includes the Retention Tag that was ported and assign it to the user. Once this is completed, the Managed Folders now become, unmanaged; but they will have the created Retention Policy applied to the folder. This essentially provides the exact same settings and experience that the user had before moving to using Retention Tags and Policies for the new unmanaged folders! NOTE: I have moved the mailbox to Exchange Server 2010 at this point

Porting the Managed Folder

New-RetentionPolicyTag -Name '365 –Day Retention Tag' -ManagedFolderToUpgrade '365 Day Retention'

Figure 4: New Retention Policy Tag Created

Creating a New Retention Policy and including the Policy Tag created above

New-RetentionPolicy "365 Day Retention Policy" -RetentionPolicyTagLinks "365 – Day Retention Tag"

Assign the Retention Policy to a User

Set-Mailbox "2007MRMUSER" -RetentionPolicy "365 Day Retention Policy"

Once the above steps have been completed the Managed Folder that existed will show up in the Users Mailbox as regular folders in the mailbox. When you check the Retention Policy Assignment to the folder you will see that the folder is automatically applied with the “365 Day Retention Policy”!!

Figure 5: The Managed Folder shown as regular folders in the Mailbox

Figure 6: Managed Folder now in Outlook Web Access

Figure 7: Properties of the folder showing the 365 Day Retention Policy assigned

NOTE: Any Managed Folders that you ported which did not have any content will be removed. Only folders with content are shown in the mailbox as a regular folder.

I hope that you find the above useful!

We are introducing a major change with Exchange Server 2010 SP2 RU4. To explain the change, let me first set the stage with an example. The user “Delegate” has been assigned Full Mailbox Access and Send As permissions to the user “Manager” mailbox. This is accomplished using the below powershell cmdlets.

Add-ADPermission -identity Manager -User Delegate -ExtendedRights "Send As”

Add-MailboxPermission Manager -User Delegate -AccessRights FullAccess -InheritanceType all

With Exchange Server 2010 SP2 RU3 and lower, whenever Delegate would use Send As permissions and send an e-mail to any user, the item would show up in the Sent Items Folder of Delegate. With Exchange Server 2010 SP2 RU4, this behavior changes. We can now make a copy of the e-mail in the Sent Items folder of the Manager Mailbox. To achieve this functionality we are introducing 2 new powershell cmdlets;

Get-MailboxSentItemsConfiguration

Set-MailboxSentItemsConfiguration

A sample default output of the Get-MailboxSentItemsConfiguration is below. This has been executed against the Manager mailbox

[PS] C:\Windows\system32>Get-MailboxSentItemsConfiguration Manager

RunspaceId                  : 38eb470d-f92d-4381-afa0-5bb7b8741e02

SendAsItemsCopiedTo         : Sender

SendOnBehalfOfItemsCopiedTo : Sender

Identity                    :

IsValid                     : True

Note, the values for SendAsItemsCopiedTo and SendOnBehalfOfItemsCopiedTo. Both attributes have the default value of Sender. The attributes can be configured with any one of two possible values; Sender (Default) or SenderAndFrom 

Let me quickly explain what each of these values mean

• Sender (Default) – This value is the default and will imply that all e-mails sent using Send As or Send on Behalf of permissions are saved only in the Sent Items folder of the Sender (in our case, Delegate user)
• SenderAndFrom – This value implies that e-mails sent using Send As or Send on Behalf of permissions are saved in the Sent Items folder of the Sender and the mailbox on which the permissions are assigned (in our case, both Delegate user and Manager user)

Now, I will use the Set-MailboxSentItemsConfiguration and set the Manager Mailbox SendAsItemsCopiedTo attribute value to SenderAndFrom

[PS] C:\Windows\system32>Set-MailboxSentItemsConfiguration Manager -SendAsItemsCopiedTo SenderAndFrom

[PS] C:\Windows\system32>Get-MailboxSentItemsConfiguration Manager

RunspaceId                  : 38eb470d-f92d-4381-afa0-5bb7b8741e02

SendAsItemsCopiedTo         : SenderAndFrom

SendOnBehalfOfItemsCopiedTo : Sender

Identity                    :

IsValid                     : True

Once this change is made, all e-mails that Delegate user sends using Send As permissions on the Manager user will show up in the Sent Items folder of both, Manager and Delegate. An important point to note is that we no longer require the DelegateSentItemsStyle registry key to be present or set with a value. We also do not require that Outlook be configured to be running in Cached Mode. This change allows Outlook to be running in Online Mode to achieve the required functionality.

We are also introducing this as a self-service option for end users! Users will have the ability to use Outlook Web App (OWA) to set the values as well! Below is a screenshot of the Options in OWA.

IMPORTANT: For this to work, we require that all Client Access Server roles in the Site where the users Mailboxes are created be updated to Exchange Server 2010 SP2 RU4. We also require that all Mailbox Servers that host the mailboxes that require this functionality be updated to Exchange Server 2010 SP2 RU4

I hope that you find the information above useful!