Alfa BBT

Pro-Exchange: Exchange 2007 Notes from the Field

I’ve always wanted to attend an event organized by the Belgian Exchange Community. With 2 very small children there’s always something that seems to pop up last minute however.

Well not this time. The invitation mentioned “lessons learned” and “Exchange 2007 implementations” in one sentence, which sounded like a good combination to me.

Indeed, in a presentation that lasted about 2 hours Tonino covered his personal experiences with Exchange implementations. Both general recommendations concerning the management of an implementation project and technical solutions were discussed. The level of the presentation was just about right. No too technical (don’t want to discus reg keys for 2 hours) but not too much sales pitch either.

I had an interesting evening and will certainly attend some more events in the future!

Note: I’ll add links to the presentation and the Chopsticks video when they become available online.

Session 1: PowerShell v2 (Bart De Smet)

Bart kicked of the last day of this event with a session on PSv2. After outlining the PS mission (as integrated with the OS as bash, as programmatic as Perl/python, as …) he explained the deliverables for PSv2:

• Make it easier to use and learn
• Layer apps on top of PS
• Managed everything, everywhere

The demo’s of Graphical PowerShell, Debugger, new Cmdlets, modules, Native Code and remoting were enough to make me start thinking about installing Win7 on my personal laptop ;-)

Session 2: Sysvol replication – FRS vs. DFS-R (Rhonda Layfield)

Rhonda discussed the strengths and weakness of both FRS (File Replication Service) and DFS-R (Distributed File System – Replication), the benefits of using the latter for sysvol replication and the procedure to migrate from one to the other.

Session 3: Object Recovery in AD (Jorge de Almeida Pinto)

Prior to this session there was a general power cut. The speaker announced a delay of half an hour. But when we returned the presentation had already started. We missed the first couple of slides. Jorge basically covered the solutions for restoring accidentally deleted items from Windows 2000 up to Windows Server 2008 R2, including the new AD Recycle Bin feature.

Session 4: Exchange Server 2007 High Availability (Ilse van Criekinge)

Yet another presentation by Ilse. This time covering Continuous Replication. After uncovering the 4 High Availability methods in Exchange Server 2007 (LCR, SCC, CCR & SCR) she went into a more detailed comparison of SCC (Single Copy Cluster) and CCR (Cluster Continuous Replication).

Last but not least we got into a bit more details about lost log resilience, log roll, reseeding and the transport dumpster.

Session 5: Patching Sharepoint (Sam Hassani)

This session was way to specific for me as I don’t have any particular knowledge about the Product.

Session 6: Network Monitor (Rhonda Layfield)

Rhonda entertained us with with a session about net latest versions of Network Monitor 3.2 & 3.3 beta.

Back to work now…

Session 1: Architectural Principles for Software+Services (Miha Kralj)

The opening keynote was entirely devoted to Software+Services and the differences between on-premises, hosted and cloud computing.

Session 2: Exchange Server 2007 SP1 Virtualisation (Ilse van Criekinge & Arlindo Alves)

Arlindo kicked off the presentation with an overview of the Hyper-V architecture. Afterwards Ilse discussed Microsoft policy for virtualising Exchange Server (basically E2K7SP1 on W2K8 only).

Afterwards we we’re give a number of practical considerations:

• Performance: use passthrough disks, used fixed disks, monitor guest performance (not only the host), do not use differencing disks.
• Design: make your design as if it were a physical setup. Exchange is not “Hyper-V aware”
• Setup: setup is identical to a physical install
• Root config: separate LUNs, no snapshotting, no oversubscribing CPUs above 2:1 (virtual:physical), only install management tools in the parent partition and nothing else
• Guest config: don’t forget about the disk space needed for dumping the guests memory to disk
• Exchange Storage Config
• Backup: from within the guest
• HA & DR: either cluster the guest or the host, but not both!

After a demo of Live Migrating an exchange server (why not play a multimedia file from within a mailbox for this demonstration rather than using xcopy?) we were presented with a number of scenarios were MS believes virtualising exchange might come in handy.

More info on TechNet: Should You Virtualize Exchange 2007 SP1?

