So at Tech-Ed 2008 EMEA IT Pro, I heard very little about the next version of my favorite groupware solution: Exchange 14.

Also searching the net, didn't come up with a lot of results. But that is probably because there is still a non-disclosure agreement in place on those who already know more. Grrrrr.

On the other side; it does mean I can speculate at will :-)

*Update 1-dec-2008* Added new item, prefaced with NEW

What do I know (some of it heard on TechEd)?

• Public Folders will return and will be supported for 10 years after the release of E14 (see Updated Exchange Public Folder Guidance);
• The Unified Communications Role will contain 26 spoken languages (I believe it is 15 at the moment) and will voice recognize 25 (this was one!);
• The migration path to E14 was very complicated at first, but after consultations was optimized;
• NEW: The use of more variables for Hub Transport Rules (Just remembered hearing this one on TechEd. I'm hoping for more user specific variables);
  

What do I think will be implemented?

• Almost 100% functionality in non-IE browsers (look at OCS);
• Merging of storage group and database (I do not even implement more than one DB per storage group);
• Online Mailbox moves without disabling access for the user at the start of moving items (pleasant for users with very large mailboxes);
• Runs only on Windows Server 2008 (perhaps even R2?).

What am I hoping for?

• Opening of specific folders of others users via OWA, without having full control;
• User customizable group calendars in OWA (preferably the same as in Outlook);
• Centralized configuration of Document folders in OWA (i.e. homefolder as a favorite); 
• Edge transporter support for Windows Core server (yeah, not really something the Exchange team can do something about);
• Better Public Folder Management;

So what do you think that will be implemented or like to see? It will be fun to compare this to specifications officially released by Microsoft!

Disclaimer: these features are possible subject to change and I could misheard/misunderstood what I have heard or read. And for some legal matters: I did not see any builds of E14 in any way, nor did I signed a non disclosure agreement. With the exception of Public Folders, consider this speculation at best!

The last day of Tech-Ed...

Ilse van Criekinge started with certificates and Exchange in "UCN315 - Certificates and Exchange 2007: Best Practices and Lessons". Although I already encountered expired self-signed certificates (those things are only valid for a year....), it was very nice to see this confirmed. As Exchange Server 2007 relies more on encrypted communications, it is imperative to know how certificates come in play. Very good start of the day!

The second session was "UNC317 - Exchange Server SP1 and Hyper-V". Most of the things I already knew (intuitively), but hearing some Exchange Server roles perform better on Hyper-V than direct on the hardware was very good to hear. Microsoft's ability in catching up with other Virtualization products also impressed me.

During the lunch sessions slot I decided to follow "UNC03-PD Benefits of Office Communications Server 2007 R2 in the daily business", as I felt like I had to give OCS the benefit of the doubt. That was a wise decision, the product demo was a good example of how companies can benefit from OCS. In the demo it was integrated with Exchange Server 2007 and more importantly with Microsoft CRM. The CRM client interface immediately showed the customer information using CallerID when he/she phoned this company. Brilliant!

I recently had a customer that really wanted Blackberries in their environment, even when I explained that Windows Mobile could be an alternative. Not really knowing what the differences was I attended "MBL402 - Windows Mobile as Secure as Blackberry - are you Joking?". The session was fun and very informative and in my opinion not at al bashing at Blackberry. Let's just say that I was surprised with some of the security issues of Blackberry devices, but also of ActiveSync enabled devices (like the iPhone, so not Windows Mobile). This will definitely come back in my consulting assignments.

The last session by Mark Russinovich "SEC307 Windows Security Boundaries", was quite illuminating in the internal processes of Windows and when an issue will recieve a fix or not. A good explanation of wether something is a security boundary or not. This is valuable knowledge when engaged in an OS security discussion (which probably will come up in a Windows versus "A much better OS" discussion)!

Overall

It was a rewarding, fun, interesting but also exhausting week. That's why I didn't update this blog immediately.... Unfortunately I didn't get to see Barcelona as much as I would have liked to. But I did see enough to want to return on a holiday.

