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Exchange 2010 Mailbox Server Role Requirements Calculator

Exchange — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:43:15 GMT

Overview

The Exchange Mailbox Server role is arguably one of the most important roles within an Exchange deployment for it stores the data that users will ultimately access on a daily basis. Therefore, ensuring that you design the mailbox server role correctly is critical to your design.

With Exchange 2010 you can deploy a solution that leverages mailbox resiliency and has multiple database copies deployed across datacenters, implements single item recovery for data recovery, and has the flexibility in storage design to allow you to deploy on storage area networks utilizing fibre-channel or SATA class disks or on direct attached storage utilizing SAS or SATA class disks with or without RAID protection. But, in order to design your solution, you need to understand the following criteria:

User profile - the message profile, the mailbox size, and the number of users
High availability architecture - the number of database copies you plant to deploy, whether the solution will be site resilient, the desired number of mailbox servers
Server's CPU platform
Storage architecture - the disk capacity / type and storage solution
Backup architecture - whether to use hardware or software VSS and the frequency of the backups, or leverage the Exchange native data protection features
Network architecture - the utilization, throughput, and latency aspects

Previous versions of Exchange were somewhat rigid in terms of the choices you had in designing your mailbox server role. The flexibility in the architecture with Exchange 2010, allows you the freedom to design the solution to meet your needs. Prior to making any decisions, please review the following topics from the Exchange 2010 Online Help:

After you have determined the design you would like to implement, you can follow the steps in the Understanding Exchange Performance section of the Exchange 2010 Online Help to calculate your solution's CPU, memory, and storage requirements, or you can leverage the Exchange 2010 Mailbox Server Role Requirements Calculator.

The calculator is broken out into the following sections (worksheets):

Input
Role Requirements
LUN Requirements
Backup Requirements
Log Replication Requirements
Storage Design

Important: The data points provided in the calculator are an example configuration. As such any data points entered into the Input worksheet are specific to that particular configuration and do not apply for other configurations. Please ensure you are using the correct data points for your design

Input

When you launch the Exchange 2010 Mailbox Server Role Requirements Calculator, you are presented with the Input worksheet. This worksheet is broken down into 5 key areas. This section is where you enter in all the relevant information regarding your intended design, so that the calculator can generate what you need in order to achieve it.

Note: There are many input factors that need to be accounted for before you can design your solution. Each input factor is briefly listed below; there are additional notes within the calculator that explain them in more detail.

Environment Configuration

Within Step 1 you will enter in the appropriate information concerning your messaging environment's configuration - the high availability architecture and database copy configuration, the data and I/O configuration, and CPU inputs.

Note: For optimal sizing, choose a multiple of the total number of database copies you have selected for the number of mailbox servers.

Exchange Environment Configuration

Do these servers only have the mailbox server role installed? Having the Hub Transport and Client Access server roles also installed on the along with the mailbox server role affects your design in the areas of load balancing client requests, memory utilization, and CPU utilization.
Are you deploying a database availability group (DAG)? Deploying the solution as DAG provides you additional flexibility and resiliency choices like having multiple mailbox database copies, leveraging flexible mailbox protection features in lieu of traditional backups, and flexibility in your storage architecture (e.g. RAID or JBOD).
Are you deploying the DAG in a site resilient configuration? A DAG can be stretched across 2 or more datacenters (the calculator only allows for 1 datacenter) without requiring the AD site or network subnet to be stretched.
What user distribution model will you be leveraging in your site resilient architecture? When planning a site resilience model with Exchange 2010, keep in mind there are two variables that need to be considered: namespace model and user distribution model. For the namespace or datacenter model, Exchange 2010 requires both datacenters to be in an Active/Active configuration. This means that both datacenters participating in the DAG solution must have active, reachable namespaces and have the ability to support active load at any time. For the user distribution model, the design can support both Active/Passive and Active/Active user distribution. At this time, the calculator only supports and Active/Passive user distribution model. An Active/Passive user distribution architecture simply has database copies deployed in the secondary datacenter, but no active mailboxes are hosted there and no database copies will be activated there during normal runtime operations. However, the datacenter supports both single cross-datacenter database *overs, and full datacenter activation.
In your site resilient architecture, how far behind can you get in terms of log shipping between datacenters? The effect of the RPO is to evaluate the non-contiguous peak hours (defined in Step 5), say 8am and 4pm, and determine the resulting throughput requirement, assuming that you can take the time in between 8 and 4 to catch up (within the specified RPO, of course). By allowing replication to get behind there are two outcomes: 1. Active Manager is less likely to choose a database copy that has a high copy queue length (unless more viable alternatives aren't available). 2. If the copy queue length is greater than the target server's AutoDatabaseMountDial setting, the database will not automatically mount once activated. Manually mounting that database will result in the loss of data that had not been copied.
How many mailbox servers are you going to deploy within the primary datacenter? If you enter more than a single server (remember a DAG requires at least two and can support a maximum of 16), the calculator will evenly distribute the user mailboxes across the total number of mailbox servers and make performance and capacity recommendations for each server, as well as, for the entire environment. As for the secondary datacenter, the calculator will determine the number of mailbox servers you need to deploy there based on the requirements (number of databases, number of copies, etc).
How many DAGs are you planning to deploy in the environment? If you enter more than a single DAG, then the calculator will distribute the user mailboxes across the total number of DAGs and make performance and capacity recommendations for each server and each DAG, as well as, for the entire environment.

