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Strategic Messaging Exchange Server 2010

Strategic Messaging Exchange Server 2010 – Technical Decisions for Next Generation Messaging is a free, half-day seminar sponsored by Microsoft and TechTarget.

Session 1: Exchange 2010: Accelerate Your Understanding
Led by Lee Benjamin
This session begins by examining the history of Exchange and the issues and pain points of the earlier versions, such as memory, database, and scalability limits, as well as DR and clustering complexity, to name just a few. It will then go on to examine Exchange Server 2010 as the next evolutionary step from Exchange 2003 and Exchange 2007. Our expert speaker Lee Benjamin also discusses the architecture of Exchange 2010, and drills down into some of the improved features in the latest version, such as:

  • Topology changes: what are implications in moving from the Front-End/Back-End topology of 2003, to the 5 Role’s in 2007, and enhancements in 2010 such as moving MAPI/Outlook access to the CAS and off the Mailbox server role
  • The Database Availability Group (DAG): perhaps the single most significant change in the Exchange Server design, a look at the storage model that supports DAGs, and what does this say about good old backup and recovery
  • High availability and resilience features: IT can now configure up to 16 Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 mailbox servers to provide automatic database-level recovery from a database, server or network failure
  • Performance: learn how transitioning to Exchange 2010 decreases IOPS by 70% for Exchange 2007 users and by 90% for Exchange 2003 users
  • Transition and migration: how to get from Exchange 2007 or Exchange 2003 or potentially earlier versions, what tools are available, and where to go for the most up to date information
  • And more

Lee finishes his session with a live Q&A session during which he will take questions from the audience and provide his personalized expert advice.

Session 2: Introduction to Exchange Server 2010
Led by Microsoft
Exchange Server 2010 is the cornerstone of Microsoft’s unified communications solution.  Hear how this latest release helps customers achieve new levels of reliability and performance, by delivering features that help simplify administration, protect communications, and delight users.  This session will highlight key innovations and enhancements made in Exchange 2010 across three product investment areas: “Flexible and Reliable”, “Anywhere Access”, and “Protection and Compliance”.

Technical Solution Sessions

  • Exchange 2010: Three Server and Storage Architecture Models from Dell to Maximize Your ROI
    Led by Dell
  • Assisting and Accelerating Upgrades to Exchange Server 2010
    Led by CommVault
  • Best Practices for Migrating to and Managing Exchange 2010
    Led by Quest Software

Application Ready Guide for Exchange 2010 from F5

With Exchange Server 2010 it’s finally possible to have a fully redundant solution with just 2 servers (as opposed to 4 servers with previous version). Nevertheless, it’s still not possible to use NLB (for the CAS servers, assuming collocation) together with DAG.

Although there are some more or less creative solutions, such as using virtual machines, the recommended configuration is to use external hardware load balancers.

F5 has recently released some Application Ready Solutions Guides for Exchange Server 2010:

Enjoy!

Outlook Synchronization in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

Microsoft released recently the technical document Outlook Synchronization in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0.

Brief Description
This document describes the client synchronization process that is associated with Update Rollup 7 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 or later (for on-premise deployments) and with Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online November 2009 Service Update or later (for online deployments).

Overview
Both the online and offline versions of the CRM Outlook Client support synchronizing CRM contacts and CRM activities to Outlook folders, or Outlook synchronization. Outlook synchronization enables Outlook users to view Dynamics CRM information, including contacts, tasks, phone calls, letters, faxes, appointments, and e-mails, within the Outlook interface. This document describes the client synchronization process that is associated with Update Rollup 7 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 or later (for on-premise deployments) and with Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online November 2009 Service Update or later (for online deployments).

Forefront Protection for Exchange @ TechNet Edge

There are a couple of cool videos around the subject of Forefront Protection for Exchange that were recently published at TechNet Edge:

  • Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Customer story - Magnus Bjork, Exchange consultant for Mailmaster.se based in Sweden, lets us know his thoughts on Forefront Protection for Exchange products.  At the end of the interview, he gives us an general tip from his experience using FPE/FOPE.
  • FPE Customer Story - Christian Weber, Exchange consultant for SUL based in Germany, lets us know his thoughts on Forefront Protection for Exchange products.  He first starts out telling us about an issue in the TAP program they worked through and then gets into backscatter support and the costs they have saved.  At the end of the interview, he gives us an architecture tip from his experience using FPE/FOPE.
  • FPE vs FOPE and Exchange 2010 - Mike Chan, PM for the Forefront team, breaks down the differences between security protection for Forefront Protection for Exchange (FPE) and Forefront Online Protection for Exchange (FOPE).  We start out with a brief history of the messaging products and then dig into the details of differences between FPE and FOPE and how it plugs into Exchange 2010 on the whiteboard at [4:22].  Should you run FPE alone or FPE and FOPE?  Watch and decide.
  • Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Deployment and Performance - Alexander Nikolayev joins us again to dive deep into the deployment and some performance for Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange. We answer questions like:
    • Where should I place FPE and why? 
    • What is the performance cost of putting FPE on Exchange? [9:27]
    • Increase in amount of messages processed per second over the previous verison of FPE (Forefront Server Security for Exchange)
    • Things to think about with deciding how many AV engines you run and how the dynamic engine option works
    • General Tips on capacity planning

The Experts Conference 2010

The Experts Conference 2010 will take place in Los Angeles between 25 and 28 of April.