Next year in Berlin. Will I be there again? At the end of this week I really do want that. Not just for Berlin, but mostly for acquiring knowledge and new viewpoints.

In my humble opinion, Tech-Ed really did lift me up a bit and made me a better IT Pro!

After really waking up, I joined "UNC302 Coexistence and Migration with Exchange Online". It was an insightful session: a lot of customers can benefit from this choice. Probably midsize and smaller companies who have to migrate from a non-Microsoft groupware platform, will be interested in Exchange Online. I was pleased, that also the things that didn't work were discussed. Especially co-existence scenarios will have issues (free/busy for instance).

During lunch the session I planned to take was already full, but after that I attended  "CLI02-PD MDOP: not for first timers - we'll demo the new features in App-V 4.5 (formerly Softgrid)". Especially because there was no other Unified Communications session I wanted to follow and just minutes before I received word that the project I am currently involved in, is incorporating application virtulization (although with Softgrid). And I did learn some basic things of the technology.

The session "UNC307 High Availability in Exchange 2007 SP1, Part 2: Disaster Recovery and Site Resilience (SCR deep dive)" was very informative. It covered different total site failures and different strategies coping with them with different implementations: Continuous Clustered Replication (CCR) and Standby Clustered Replication (SCR). This session really opened my eyes when it comes to clustering your Exchange server.

After the last session I decided to skip the next. I didn't feel like I was going to stay awake, so back to the hotel early and take a nap :-)

Well, oversleeping is not a good thing. Also checking the starting time of a session is also a good thing to do... So, unfortunately I missed "UNC03-IS Q&A: Exchange Server 2007 Continuous Replication Deep Dive". Nice to know about log shipping, inspection and replay for high availability options. I already skipped "UNC306 High Availability in Exchange 2007 SP1, Part 1: Continuous Replication and Failover Clusters (CCR/SCC deep dive)" for other things, but now I regret that. So in a few moments I do want to go to "UNC307 High Availability in Exchange 2007 SP1, Part 2: Disaster Recovery and Site Resilience (SCR deep dive)".

Luckily I did the CCR Handson Lab, so I think I can manage this. Especially the SCR (Standby Continuous Replication) function of Exchange Server 2007 has my interest.

The day started good with "UNC05-IS Q&A: Migrating Domino and Groupwise to Exchange 2007". I actually recently had to write a proposition for a Domino 5.0.5 migration to Exchange Server 2007 with Blackberry and with that in mind I attended this session.

This was a great interactive session, a lot of stuff that I didn't realise came up. I already knew that the Transporter Suite only migrates from Domino 5.x and cannot realize a long-term co-existence. What I forgot to take in account where for instance Recurring Appointments, or that Notes users potentially use Views instead of Folders to arrange their mail. And Outlook and Exchange hits a performance problem when having large amounts of items (5000 in rtm i think) in one folder....

"UNC02-PD Protecting Exchange Data with Data Protection Manager" was a great product demo and I see more and more of the potential of PDM. The implementation of the server and the agent are very simple. Restoring is also very simple and admin friendly. Yes, other backup solution providers can learn from this!

Partly because of the last session I decided to go to the instructor led session "UNC01-ILL (R) Data Protection Manager 2007 - Protecting Exchange Server". It was more a talk than really handson, but the product is really simple and a relief compared to other products.

Following I took the "UNC401 ESE Internals" session. Very technical and dry, but I expected it from this database technology. Unfortunately this was the last session of the day, this would have been better as a morning or lunch session.  I was beat!

Well, as OCS didn't really do it for me (yet?), i decided to skip my intended session and joined Sander at "SEC05-IS Cybercrime: The Art of Identity Theft!".  It was as much fun as it was scary and shows how easy identity theft can be. Andy Malone showed some of the websites and tools used, which are mostly available freely.

