Finding Success with Exchange 2010, by David Carlson, was published by the International Legal Technology Assosication (ILTA) as part of the March 2011 white paper series.  If you are thinking about an Exchange 2010 project, give it a read.

The article contains guidance and discussion on the following topics:

• Planning Exchange 2010 deployment for law firms
• Features for law firms: Exchange 2010 Archiving, Litigation Holds and Search
• Large Mailboxes
• Database Availability Groups
• Load Balancing Exchange 2010 CAS Arrays
• Co-existence with Cloud Computing
• Regional Consolidation of Exchange
• Virtualization

I am thrilled to have been part of numerous successful Exchange 2010 deployments for law firms.  It is hard to believe that we have already migrated tens of thousands of Exchange mailboxes and I have enjoyed sharing this experience with many ILTA members.

I hope you enjoy reading the article and welcome hearing about your experience deploying Exchange 2010.  Please leave us a comment below!

David Carlson ILTA Kraft Kennedy KKL

The requirements to participate in the Microsoft Partner Program have recently evolved to help differentiate technical and business capabilities among participants; Kraft Kennedy has risen to the challenge by quickly exceeding the goals set forth by the program.

Each competency requires specific individuals with deep technical skills, Microsoft verified customer references, and challenging certification exams to be completed.  This commitment demonstrates our breadth, deep specialization, and proven expertise across a range of Microsoft technologies.

About Kraft Kennedy

Kraft Kennedy provides business and technology-related consulting services to the legal community. By combining outstanding technical skills with an intimate knowledge of our clients’ business and information needs we tailor solutions that enhance attorney productivity, effectiveness, and client value.

We focus on the business needs of the client and ensure that technology is used to enhance, not inhibit their business. KK’s talented staff of strategic consultants, project managers, and network consultants have years of experience with hundreds of projects for firms from small to large. Our services portfolio includes advanced infrastructure projects, business continuity and data center consolidation, desktop deployment, network design and implementation, storage design and replication, and messaging systems migration among others. Our Microsoft specialties include: Desktop, Server Platform, Unified Communications, Portals and Collaboration, Search, Systems Management, Virtualization, and Small Business Specialist Community.

The Citrix Certified Enterprise Engineer for Virtualization certification is designed to certify breadth of knowledge across Citrix virtualization solutions. The CCEE offers experienced IT professionals the opportunity to develop and validate their ability to combine the coordination of operational planning efforts with tactical design expertise and integration know-how.

Niraj and Jeff have a well established reputation for helping law firms adopt thin-client technologies and best practices around enterprise desktop and application management. It is exciting to watch server-based computing strategies mature as new virtual desktop solutions, such as VDI and application virtualization, have become more mainstream. Not only are these new tools offering firms technical improvements, but also significant operational efficiencies and flexibility over traditional desktop and server-based approaches.

On behalf of the team, Congratulations to Niraj and Jeff on your accomplishments!

Microsoft Certified Master (MCM) represents the highest technical certification that Microsoft offers and is awarded based upon successful completion of an intensive three week training course on-site at Microsoft’s headquarters along with three written exams and a final qualification lab exam.  Joe joins an elite group of  approximately 19 MCMs on Exchange 2010 worldwide to date. The Microsoft Certified Master program provides access to an exclusive community of other MCMs, members of the Exchange Server product group, as well as other valuable resources that can be leveraged at any time.

According to Microsoft, “a Microsoft Certified Master can help [an] organization assess its current messaging optimization level; map major initiatives and projects; rate the impact of identified gaps (value, cost, level of effort); and prioritize IT assets for maximum impact and return on investment.”

Joe has worked for Kraft Kennedy since 2004 and is a member of the Kraft Kennedy’s Infrastructure and Enterprise Systems practice group. He has advised numerous organizations on Exchange 2010 ranging from small firms to leading members of the AmLaw 100. Joe is also an active contributor to the Kraft Kennedy Technology Blog and has spoken at a number of ILTA events.

“When working with Joe, it is immediately clear that you have found someone with a deep understanding of the technology and also a keen awareness of the business requirements and best path to achieve them”, says David Carlson, Practice Leader at Kraft Kennedy. “This is a very exciting accomplishment and we are fortunate to have his talents as part of our team.”

You can read more about Joe and Exchange 2010 on the Kraft Kennedy Technology Blog.

2423776 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2423776/) The Exchange Information Store service crashes frequently during a public folder replication process on an Exchange Server 2010 public folder

———–

Microsoft has confirmed a bug with Exchange 2010 SP1 where the Information Store services will continuously restart itself every minute or possibly more frequently.

This issue is evidenced by the presence of Event ID 7031 in the System Event Log.

The Microsoft Exchange Information Store service terminated unexpectedly. It has done this 1 time(s). The following corrective action will be taken in 5000 milliseconds: Restart the service.

This will be immediately followed by Event ID 7036

The Microsoft Exchange Information Store service entered the running state.

Rinse. Repeat.