Here’s the list of the sessions that will be offered at The Experts Conference for Exchange 2010:

Keynote: Exchange 2010 Enterprise Deployment and Architecture at Microsoft
Speaker: Konstantin Ryvkin
In the last several years the evolution of enterprise e-mail software and systems has taken a giant leap forward – not only in user facing features, but also in the core elements of messaging infrastructure, deployment, scalability and operations.  This is especially true for Exchange 2010, which opens new capabilities in nearly every area  — from cost effective e-mail storage designs and disaster recovery options through scalable client connectivity and integration with cloud based services.  All these new capabilities can be best observed on the example of one of the world’s largest Exchange 2010 enterprise deployments – Microsoft’s own. This keynote will provide an overview and a series of deep dives into the most interesting aspects of Exchange 2010 enterprise deployment and architecture at Microsoft.  Come and join this session for a discussion around challenges, implemented solutions, best practices and lessons learned during the design and transition of the nearly 200,000 seat Microsoft’s messaging environment to Exchange 2010. Topics include: Exchange storage selection and design, disaster recovery solutions, scaling client access services, integrating with outlook.com hosted e-mail services and many more.

NDA Session:  Exchange “15″ Requirements Gathering
Speaker: Karl Bystrom

Are you passionate about influencing the next wave of Exchange Server? As Exchange evolves, in addition to continuing to improve the features, Microsoft also continues to refine the management experience. This session will discuss some of the early themes for the design of the next versions of Exchange management and end user experience. You’ll have an opportunity to provide feedback and suggestions regarding tasks, priorities, and design directions. Note: Attendance in this session will require a signed NDA from each delegate; the NDA form will be provided prior to the session.  Note: Attendance in this session will require a signed NDA from each delegate; the NDA form will be provided prior to the session.

NDA Session:  Exchange 2010 SP1  – Notes from the Field
Speaker: David Espinoza

Exchange 2010 was released to the public on Nov 9th 2009 and now with the new release of Service Pack 1, you will want to find out what is new and why it matters in the newest release of Exchange 2010. Not only will you find out what is new in Service Pack 1, you will also get a valuable perspective on this latest release — one that you will not find anywhere else.  Why?  Because you will hear from the perspective of a Technology Adopter Program (TAP) senior PM that help customers deploy tens of thousands of mailboxes into production while the service pack was in its beta stage! Don’t miss out on the hard-won lessons of these early adopters that have already deployed Exchange 2010 SP1. Dig in and discover not only what’s new in SP1, but how to put the new reliability, scalability, and security enhancements in Exchange 2010 SP1 to work for you!  Note: Attendance in this session will require a signed NDA from each delegate; the NDA form will be provided prior to the session.

Exchange & Rights Management Services
Speaker: Ilse Van Criekinge

In this session you will see how you can secure your mail environment, by using the power of Rights Management Server (RMS). You will get an overview of RMS, and you will see what efforts have been done to integrate it in Exchange 2010 to allow you to offer a secure messaging environment.

Exchange On-premises or In the Cloud?
Speaker: Ilse Van Criekinge

In this session you will be provided with an overview of what differences you need to keep in mind when deciding to go on-premise or in-the-cloud with your messaging environment.

Exchange Server 2010 – Architecture
Speaker:
Scott Schnoll

This session describes the overall architecture of Exchange Server 2010 and key considerations for the scalability and performance of each server role. This session provides the background and framework for the other Exchange 2010 sessions, serving as a bridge between the overview session and drill-downs in each product area.

Exchange Server 2010 – Backup & Recovery Using VSS
Speaker:
Juergen Hasslauer

Microsoft deemphasized the streaming backup API with Exchange Server 2007. With Exchange Server 2010 you have to use Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) because the streaming API is deprecated. In this session we will explain the architecture of VSS and provide an overview how the VSS components interact during a backup / restore of an Exchange database. You will learn what you have to consider during your storage design. Should I use a hardware provider or a software provider solution? What tools are available to troubleshoot VSS? These are the questions we will discuss in the session. This will help you to better plan your backup infrastructure and understand what happens in the background during a backup / restore of an Exchange database.