Next on the list was "UNC303 Advanced Troubleshooting Strategies for Exchange Server 2007". A very educational session and very helpful to see how an Microsoft Exchange technician is handling Exchange troubles.

The following quote of the speaker made this session a top one: "Exchange is the worlds most largest monitoring tool". And I can attest to that. If your AD, DNS, IIS or Storage is having troubles, your users will probably call you because their mail isn't working. Also the under promoted Exchange Management Shell cmdlet test-systemhealth will be in my standard set when troubleshooting from now on.

Session "MBL03-PD Windows Mobile - what's new and what's cool?" was a bit disappointing for me.  The speaker and the presentation where perfectly fine, but the content was not at all new for me. Only the Live Mesh stuff (online synchronization of multiple devices) were relatively new for me, but it didn't feel like a big revolution. Just an evolution of known techniques.

In between I decided to do some Hands On Labs. I completed two: "UNC08-HOL Deploying and Configuring Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007" and "UNC13-HOL Using Exchange Server 2007 Cluster Continuous Replication". It turned out that both implementations are not that very hard to realize. Especially implementing CCR was fun to do and clarified a lot for me.

Session "UNC304 Migrating to Exchange Server 2007", I almost decided not to go to this session, because I thought I knew enough about migrations. Boy, was I wrong! Let's just say I probably going to review some of the migrations I have done or planned... :-)

The evening was spent with Sander and a former coworker. Dining at the Hilton and watching (part) of the U.S. Presidential Elections in the Hilton Lobby. Another long night...

Mmhh, I intended to post more regularly, but there so much other things to do, see and absorb!

Day 1 started with keynote of Brad Anderson, General Manager Management and Service Division. System Center stuff and such. During the keynote they showed real nice management tools like System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008, which even can interact and manage non-windows systems (think VMWare, SuSe etc., even with their logo's). That really put a smile on my face.

The technical sessions that I chose where both about Office Communications Server 2007 R2. Namely "UNC202 What's New in Office Communications Server 2007 R2" and "UNC201 What's New in mobility and web access with Office Communications Server 2007 R2". Both good sessions, it showed the direct of OCS: namely the replacement of the PBX and that the only phone will be your Windows Mobile phone. I think that could happen, but I still see some need for improvements. The Telephone from Work callback for instance feels a bit cumbersome to me.

The evening was spent at the Welcome Reception and exploring Barcelona at night.

What's in store for today? First of al the keynote by Brad Anderson, General Manager Management and Services Division.

The first sessions for me wil be: "UNC202 - What's New in Office Communications Server 2007 R2", followed by "UNC201 - What's New in mobility and web access with OCS 2007 R2".

OCS is fairly unknown to me. I did see some of the capabilities demonstrated, but never had hand-on experience or implemented it in a production environment. Until now always some other product or project had priority over me trying out OCS, perhaps these sessions will change that.

So, just about two hours before the plain leaves to Barcelona. Yep, I'm going to Tech-Ed EMEA. Five days of sessions, meeting and such. I hope to blog every day on the stuff I learned and the people I met.

So stay tuned!

For those who don't really know what Circular logging is, here a short explanation which hopefully makes the importance more clear. Circular logging is the option for Exchange, tot reuse it's transaction log files. Transaction log files are buffer files which are used to enhance the performance of the Exchange Server. Being 5 or 1MB (resp. Exchange 2000 and 2003 versus 2007) in size, these are the files where all maildata is stored before being committed to the Exchange Store. Normally those files are only flushed (deleted) when an Exchange Full backup of the storage group in question has been performed.

Now comes the kicker. With a full store backup and the transaction logs of that storage group, you can restore your store up until the moment it went belly up. How? Transaction log replay!. Every mail or other groupware item has been (temporarily) stored in the transaction logs, up until a full backup. This means that you can restore an Exchange server up until the failure, when you have intact transaction logs and a successfully made full backup of your store(s). Just restore your Exchange Store and initiate log replay, that's that. But when you enable Circular Logging, this restore option is not available to you and you have lost data generated between the moment from your full backup and the failure. Many organizations will find this unacceptable, especially when they know there are solutions for it.

