Welcome to Kraft Kennedy

Recently I assisted a client in reviewing their Microsoft Enterprise Agreement, which is always an interesting exercise. The first step was helping them understand the products included in the renewal and helping them understand the licensing of those products. This particular client had a mix of Windows Server Standard and Enterprise, but no Data Center licenses. Based upon our conversation they will now evaluate their usage to see if leveraging the Microsoft Step-Up program and converting the licenses would be beneficial.  For this client, there is likely a short-term and long-term benefit to doing so.

The other interesting item we discussed was their significant under-utilization of the software assurance and Enterprise Agreement perks. While there are 15 different types of benefits available to them, they have only minimally taken advantage of these benefits with only 2 months left on their existing agreement. Some of these benefits, such as Home Use program and TechNet subscriptions, will carry over to their next agreement.  Others, however, are “use it or lose it” and will expire when the current agreement expires.

The value of these benefits is still there, however, and I have encouraged the client to focus on taking advantage of them over the next 2 months.  For example, they have a bunch of e-learning and training voucher options available, and they are entitled to 9 days of Planning Services.  Planning Services are are $1000/day vouchers that can be used to offset the cost of a qualified consulting firm to assist in planning a desktop deployment project, Exchange project or a SharePoint project.  As these benefits are “use it or lose it,” they have only 2 months remaining to take advantage of the days before they expire. With their next agreement, of course, they will receive approximately another 9 days of Planning Services to use, but unless they are able to take advantage of their current vouchers, they will have failed to take full advantage of the benefits to which they are entitled under their Microsoft agreement.

I encourage you to take the time to understand your license agreements and the benefits they offer.  If you need assistance, talk to your LAR, VAR, purchasing group or the vendor.

Today, Microsoft has released Service Pack 2 for Exchange 2010: http://blogs.technet.com/b/exchange/archive/2011/12/05/released-exchange-server-2010-sp2.aspx

While there are a number of hotfixes and other items included, there is also some key new functionality being introduced as well:

1. Cross-Site Silent Redirection for OWA – This is a tremendous improvement over current functionality where, if a firm leverages redirection between Client Access Servers in different sites (the preferred approach for optimal performance and implementation flexibility), users are prompted with a link and second authentication prompt if they login to a CAS server in a different site than where their mailbox is currently hosted.  With this new functionality, Exchange can be configured silently to redirect users to the correct CAS server in this situation (without reauthentication or prompting).
2. Address Book Policies – Address Book Policies provide the long-awaited native functionality support for what is typically referred to as GAL segmentation.  Previously, if firms wanted selectively to exclude some users or contacts from the GAL for specific subsets of users, the firm would need to create and manage security ACLs directly within ADSI.  This was unsupported in Exchange 2003 and 2010 and only narrowly supported for Exchange 2007 (with Dave Goldman’s specific whitepaper).  Address Book Policies will provide an object and policy based method for providing this functionality.
3. OWA Mini – This will be a lightweight, text-only version of OWA targeted for use on mobile devices or in low bandwidth/resolution scenarios.
4. Hybrid Configuration Wizard – This wizard will significantly reduce the number of steps required to streamline the process for establishing rich coexistence between an on-premises Exchange 2010 environment and Office 365 (formerly BPOS).

Due to the nature of the new features included, there is an Active Directory schema update required for SP2.

I recently started implementing Microsoft BPOS (Business Productivity Online Suite) to take advantage of the Office Live Meeting accounts for internal use.  One of the first steps in the process was to setup the Directory Sync to synchronize our on premise Active Directory domain with the Microsoft Online Services directory.   The instructions for that process are very straight forward and easy to follow using the online web pages.

Shortly after the synchronization process started we started to receive the following error messages:

Error 012: Unable to update this object in Microsoft Online Services because the proxy address associated with this object in the local Active Directory is already associated with another object. Fix this in your local Active Directory.

This was happening with a number of the distribution groups associated with our Cisco Unity implementation like unaddressedmessages@kkl.com and unaddressedmessages@kraftkennedy.com.   After searching through our domain for identical ProxyAddresses (there weren’t any), it was time to bring Microsoft Online Service Tech Support in to troubleshoot the problem.