Exchange Server 2010: Design Validation using Jetstress & LoadGen
Speaker:
Juergen Hasslauer

You finished the design concept of your new Exchange Server environment. Are you confident that it will fulfill the requirements of your users? Are you sure that the latency of the storage subsystem is within the supportability boundaries defined by Microsoft? How can you verify if your Client Access Server is able to handle the predicted number of concurrent connections from your mobile workforce using Outlook Web Access and Outlook Anywhere? We will discuss how you can use Jetstress to test your storage subsystem. You will learn how to use LoadGen to simulate users accessing the Exchange environment with different protocols. This will enable you to validate your design and be confident that you identify issues before you move the Exchange environment to production.

Exchange Server 2010: Mailbox Replication Service: The Robot Who Makes Mailbox Migrations Less Painful
Speaker:
Dmitri Gavrillov

This talk will concentrate on the Mailbox Replication Service (MRS), a new agent in E2010, responsible for performing mailbox moves asynchronously and reliably. It will examine such topics as online mailbox moves, automatic error recovery, distributed throttling, and controlling MRS with *-MoveRequest cmdlets. We will also discuss cross-org migrations, both Remote through MRSProxy webservice and RemoteLegacy through LDAP and MAPI. We will talk about cross-org move prerequisites and how to avoid deploying GalSync.

Exchange Web Services (EWS) in PowerShell
Speaker: Michael B. Smith

Exchange Web Services (EWS) is the only approved solution for accessing Exchange data using managed languages (e.g., C#). The original release was difficult to work with, because each developer or script writer was required to write their own XML class factory. With Exchange 2010 and Exchange 2007 sp2, Microsoft released the EWS managed API which makes EWS easily accessible and usable within PowerShell (and, of course, any other solution based on the .NET CLR). In this session, you’ll learn how to use the EWS Managed API and perform several common tasks; including sending e-mail, iterating through a mailbox, and a few other things that the Exchange administrator often needs to do. Come join for this fun and fast-paced session. PowerShell knowledge is assumed!

High Availability in Exchange Server 2010
Speaker:
Scott Schnoll

Welcome to the future! The future of Exchange high availability, that is. In this session, we reveal the changes and improvements to the built-in high availability platform in Exchange Server 2010. Exchange 2010 includes a unified framework for high availability and disaster recovery that is quick to deploy and easy to manage. Learn about all of the new features in Exchange 2010 that make it the most resilient, highly available version of Exchange ever.

Office Communications Server 2007 R2 – Integration with the Cisco Telephony platform – Notes from the Field
Anthony Vitnell

To achieve Unified Communications with Office Communications Server 2007 R2 and Cisco Unified Communications Manager produces countless integration scenarios that each provide different capabilities and benefits. Achieving telephony integration with Cisco Unified CallManager is a complex task, dependent on the versions implemented and additional Cisco/ 3rd party software is often required. We will walk you through what level of integration can be achieved for each version of Cisco Unified CallManager, discuss the configuration requirements, and creative strategies to remove some of the limitations with older versions. This session will provide you with the information to determine the appropriate solution for your organization, and successfully integrate Office Communications Server 2007 R2 with your Cisco Telephony environment.

Site Resilience in Exchange Server 2010
Speaker:
Scott Schnoll

Are you or your customers interested in multi-datacenter site resilience but aren’t clear about how Exchange 2010 provides it? Are you interested in understanding everything that has to be done and that happens when you activate a standby site and failback? This is your opportunity to get the deep dive on site resilience deployments and activation.

Storage in Exchange Server 2010
Speaker:
Scott Schnoll

Exchange Server 2010 carries on the tradition begun in Exchange Server 2007 of dramatically reducing mailbox storage costs. Come and learn how we’ve enabled new levels of storage flexibility in Exchange Server 2010, and find out the technical details that will help you select the right storage for your Exchange Server 2010 environment.

The Microsoft UC Voice Story
Speaker: Lee Mackey
Now that MSFT has entered the voice world, how does a MSFT administrator begin on their UC Journey?  What are the questions that you need to know, and how do you successfully win over the Telephony and Security groups?  What are the questions to ask to have a successful deployment for Voice, and how do you tie MSFT UC into all of the Voice pieces you may or may not have in your company?  This session will get you started on that UC Voice journey and get you armed with the right questions for success.

OCS 2007 R2 Deployments – Notes from the Field
Speaker: Anthony Vitnell
Dimension Data began deploying Office Communications Server 2007 in live internal and customer environments long before the final RTM versions where available. This presentation covers Dimension Data lessons learned and deployment notes from the field that have been developed from deployments to over 800,000 seats of OCS 2007/R2 including disaster recovery and availability scenario’s, telephony integration requirements, network planning and sizing just to name a few. This must see session will provide you with the information that Dimension Data brings to each implementation of OCS 2007 R2.