I have only found this to be an issue with servers running the Mailbox Role which host Public Folder Replicas. If you increase logging for the Information Store, you will likely notice Event ID 3093 in the Application Event Log.

Increase Information Store Logging
Get-EventLogLevel MSExchangeIS |Set-EventLoglevel -Level High

Error -2147221233 reading property 0×67010003 on object type tbtReplication from database “PF_DATABASE_NAME”.

If you are experiencing this issue, you have two options:

1. Contact Microsoft Support or your TAM to obtain bug fix KB2423776. This bug fix is a temporary patch and will be included in the release of Exchange 2010 SP1 Update Rollup 2.
2. Wait for Exchange 2010 SP1 Update Rollup 2. The ETA is currently unknown, however I am expecting it to be released in the next few weeks.

The interim hotfix installs cleanly and does resolve the issue. If you choose to go this route, the following steps are required to implement the fix. Note: This update will need to be removed using these same steps before installing UR2.

Steps to apply the Interim Update:

1. Run sn.exe -Vr * to disable strong name verification.
2. Run sn.exe -Vl to verify that strong name verification is disabled.
3. Run the MSP file to install the Interim Update on the system.
4. Run sn.exe -Vu * to enable strong name verification.

Steps to remove the Interim Update:

1. Run sn.exe -Vr * to disable strong name verification.
2. Uninstall Interim Update for Exchange 2010 from Add/Remove programs.
3. Run sn.exe -Vu * to enable strong name verification.
4. Run sn.exe –Vl to verify that strong name verification is enabled.

Additional information about Strong Name Verification can be found here.

Good luck!

Dave Carlson David Carlson ILTA Kraft Kennedy KKL

Here are some photos from this year’s event.

Additional photos can be found here. Special thanks to Cindy Mahoney for these great shots!

We would love to hear what you thought of the event. Thanks for playing and we’ll see you again next August.

Dave Carlson David Carlson ILTA Kraft Kennedy KKL

Over 60 people came out and we would like to congratulate the following teams who received trophies this year:

1st Place
Fernando Monteleone, Robinson & Cole LLP
Brandon Monteleone, Robinson & Cole LLP
John Sroka, Younts
Vito Squarciafico, Pullman & Comley

2nd Place
Chris Owens, Kraft Kennedy
John Sawyer, Partridge Snow & Hahn LLP
Dana Rotter, Holme Roberts & Owen
Frank Nelson, Linquist & Vennum PLLP

3rd Place
Joey Perez, American LegalNet, Inc.
Ken Levonaitis, McCarter & English
Mike Walls, US Army
Ted Glutz, Kraft Kennedy

Thanks to everyone who came out and we look forward to seeing you again next year!

Microsoft stuns Linux world, submits source code for kernel

In an historic move, Microsoft Monday submitted driver source code for inclusion in the Linux kernel under a GPLv2 license. The code consists of four drivers that are part of a technology called Linux Device Driver for Virtualization.

Microsoft Linux Move Puts Pressure on VMware

Microsoft’s historic embrace of Linux technology could have wide-reaching impacts on the virtualization market and Microsoft’s rival VMware.

By allowing greater ability to run Linux on the Hyper-V virtualization platform, Microsoft is making a compelling case that it could be the virtualization vendor of choice for consolidation of Windows and Linux applications, says Gartner analyst George Weiss.

Third party storage and backup vendors frequently call the vCenter API to issue a snapshot creation of running virtual machines before they grab a copy of the virtual machine’s hard disk – VMDK files – which are located on the VMware VMFS datastore. This process is typically followed by an immediate deletion of the snapshot file which will merge the changes back into the initial VMDK file. Problems can occur when this process does not complete successfully leaving you with an “open” snapshot. This problem is compounded when it occurs multiple times against the same guest.

Each open snapshot can significantly degrade virtual machine performance and also contribute to poor storage utilization. Unless you monitor each of your virtual machines on a daily basis, you could quickly be left with an uncomfortable situation on your hands.

The script below can be easily customized for your environment and provide regular email reports for open snapshots.

#Initialize VI Toolkit

Add-PSSnapin VMware.VimAutomation.Core

#Configure VC credentials

$Username = ‘service_account_name’

$password = ‘PASSWORD’

$server = ‘vcenter_host.domain.local’

#Setup email client

$SmtpClient = New-Object system.net.mail.smtpClient

$MailMessage = New-Object system.net.mail.mailmessage

$SmtpClient.host = “smtp_host.domain.local”

$MailMessage.from = “virtualcenter@domain.com”

$MailMessage.To.add(“admin@domain.com”)

$MailMessage.IsBodyHtml = 1

$MailMessage.Subject = “List of current VMware Snapshots”

#Get snapshots from all servers

Connect-VIServer $server -User $Username -Password $password

$Snaps = Get-VM | Get-Snapshot | Select VM,Name,Created

# Send email

$MailMessage.body = $Snaps | ConvertTo-Html

$SmtpClient.Send($MailMessage)

To execute the script, you will need to install Powershell and the VI Toolkit. Good luck!