A knowledgeable support engineer answered the phone and we started looking into the normal solutions to this problem which have already been covered elsewhere.    We eventually narrowed down the problem to the length of the SMTP email addresses.  It appears that something in the Directory Sync process only looks at the first 20 characters of an email address (at least for the distribution groups that we were synchronizing).   For example, the email addresses were unaddressedmessages@kkl.com and unaddressedmessages@kraftkennedy.com, so both of these email addresses appeared to be identical in the first 20 characters “unaddressedmessages@” as far as Directory Sync is concerned.  Not until we turned off the RUS for these email addresses and removed the duplicates in the first 20 characters of the email addresses did the Error 012 error messages go away.

Also during our testing we were seeing some issues with similar duplication in the Display Name as well, so if you are continuing to get Error 012 messages you may also want to make sure the Display Name is unique in the first 20 characters.

Unfortunately the Microsoft Support Engineer wasn’t able to confirm that Directory Sync and BPOS actually worked this way, but hopefully this will help you resolve your own Error 012 messages going forward.

Although it has been out for some time now, one feature introduced in Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010 that frequently gives administrators trouble is the “Sysprep and Capture” task sequence.

This was a welcome addition that provides an easy way to create a Sysprep’d WIM of an existing machine.  The problem, unfortunately, is if you try to PXE boot and run the “Sysprep and Capture” task sequence it fails at the Execute Sysprep action and returns a series of errors, including  “Unhandled error returned by LTIsysprep: The system cannot find the file specified.”

This happens because the “Sysprep and Capture” task sequence wasn’t designed to be run from Windows PE.  To run this task sequence:

1. Boot the machine into Windows and log in with an account that has access to the deployment share.
2. Connect to the deployment share, i.e. \\NYDEPLOY01\Deploy$, and launch LiteTouch.vbs in the Scripts folder.

This initiates the deployment process just as it would from PE, but now grants the “Sysprep and Capture” task sequence access to the files it needs and allows it to complete successfully.

Kraft Kennedy is pleased to announce achievement in 8 Microsoft Gold and Silver Competencies (and counting!) for 2011.

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.

I recently had the opportunity to attend Rotation 8 of the Microsoft Certified Master | Exchange 2010 program and am happy to report that I passed all three written exams and the final qualification lab exam on the first attempt.  I’m proud to be joining an elite community of only 19 MCMs worldwide prior to my rotation and those of my Rotation 8 colleagues that have passed or will after exam retakes.  I had the privilege of learning with some extremely talented individuals in my rotation and am looking forward to working with other MCMs in the near future.  I wanted to share some of my experiences in the hopes that it helps encourage others to pursue this elite certification.
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Kraft Kennedy is pleased to announce that Joe Hoegler, a Solution Architect based in their New York office, was recently awarded the Microsoft Certified Master certification on Exchange 2010.

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.

Rumors are flying that Microsoft and Oracle may get into a bidding war to acquire Autonomy.   This could be huge, if true.  However, it may only be half true, as Matt Rosoff reports that Microsoft has plenty of reasons to not pursue Autonomy.   Oracle, however, could be a good fit with it’s penchant for acquisitions lately.   And let’s not forget that it was only a few months ago that rumors were swirling that Autonomy may acquire Open Text.

We don’t know where this is going, but if any of these were to actually happen, it could be huge in the ECM space.    If Microsoft acquires Autonomy, which would die — FAST or IDOL?   If Oracle acquires Autonomy, will I have to become more knowledgeable of Oracle SQL server/database infrastructure?  If Autonomy acquires Open Text, will they take advantage of a near monopoly on the DMS legal vertical?

What do you think?

Update 12/14/2010 – Microsoft has released Update Rollup 2 for Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 SP1 which addesses this issue.

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

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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

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On August 2nd, Microsoft released an out-of-band patch addressing a critical security flaw in the Windows shell.  This flaw affects all versions of Windows and could allow remote execution of code under certain circumstances.  Obviously, any critical patch released outside of Microsoft’s normal patch release schedule should be treated with a sense of urgency.  We in the Support Practice Group have already taken steps to implement this patch at all of our clients and can happily report that we have not seen any issues whatsoever with the patch, so far.  Additional information on the security flaw and the associated patch is available from Microsoft here.