The OCS R2 UC Device Story
Speaker: Lee Mackey
This session will cover all of the UC devices from Microsoft, Jabra, Polycom, LG Nortel, and others that are used today for OCS and Exchange. The session will go over the different scenarios where they are best deployed, as well as walking through configurations for users. It’s critical to understand how UC devices can help you as an administrator in a UC deployment as well as save money and win over end users.  Why buy a desk phone when you don’t need one.  We’ll also be covering new devices from a number of new vendors as well as showing demos of the hardware in action.  This will help you as a Microsoft OCS Admin to determine how to size and select the devices your different end users will need.

TechNet Webcast: Information Protection and Control in Microsoft Exchange Server 2010

Don’t miss this TechNet Webcast: Information Protection and Control in Microsoft Exchange Server 2010.

Start Date: Thursday, February 11, 2010 11:00 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada)

Event Overview
Are you worried about employees accidentally leaking valuable corporate e-mail? In this webcast, we introduce new methods of information protection and control powered by Microsoft Exchange Server 2010, including a new transport rule for moderation, dynamic signatures, and application of rights management. We also discuss the use of Active Directory Rights Management Service in parallel with Exchange Server, and we explain how new features in Exchange Server 2010 can be applied to real-world messaging control scenarios.

Presenter: Michael Smith, Owner, Smith Consulting

Comparing Research In Motion and Microsoft Mobile Solutions

Comparing Research In Motion and Microsoft Mobile Solutions is a free whitepaper sponsored by Microsoft, available to download after a quick free registration.

The concept of working “any time and anywhere” has become popular. To support this concept, many organizations are adopting mobile solutions.
Mobile solutions are essential to a strong IT infrastructure because they facilitate employee access to information in near-real time, regardless of location. Organizations that implement mobile solutions benefit from a work force that remains fully connected to the business both on and off site.
This paper compares the Research In Motion BlackBerry solution (BlackBerry mobile devices and BlackBerry Enterprise Server) with the Microsoft® mobile solution (Microsoft Windows Mobile® and Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 SP1 with Microsoft ActiveSync® technology) by analyzing features of the user experience and the administrator experience. Use the information in this paper to understand the benefits and shortcomings of both solutions.

Update for Windows Mail Junk E-mail Filter [January 2010]

The Update for Windows Mail Junk E-mail Filter [January 2010] is ready to download (This download is available to customers running genuine Microsoft Windows.).

Brief Description
Install this update for Windows Mail to revise the definition files that are used to detect e-mail messages that should be considered junk e-mail or that may contain phishing content.

Overview
Install this update for Windows Mail to revise the definition files that are used to detect e-mail messages that should be considered junk e-mail or that may contain phishing content. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer.

System Requirements

  • Supported Operating Systems: Windows Vista; Windows Vista Service Pack 1; Windows Vista Service Pack 2

Best Practices for Exchange 2010

Best Practices for Exchange 2010 is a technical whitepaper from Quest Software (registration required).

With the release of Exchange Server 2010, Microsoft has expanded existing functionality and introduced new concepts. Exchange Server 2010 still provides organizations a robust messaging and collaboration platform while continuing to broaden their focus to enhance the feature set. Exchange Server 2010 provides three high-level benefits:

  • Anywhere Access
  • Protection and Compliance
  • Flexibility and Reliability

These features were designed to meet the needs of today’s mobile workforce, help organizations protect and retain information according to policy, as well as ensure that e-mail services are available at all times.
Organizations that consider adopting Exchange 2010 will need to weigh its benefits against the costs and complexities of managing it. This white paper describes the new features of Exchange Server 2010 and discusses best practices for migrating to and managing this unified communications foundation.

FPE 2010 Capacity Planning Guidance v. 2

Great, great post on the Microsoft Forefront Server Protection blog: Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Server (FPE) Capacity Planning Guidance v. 2.

The purpose of this document is to provide guidance into Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Server (FPE) capacity planning regarding hardware, such as the number of processing cores, memory requirements, and when to scale up based on CPU utilization and throughput. Performance guidelines using the capacity planning tool are provided for Exchange Server 2010 deployments. A new interactive capacity planning tool will be released in the future for FPE 2010.

Performance guidelines are also provided here on how to leverage the existing Forefront Security for Exchange Server (FSE) Version 10 with Service Pack 1 capacity planning tool for Exchange Server 2007.

Note: The performance measurement baseline information provided is based on the existing product documentation for Exchange Server.

All organizations are unique and driven by requirement specifications, policies, behaviors, and cultures that guide and inform hardware purchase decisions. This document can help clarify the additional load created by FPE for Exchange Server 2010 on sample server environments and provides guidance to help with capacity planning decisions. This information should be combined with your experience, the Exchange server capacity planning guidelines, and your general knowledge of your own organization and IT landscape.


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