But what are valid reasons to enable this option? Surely, Microsoft didn't put it there without reason? Indeed they didn't. Below is a list of scenarios in which Circular Logging is a valid or even wise option to enable IMHO:

I've got no room left.

Yeah, sometimes you or your predecessors didn't expect the amount of data to reach the limits of you physical storage unit. Transaction logs take up about the same amount of data generated by you, your users and received data (including spam if you didn't filter it out at an earlier stage), between two successful full store backups.

Time to evaluate you capacity management, pick a fight with your predecessor and kick yourself for not noticing and supplying your servers with more storage capacity on time. Not a valid reason in my book, but being lenient I also acknowledge the fact that sometimes you are working in a less than perfect situation. Therefore not a whole reason but just 0.5 of a reason and only a temporary one at best.

I want it there.

Astute readers noticed that with the previous reason, I told you that your users, received data and yourself generate data which end up in the transaction logs. That's right, you are also a culprit! Every time you move a mailbox from and to another server (or store on the same server for that matter) transaction logs are used. It's something you notice when you transition to a new server and move all mailboxes. This can hurt, if you are not prepared (yes, I have felt hurt...).

In the front, but not in the back

With Exchange 2000 and Exchange Server 2003 it became possible to construct a front-end/back-end scenario. The back-end Exchange server(s) contained the data and are situated within you inside network. The front-end Exchange server was placed in the perimeter network (if you were doing it the Microsoft way), in any case it was the only internet facing server. It is tasked with cleaning, offloading, client access and such doesn't has the need for storing mailboxes and thus stores, that is what the back-end servers are for.

Unfortunately the case is not that simple. In order to to send Non Delivery Reports (NDR), convert between mail formats (curse you Linux users! )and for most of the malware applications, you do need an Exchange store. Because there is no mailbox situated (if you have done your job right), there is no need for a backup and you can safely turn on Circular logging.

It's just not that important

This last reason was something I recently realized. While configuring the Exchange server in preparations of a transition from Exchange Server 2003, the client decided they wanted to temporarily store mailboxes of users who left the organization. Not very often, but often enough a user would return or other users (their previous manager for instance) needed information out of that mailbox. Having it still available through Exchange is much more user friendly than providing a PST file (and prevents entering the PST Hell). Just an extra service regarding your users!

For the aforementioned reasons I created a separate Storage Group and Store. Reasoning that the mailbox would be placed there after a full backup had been performed earlier, the mailbox data had a low priority etc. etc. the need for a complete restore was at a minimum. The store would not be a part of a normal backup selection (not daily or weekly) and the mailboxes would not be that active with important mails. So for similar situations, this can be a valid reason to enable circular logging.

Conclusion

So, there you have it. 3.5 reasons to enable Circular logging without having to frown. Of course there could be more scenario's which I haven't encountered before or failed to imagine. If you did or if you disagree on some of the reasons I mention above, please let me know.

After some gently persuasion of a good colleague I've decided to start this blog.

I'm Dave Stork, currently 32 years, married with no kids (unless you count the dog). After receiving my masters in biology, i decided to make a career change to IT. Currently I'm 7 years employed by the same company. In those years I have developed myself somewhat as an Microsoft Exchange specialist.

What am I going to write about? Probably mostly about my experiences with Microsoft products, with a special interest in Exchange. But don't be suprised if you read about other technologies from other companies. My overall interest is the technologies needed for remote working, with an emphasis on webbased solutions (Webbased SSL VPN, OWA, Sharepoint etc.), so don't expect much Citrix and Terminal Services articles.

Non work related interest are: Science (especially Astronomy and Biology), Science Fiction in all it's forms, Movies and TV, Games and probably more.

So, I hope I can make a valuable contribution. If you have questions and/or suggestions, feel free to contact me!