U-turn on Exchange 2010 SP1 /hosting mode guidance?

If you have been following Exchange 2010 options for hosters you will know that until recently you were pretty much pushed down the /hosting mode route. Well today I spotted this blog post by Ian Hameroff and Michael van Dijken, So, You Want to Host Exchange?, suggesting we don’t have to use /hosting if we want UM and some other functionality.

As with Exchange 2000, 2003 and 2007 we are able to make a standard deployment of Exchange 2010 SP1 work as a multi-tenant environment, Paul Roman covers it nicely here, The Hard Way - Hosting Environment Preparation.

My first Hosted Exchange solution was Exchange 2000 with a custom built automation engine, which was great, but I remember how much better the support was when HMC was introduced. With /hosting mode it became even simpler and although I desperately want UM in my solution today, I am not sure moving away from /hosting is the right direction.

What are your thoughts?

Daniel

Technorati Tags: Exchange,cloud,hosting

Office 2008 for Mac Sp2 & Document Connection for SharePoint

Microsoft's MacBU today released Office 2008 for Mac SP2. Try it by downloading from here, http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.mspx. It's listed in the right hand pane titled 'Newest' as of today (20 July 2009).

Along with the usual performance boosts Microsoft have added much requested features, one being Document Connection to improve working with SharePoint and Live WorkSpace.

The press release is here, http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2009/jul09/07-20MacOfficeSP2PR.mspx?rss_fdn=Press%20Releases.
The Register have a piece on it here, http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/20/mac_office_service_pack_two/

Oh, don't touch this if you are doing anything with Entourage EWS Beta or you’ll have to use OWA.

Daniel Noakes

 

Technorati Tags: Daniel Noakes,Office 2008,Mac

Exchange 2010 Installation Tips

If you have installed Exchange 2010, then you have no doubt come across a few hurdles. Here are my top tips.

Open the command prompt (best to “Run as Administrator”) and use the syntax ServerManagerCMD –ip Exchange-ROLE.xml to install the the roles and features required for each server.

• Exchange-CAS.xml
• Exchange-HUB.xml
• Exchange-MBX.xml
• Exchange-EDGE.xml
• Exchange-UM.xml

(Right click Save Target As / Save Link As on above files.)

You may need to set the NetTcpPortSharing service to Automatic and start it.

Install the pre-requisites applications on all Exchange 2010 servers.

• .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 (includes ASP.NET AJAX 1.0)
• WinRM 2.0 CTP3
• PowerShell V2 CTP3
• Server 2008 MMC update

Now go ahead and run the GUI installer (best to “Run as Administrator”).

Once the first Exchange 2010 CAS is installed hop over to your Exchange 2007 CAS and MBX servers and add the group Exchange Trusted Subsystem to the local administrators group.

Leave the Windows Firewall On, during the installation this should be configured correctly.

I hope this information helps.

Daniel

Technorati Tags: Exchange 2010,Daniel Noakes

Mobile Twitter – Twikini out now (off topic)

I’m hooked on Windows Mobile and Twitter, the mobile browser interface wasn’t working well for me so I started looking at the mobile apps available. The best app for me has been Twikini. It’s clean, simple and best of all it makes a bird tweet noise when new updates are received.

Try it free, http://www.trinketsoftware.com/Twikini.

It integrates with Twitpic and services like TinyURL. You can add location information using GPS, or by entering a place name. I added my location to tweets the other week and so far I haven’t noticed any new stalkers.

I’m undecided whether to use “Tweet song info” about songs playing in Windows Media, it could generate a lot of updates and be a bit embarrassing when I’m listening Kylie.

If you update multiple Twitter accounts there is a “Switch account” option, which is proving pretty handy especially if you have personal and company accounts to update.

Try it for free from http://www.trinketsoftware.com/Twikini and follow me from your Windows Mobile.

Daniel
http://twitter.com/dannoakes

Technorati Tags: Windows Mobile,Twikini,Twitter,Trinket Software

Exchange Server 2010 June TechNet Webcasts

If you have downloaded the Exchange Server 2010 Beta or think you might deploy after RTM you can get a head start with the June  2009 webcast series.

Highlights for me will be Federation in Exchange 2010, Archiving and Retention and High Availability.

TechNet Webcast- Exchange 2010 High Availability (Level 300)

TechNet Webcast- Exchange 2010 Information Protection and Control (Level 300)

TechNet Webcast- Exchange 2010 Information Protection and Control (Level 300)

TechNet Webcast- Exchange 2010 Overview (Level 200)

TechNet Webcast- Exchange 2010 Archiving and Retention (Level 300)

TechNet Webcast- Exchange 2010 Architecture (Level 300)

TechNet Webcast- Exchange 2010 Voice Mail enabled by Unified Messaging (Level 300)

TechNet Webcast- Federation in Exchange 2010 (Level 300)

TechNet Webcast- Exchange 2010 Management Tools (Level 300)

TechNet Webcast- Exchange 2010 Outlook Web Access (Level 200)

TechNet Webcast- Exchange 2010 Transition and Deployment (Level 300)

Full listing are at, http://tinyurl.com/pa239n.

Daniel
twitter.com/dannoakes

Technorati Tags: Exchange Server 2010,webcast,technet,federation,archive

Entourage 2008 reliabilty improvements

Microsoft released an update to Office 2008 for Mac yesterday, http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948057. There are a number of Entourage 2008 reliability improvements including contact and calendar synchronisation with Exchange server. This has been a problem for a lot of users, as contacts were not synchronising between Entourage 2008 and Exchange.

If have Entourage 2008 users you should think about installing the update.

Daniel

WM6 & Gmail play nicely

Getting your personal email on your Windows Mobile can be just as useful as business email. That is of course if your corporate security policy allows it.

For ages now I have had my Gmail account setup as IMAP on my Touch Dual, but I wasn't getting mail. So I gave in and used the Gmail app. Well good news, looks like Gmail and Windows Mobile are now playing nicely together.

To get the settings go here, http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=78886.