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A couple weeks ago I blogged about the XML patent infringement that Microsoft had to deal with.  As mentioned in that post, they’ve released new code that removes some of the custom XML functionality that was built into the Office 2007 system, and brings them into patent compliance.

We’ve just heard that there is at least one vendor whose product is now basically non-functional due to the code change.   This sort of problem can result in products needing to be completely re-engineered to work with the new XML limitations.

Organizations who have already implemented or are looking to implement Office 2007 should reach out to any third-party vendor who would be integrating with the Office 2007 XML format to determine compatibility with the new rules.  In addition, any custom code that has already been written would need to be tested and possibly re-written if any issues come up.

Kraft Kennedy has worked with numerous third-party vendors that integrate with Office 2007.  If you find yourself in a tough spot due to this issue, let us know and we can help walk you through the process of finding the right solution.

As you may have read, a judge recently upheld a court ruling which bans Microsoft from selling Word 2007 after January 11, 2010, due an XML patent infringement.  That was yesterday.

Today, Microsoft announced that they have released a patch which corrects the patent infringement, bringing the Office 2007 code under compliance:

The 2007 Microsoft Office OPK Master Kit Download, available on Microsoft’s OEM Partner Center, strips Word and other Office programs of custom XML editing capabilities.

“The following patch is required for the United States,” Microsoft said in a message on the site.

The 2007 Microsoft Office OPK Master Kit Download (12.9 MB) can be found at the Microsoft OEM Partner Center.  The site also says:

After this patch is installed, Word will no longer read the Custom XML elements contained within DOCX, DOCM, or XML files. These files will continue to open, but any Custom XML elements will be removed. The ability to handle custom XML markup is typically used in association with automated server based processing of Word documents. Custom XML is not typically used by most end users of Word.

Pretty quick turnaround, but I have a feeling they were working on this for a while…

As mentioned in my previous blog post about the Exchange 2010 RPC Client Access Service and the ClientAccessArray, Exchange’s dependence on the Client Access Server (CAS) role has increased dramatically in Exchange 2010.  This is because, in Exchange 2010, on-network Outlook MAPI connectivity now connects to a mailbox through the CAS role via the RPC Client Access Service.  As a result, high availability of the CAS role is crucial since any failure of CAS could affect Outlook client connectivity.  For smaller implementations or those where the limitations of native Windows Network Load Balancing (NLB) are not a major problem (please see my previous blog post for more information), NLB can work well.  The process for configuring NLB is fairly straightforward and I’ve outlined the steps below.

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One of the most anticipated new features of Microsoft’s upcoming Office 2010 release is the ability to perform simultaneous editing on documents – in other words, allowing two authors to work on a document at the same time.   Those of you who have used Microsoft Office OneNote 2007 are already familiar with the concept.   A OneNote 2007 file can be placed onto a network share, and multiple people can access the live version.   I’ve personally found OneNote’s co-authoring functionality an extremely valuable tool for note-taking during a group meeting or brainstorming business ideas.

Office 2010 brings this concept to Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents.  For a  preview of the look and feel, check out this Microsoft Office Word Team Blog post.

However, in the legal industry, the transition to allow simultaneous editing is not as simple as you may think.    Even after leading DMS products such as Open Text eDOCS DM, Autonomy iManage, or Worldox announce their compatibility with the Office 2010 platform, companies and firms won’t be able to just upgrade to 2010 and start editing documents simultaneously.   These systems are built on the idea of one person accessing a live document at a time — check it out of the system, work on it, check it back in.   So let’s assume developers did re-write their code.  Even that wouldn’t be enough for this functionality to work.  According to what we’ve heard from Microsoft, the simultaneous editing will likely require working in either a Microsoft-hosted cloud, or having SharePoint 2010 on the back-end.    This doesn’t mean that a migration from a DMS product to SharePoint is necessary, but it could mean that the DMS vendors would have to support a SharePoint document repository.  Open Text has already hinted that their releases in latter half of 2010 may support this.

As an aside, the whole idea of checking-out and checking-in documents has been ingrained into the minds of all attorneys, paralegals and administrative assistants for more than 20 years.   It won’t be easy to shake, and it might not even be accepted in the legal vertical.   Anyone know of any attorneys out there interested in this feature?

Microsoft has just announced that Exchange 2010 is now globally available!  Please read more information at the MS Exchange Team blog at http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2009/11/09/453096.aspx. 

Exchange 2010 binaries are now available for download.

Microsoft has announced that Exchange 2010 has been released to manufacturing with expected general availability and launch to be announced at TechEd Europe 2009 in early November.  More information on Microsoft’s official announcement of Exchange 2010 can be found at the MS Exchange Team blog here.  Exchange 2010 marks a significant milestone in the development of Exchange Server.  Some of the most important features have been summarized below but many more exist that make this a compelling upgrade for all firms. 

Please note that Exchange 2007 SP2 and/or Exchange 2003 SP2 are required for coexistence with Exchange 2010 in the same Active Directory site.

