MCTS (Exchange 2007 Configuration) passed

Yesterday i cleared my MCTS exchange 2007 Configuration exam. The Exam was properly designed and most answers required experience and hands-on. Preparation of any exam always give you an overview of the complete product and normally one gets to now the features which he normally ignored in day to day operations.

For this exam preparation i used following items;

1. MS self paced guide.

2. Virtualized Exchange 2007 Environment.

3. TechNet Exchange Articles.

4. Practice Tests.

MS self paced guide are very well written and normally it gives you 70% preparation rest is your practical experience and TechNet research.

Edge server Configured as Regional or Remote Site Mail relay server

I have one of the requirements from my regional Admins to allow mail relay for their regions. Mostly they want mail relay for;

1.local exchange or SMTP servers.

2. Printers and scanners wants to send emails

3. Devices and Application servers wants to send alert notifications.

4. Some of the devices and servers only support Anonymous permissions settings.

In order to provide this functionality, i can create a site specific receive connector on HUB and allow only their specific server IPs to allow relay emails, but there is a problem, i don't have any control on their site and server security and allowing relay directly to HUB server means their communication is directly terminating to our Enterprise/Business zone which is a high security risk. I thought why shouldn’t i use my edge servers sitting in DMZ zone and allow relay from them? .  I have checked connectivity of these sites from DMZ and found that i can reach them. I was researching on it and had also discussed it with one of my friends (Nicolas Blank, an expert in exchange configuration and migration) he also agreed on my idea and had guided me to following article

http://www.msexchange.org/articles_tutorials/exchange-server-2007/security-message-hygiene/using-exchange-2007-edge-server-mail-relay-exchange-2003-organization-part1.html

After reading this article i am now more confident about this configuration, I think that in a scenario where we don't have any control on remote site security and we have a demand to open anonymous security then its better to open relay on edge servers rather then on HUB servers.

Active Directory Schema Modification Documentation

I was working on one project and wants to get some details regarding AD schema, luckily i found following link contains plethora of information about AD schema and also discussing how Microsoft itself is managing their schema, check it out;

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb687810.aspx

Exchange Public Folder information

I was researching on some public folder stuff and luckily found a very good Microsoft TechNet article on same. check out the link;

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124684(EXCHG.65).aspx

Sending Emails from external ids to Exchange Public folder

If you want to enable external emails (hotmail, yahoo etc) to public folders then you have to make sure that anonymous permissions on PF is set to contributor. vice versa if you want to disable external emails to any PF then you have to set anonymous permissions on any PF to none.

Gartner 2008 Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications

Yesterday i reviewed Gartner report on UC and found it very informative and interesting. following is the link;

http://mediaproducts.gartner.com/reprints/microsoft/vol6/article1/article1.html

Outlook Troubleshooting

Most of the time we face lot of complains that users are not able to access their emails on outlook or exchange is not responding, in most of the cases client's outlook has some problem and users don't realize it. Following are some of the steps which will be handy in troubleshooting these types of issues and also narrow downing the problem scope;

Test 1 : Testing OWA:

1. Get the troubled user user id and password and test from OWA or ask him to open his mailbox via OWA.

2 . or create a test Mail account and Access OWA from it to verify that Exchange is working fine and user is able to access their emails.

If OWA is working fine then we have to concentrate on Client side troubleshooting else we have to look at the server side and check CAS servers and ISA severs (If reverse proxy is in use) (i will discuss server side troubleshooting in my next blog).

Test 2: Deleting Addins Registry Keys:

1. Logon to a troubled user machine.

2. Navigate to the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Addins
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Addins
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Exchange\Client\Extensions (If it exists)
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Exchange\Client\Extensions (If it exists)

3. Export the keys (for backup purpose), right click each subkey and click Delete.

 

Test 3: Configure Selected Startup:

1. Go to Run and type msconfig.

2. Select Selective Startup in General Tab.

3. Click to clear Process SYSTEM.INI file, Process WIN.INI File and Load Startup Items.

4. Click tab Services and select option Hide All Microsoft Services, and click button Disable All and click OK

5. Restart computer.

Test 4: Check if issue is occurring in Cached Mode:

Create a Outlook profile with Exchange cached mode and then test.

Test 5 : Check if issue is occurring in Online Mode:

Change Outlook profile in online mode, and open Outlook again and then test.

Test 6: Configure outlook profile for using RPC over HTTP:

1. Open outlook profile configuration and select Connections Tab

2. In the outlook Anywhere selection check connect to Ms exchange using HTTP.

3. Enter OWA address in exchange URL text box.

4. Assuming that user is sitting in a LAN environment, select “On Slow networks, Connect using HTTP first, then connect using TCP/IP.

5. Select Proxy server authentication settings based on your exchange server configuration.

6. Click OK.

7. Close Outlook completely. verify that there is no outlook.exe process visible in task manager.

8. Launch outlook again.

9. Hold control and press right click on outlook icon in system tray.

10. Click on connection status and verify that all connections are established by using HTTPS protocol not TCP/IP protocol.

Test outlook by sending and receiving emails. If this works then it means there might be some TCP/IP (RPC) communication problem between your client and server. You have to involve your network team and verify that if there is any network device causing issue or playing with the TCP/IP settings or TCP/IP packets.