Session 3: Windows 7 Overview (Tony Krijnen & Daniel Van Soest)

I guess it’s not the first time Tony and Daniel present something together. Their brought us a very dynamic session which consisted almost entirely of demos showcasing the new features in Windows 7:

• UI improvements (shake it baby!)
• BrancheCache
• DirectAccess
• Security Improvements: User Account Control, IE8 Inprivate Browsing, Applocker, Bitlocker To Go, Network Access Protection
• Recovery Environment

Session 4: Take your Exchange Database anywhere (Ilse van Criekinge)

Yet another Exchange related session I was looking forward to. This time Ilse covered the Exchange 2007 Database Portability feature. She started off by refreshing the Exchange Database technology and continued with a bit of a comparison between the various continuous replication solutions available with E2K7SP1.

Using a real life scenario of dismounted store Isle ran us through the different options (Dialtone recovery) and tools (eseutil, isinteg) available. The demo ended with recovering the database file in a new exchange org.

Session 5: What’s new in R2 for network engineers (Corey Hynes)

Over to Corey again who showcased us the new features  in Windows Server 2008 R2:

• Hyper-V Live Migration
• Management & Operations: PowerShell V2, Server Manager improvements and Best Practice Analyzers
• Active Directory: ADAC (Active Directory Administration Center), Recycle Bin, Offline Domain Join
• Server Core: DISM, ocsetup, .net & asp.net

Session 6: Virtualisation Security (Kai Axford)

Kai Axford got us thinking out loud about how to secure a virtual infrastructure.

Some more pics:

The first day of the TechDays Conference was filled with session on Windows Server 2008 R2, at least for the people following the IT Pro track. Here’s a little transcript of the day:

Session 1: Streamlined Management (Daniel Van Soest)

Daniel’s session covered the improvements brought to us by W2K8R2. He started of with the Unified Management Framework featuring an extended Resource Monitor and Best Practice analyzers for AD, DNS, IIS and so on. Next subject was Server Core which will contain a basic .net framework allowing us to install PowerShell on Server Core. We continued with some  Remote Shell demo’s in the Windows Remote Management section. After tackling some problems with his microphone the coolness factor went crescendo with PowerShell V2:

• Graphical PowerShell via the PowerShell ISE (= Integrated Scripting Environment)
• New AD Cmdlets (See the Pipelining AD blog)
• PowerShell Remoting (The N° 1 disappointment when a initially learned about PS as I was heavily using PSTools at that time for managing servers remotely)

Last but not least we covered the AD Recycle Bin feature as the most important  AD in 2K8R2 improvement.

Session 2: Clustered Shared Volumes (Arlindo Alves)

After a quick break Arlindo discussed this new Windows fail-over clustering feature which allows for concurrent access to cluster disks. Arlindo covered these topics (unfortunately the Internet connection proved a bit flaky during the demos):

• cluster validation tool
• migrate/upgrade scenario’s
• PowerShell support (might replace cluster.exe in the future)
• New High Availability Roles: DFS-Replication & Remote Desktop Services
• CSV are specifically targeted at Hyper-V (all other roles are not supported)
• Network Prioritization is back
• Quick migration vs. Live Migration
• CSV vs. Backup

Session 3: Virtualisation in Server 2008 R2 (Corey Hynes)

Right after lunch Corey Hynes discussed the entire range of virtualisation solutions available in R2; Hyper-V, VDI, Presentation virtualisation etc AND showed us a couple of Windows 7 bluescreens.

Session 4: BrancheCache (Vikram Ghosh)

I had a hard time staying “concentrated” during this session. The least interesting one of the day from my point of view.

Session 5: DirectAccess (Kai Axford)

Kai definitely didn’t have any problems with the audio equipment, as a matter of fact I believe he could do very well without any amplifier at all ;-) He came all the way from Texas to present the DirectAccess feature which aims to replace the VPN technology.

The remainder of the crappy pics (taken with my Nokia 6300 mobile phone):

Let’s hope the demo gods are present tomorrow.

Unfortunately the calendar for TechDays BeLux is “hidden” in some SilverLight animation. I did manage to extract an XML file from the xap packages but couldn’t find a solution to display/import without loosing to much time. I ended up compiling my agenda using ordinary screenshots (see below).

I sincerely hope they use a more blogger friendly solution next time.

Preconference

Day 1

Day 2