• Dramatically Improved Storage Footprint and Large Mailbox Support – Changes in the underlying storage architecture allow for a 70% reduction in I/O over Exchange 2007 and a 90% reduction over Exchange 2003. This allows for more efficient usage of storage and results in the ability to store Exchange databases on slower/lower-cost disk such as SATA.  This makes Exchange not only better performing for larger mailboxes but also more cost effective.
• Native E-mail Archiving – With Exchange 2010, basic archiving features are now included natively, allowing firms to reduce the footprint of production mailboxes and improve client-side Outlook performance.  While this functionality may not be as feature-rich as third-party solutions and even though it requires a to-be-released Outlook 2010 client to support it (or OWA 2010), it does present a much needed piece of functionality that many firms have desired natively for years.
• Database Availability Groups – All of the Exchange 2007 high availability and disaster recovery methods (Local Continuous Replication, Single Copy Clustering, Cluster Continuous Replication, and Standby Continuous Replication) have been deprecated and replaced with a single concept: Database Availability Groups (DAGs).  DAGs unify the concepts of high availability and disaster recovery into a single deployment and management process, thereby simplifying it dramatically over previous versions of Exchange.
• Native eDiscovery and Compliance Features – Multi-mailbox search, legal holds, and improved retention policies all combine to increase the native capabilities of Exchange to assist with compliance processes and discovery requests.
• MailTips – Exchange can now notify users if a message violates an aspect of IT or corporate policy (sending to unauthorized third-parties or exceeding a maximum allowed message size) or if the result of sending the message may be unexpected (recipient is out of the office or a distribution list contains a large number of recipients).  This can enable users to better understand the results of sending a message and potentially reduce confusion and calls to IT.

Please refer to my three-part blog post series on Exchange 2010’s specific benefits for law firms (Part 1 can be found at http://blogs.kraftkennedy.com/index.php/2009/08/19/exchange-2010-benefits-for-law-firms-part-1-of-3/).  Check back often for additional blog posts about the new features of Exchange 2010. 

High availability and site resiliency have evolved a great deal from early versions of Exchange through Exchange 2007.  While Exchange 2007 introduced the concepts of Single Copy Clustering (SCC) and Cluster Continuous Replication (CCR) for high availability and Standby Continuous Replication (SCR) for site resiliency, each had very specific benefits and drawbacks.  CCR gradually became Microsoft’s and the industry’s preferred solution for high availability because of its robust availability capabilities but concerns about manageability, scalability, and associated storage cost were all factors when settling on a design.  SCR extended CCR technology to provide a robust and cost effective solution for site resiliency but many firms were frustrated by the configuration and database activation processes and that all administration must be completed via cmdlets.
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With the release of VMware vSphere 4, VMware has released a very powerful management tool called Fault Tolerance (FT).  At a basic level, FT allows you to keep two virtual machines (a Primary VM and a Secondary VM) running in lockstep on two different physical ESX hosts.  If one of the ESX hosts were to experience a hardware failure, the VM protected with FT would remain running on the second host without any downtime.  This can greatly reduce downtime due to hardware failures and provide increased service levels for important applications.

FT is often compared to Microsoft Windows Failover Clusters, formerly Microsoft Cluster Server (MSCS), and in fact many have talked about how FT can replace Microsoft clustering altogether.  Rather than jump to conclusions like this, it is important to understand the use cases for both technologies.  In addition, there are several limitations to FT that need to be considered. Here are some important points to remember about FT:

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Reuters is reporting that there are talks that Microsoft is interested in making a bid for Autonomy.   Both companies are not commenting about this yet, but apparently the market is excited about it and Autonomy’s stock enjoyed a boost.  

What could this mean for the ECM market?  It would be bigger than Open Text’s acquisition of Hummingbird in 2006, as both companies were solidly in the ECM space already.    But this is different.  Could Microsoft integrate Autonomy’s EDRM sprectrum with SharePoint, with everything indexed by IDOL?   Could all of this functionality be built into an OS?    When I sat in on an early peek at Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 earlier this year, I took note that Microsoft is actually starting to use the phrase “ECM” in their presentations.   Maybe this was foreshadowing.    We’ll have to see how this story ends.

In a previous post, I discussed how to expand virtual machine boot volumes with no downtime using Dell’s ExtPart utility.  Using this method is useful if you are using Windows Server 2000/2003, but is no longer required when using Windows 2008.  With Windows 2008 becoming the preferred server operating system going forward, using the method described below will become more and more common.

Microsoft has made it possible to expand boot volumes easily and on the fly without downtime without the need for any additional tools.  In this example, we’ll expand the C: drive of a Windows 2008 virtual machine from 25GB to 30GB.

1. Expand the size of the virtual disk.

2. Launch Disk Management by right clicking on My Computer, selecting Manage, and then selecting Storage\Disk Management.  If you do not see the unallocated space, right click on Disk Management and select “Rescan Disks.”

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