Dougs Blog... (rarely) daily

The support stance for virtualising Exchange Server 2010 SP1 has changed significantly over the last few days and seems pretty unambiguous. However you need to be a bit careful about what actually is and isn’t supported. The statement from Kevin Allinson...

Microsoft Services in the UK are actively recruiting.. “ You have unique experiences, skills and passions—and we believe you can bring them all to Microsoft for a rich, rewarding career and lifestyle that will surprise you with its breadth and potential...

A very quick summary of Office 365 blogs, wiki’s and articles… Exchange Online – the first place to start (includes some useful screenshots)… Office 365 Beta BLOG and WIKI …  An RSS feed off the blog is a useful source of Office 365 news. ( Take...

Are you running the latest version of Jetstress 2010 against data created using the beta ?  If so then you may see some very strange results because there are some minor updates from the beta version which mean that you cannot mix databases created...

This is one of those blogs that it’s worth absorbing.. Using Cmdlet Extension Agents to cause automatic events to occur in Exchange 2010 - life just got simpler! by Pat Richard . Cmdlet Extension Agents are something that will be very new to most Exchange...

MMMUG are getting physical meetings going again. To kick off their first meeting after re-launch, they’re going to have an evening discussing Exchange 2010 SP1 on Thursday July 15th 2010 . The event will take place at the BSG Offices at BSG House, 226...

Once you’ve determined the number of Exchange Server 2010 mailbox database copies you’re going to use it makes sense to deploy a complimentary number of mailbox servers in the DAG .  If you decide to go with an odd number of database copies go with...

So as the TechNet article ( Understanding Datacenter Activation Coordination Mode ) explains you can’t enable DAC mode in Exchange Server 2010 for a DAG where all members are in the same AD site…  So what happens if you lose your primary data centre...

So it’s been a poor second half of the year as far as blogging goes….  First half wasn’t too bad though.  Must endeavour to do better next year.  I’ll think about it over Christmas. Happy Christmas to all…

At last funding and time permitted me to attend the Microsoft Certified Master program last month in Redmond.  Fantastic and intense 3 weeks.  Certainly recommend anyone who has the opportunity to get there to do so…  It’s a big investment...

Exchange Server 2010 Reviews Microsoft Exchange 2010 Beta Looks Solid from Core to Cloud (and related slideshow Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Includes Welcome Improvements ) – eWeek First look: Exchange 2010 beta shines – InfoWorld Exchange Server 2010...

Nice tool to help you sort out problems accessing Exchange from out on the Internet. For more information see the blog on You Had Me At EHLO.. here and there is a quick presentation on Edge.TechNet.com here . Test EAS with Windows Mobile 5, EAS with Windows...

This is a great blog if you are wondering about some unusual behaviour in Active Directory – specifically the following: “- Why has my AD database size increased by 500MB in the last three weeks?  - I see lots of AD replication in Domain Controller...

Have had this discussion on many occasions and this 3Sharp whitepaper by Missy Koslosky would have proved very useful as an external reference point… High Availability Choices for Exchange Server 2007: Continuous Cluster Replication or Single Copy Clustering...

Just found this DPM book:  ‘ Mastering System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 ’ by Devin L. Ganger (Author), Ryan Femling (Author) [..both 3Sharp, LLC] Has anyone read it?  Is it any good for Exchange?

This is worth a quick read if you are interested in what’s happening with Exchange in the cloud at Live@Edu and Google Apps … “Both Queensland University for Technology (QUT) and Ohio State University (OSU) have now signed up to Live@edu, Microsoft’s...

Go to VirtualizationFeed.com and get the latest on virtualisation in Microsoft and in the wider world. Also worth keeping track of what’s happening in the #virtualization community on Twitter at the same place .

Quick list of the blog articles that have helped me and might help you…   10 Steps to Becoming a Better Writer 21 Ways to Make Your Blog or Website Sticky 20 Types of Pages that Every Blogger Should Consider How to Write With Confidence   7...

Exchange alternatives: Pros and cons Testing shows Microsoft's Exchange still tops for features and management hooks @ http://www.networkworld.com/reviews/2009/030909-exchange-alternatives-test.html “In this Clear Choice Test, we explore how Exchange...

VMWare Podcasts – VMWAre Infrastructure 3 Podcast: Disaster Recovery (DR) for Exchange using VMWare @ http://www.vmware.com/resources/podcasts/server_consolidation.html by Scott Salyer, VMware Technical Solutions Architect Using VMWare infrastructure...

‘Effective PowerShell: The Free eBook’ from Keith Hill available on Keith Hills’ blog here . Definitely worth a look…

You gotta laugh…

Just found some useful stuff on a colleagues blog - Gerod Serafin ; a field engineer in the US. It’s a series of blogs showing the difference in administering Exchange Server 2007 from Exchange Server 2003… Part 1 - I used to do it this way… Now how do...

Not something I would normally blog about but will be interesting to any of our partners who operate in this space. Guide to Opportunity: Software-plus-Services https://partner.microsoft.com/UK/productssolutions/40099765 This 16-page guide explains how...

Let’s leave the “ why would you? ” to one side for the moment but is it actually possible or supported to defrag a continuous replication target database?  Well not surprisingly er ‘No’.  An offline defrag creates a new database with a new signature...