Mailbox Database Copy Configuration

How many mailbox database copies do you plan to deploy within a DAG? Enter in the number of highly available database copies you plan to have within the environment. This value excludes lagged database copies. For optimal sizing, choose a multiple of the total number of mailbox servers you have selected.
How many lagged database copies do you plan to deploy within a DAG? Lagged database copies are an optional feature that can provide protection against certain disaster scenarios (like logical corruption). Lagged database copies should not be considered an HA database copy as the replay will delay the availability of the database for use once activated. While technically there is no limit to how many lagged copies you can deploy within a DAG, the calculator limits you to a maximum of 2 copies.
How many mailbox database copies do you plan to deploy within the secondary datacenter? If you are deploying a site resilient solution, you can choose to a portion of the total HA database copies deployed in the secondary datacenter.
How many lagged database copies do you plan to deploy within the secondary datacenter? If you are deploying a site resilient solution, you can choose to have a portion or all of your lagged database copies deployed in the secondary datacenter.

Lagged Database Copy Configuration

Will you deploy the lagged database copies on a dedicated server? Using a dedicated server for lagged database copies certainly makes it easier to manage. For DAGs where the lagged database copies are evenly distributed across all the DAG mailbox servers, you will need to use the Suspend-MailboxDatabaseCopy with the -ActivationOnly flag to prevent them from being mounted, but there are scenarios that can clear this. With a dedicated server you can activation block the entire server and the setting is persistent. The choice can also affect your storage design in terms of choosing RAID or JBOD. Unless you have multiple lagged copies, lagged copies should be placed on storage that is utilizing RAID to provide additional protection. The calculator will determine the appropriate number of lagged copy servers you need to deploy based on the requirements (number of databases, number of copies, etc).
How long will you delay transaction log replay on your lagged copy? This parameter is used to specify the amount of time that the Microsoft Exchange Information Store service should wait before replaying log files that have been copied to the lagged database. The maximum amount of replay delay you can set is 14 days. The value you specify here will influence the log capacity requirements for all copies and the amount of time required to mount a lagged copy.
How long will you delay transaction log truncation on your lagged copy? This parameter is used to specify the amount of time that the Microsoft Exchange Replication service should wait before truncating log files that have been copied to the lagged database. The time period begins after the log has been successfully replayed into the lagged copy. The maximum allowable setting for this value is 14 days. The minimum allowable setting is 0, although setting this value to 0 effectively eliminates any delay in log truncation activity. The value you specify here will influence the log capacity requirements for all copies.

Exchange Data Configuration

What will be the Data Overhead Factor? Microsoft recommends using 20% to account for any extraneous growth that may occur.
How many mailboxes do you move per week? In terms of transactions, you have to take into account how many mailboxes you will either be moving to this server or within this server, as transactions totaling the size of the mailbox will always get generated at the target database.
Are you going to deploy a Dedicated Restore LUN? A dedicated restore LUN is used as a staging point for the restoration of data or could be used during maintenance activities; if one is selected then additional capacity will not be factored into each database LUN.
What percentage of disk space do you want to ensure remains free on the LUN? Most operations management programs have capacity thresholds that alert when a LUN is more than 80% utilized. This value allows you to ensure that each LUN has a certain percentage of disk space available so that the LUN is not designed and implemented at maximum capacity.
Do you have log shipping compression enabled within the DAG? By default, each DAG is configured to compress and encrypt the socket connection used to ship logs across different IP subnets (you can disable these features all together or enable them for all communications regardless of subnet).
What is your compression rate? The compression capability that is obtained for the socket connection used to ship logs will vary with each customer, based on the data obtained in the transaction log files. By default, Microsoft recommends using a value of 30%, however, you can determine this value by analyzing your environment (e.g., once Exchange 2010 is deployed you could evaluate the throughput rate with compression disabled and then compare with compression is enabled) .

IOPS Configuration

What will be the I/O Overhead Factor? Microsoft recommends using 20% to ensure adequate headroom in terms of I/O to allow for abnormal spikes in I/O that may occur from to time.
What additional I/O requirements do you need to factor into the solution for each mailbox server's storage design? For example, let's say the solution requires 500 IOPS for the mailboxes and you have decided you want to ensure there is extra I/O capacity to support additional products (e.g. antivirus) to generate load during the peak user usage window. So you enter 300 IOPS in this input factor. The result is that from a host perspective, the solution needs to achieve 800 IOPS. This may require additional testing by comparing a baseline system against a system that has the I/O generating application installed and running.

Database Configuration

Do you want to follow Microsoft's recommendations regarding maximum database size? For standalone mailbox server role solutions, Microsoft recommends that the database size should not be more than 200GB in size. For solutions leveraging mailbox resiliency, Microsoft recommends that the database size should to exceed 2TB. Neither of these is by any means a hard limit, but a recommendation based on the impact database size has to recovery times. If you want to follow Microsoft's recommendation, then select Yes. Otherwise, select No.
Do you want to specify a custom Maximum Database Size? If you selected No for the previous field, then you need to enter in a custom maximum database size.

Server Configuration

How many processor cores and what is their megacycle capability are you planning to deploy in each server? For each server type (primary datacenter, secondary datacenter, and lagged copy server) you plan to deploy, select the number of processor cores and the core's corresponding megacycles. For example, the Intel Xeon x5470 3.33GHZ processors (2x4 core arrangement) can deliver 3300 MCycles of performance throughput. Other processor configurations can be estimated by comparing this measured platform to server platforms tested by www.spec.org (SPEC CPU2006 Results).

Mailbox Configuration

Within Step 2 you will define your user profile for up to three different tiers of user populations.

How many mailboxes will you deploy in the environment? If deploying a single server environment, this is how many mailboxes you will deploy on this server. If you are deploying multiple servers, then this is how many mailboxes you will deploy in the environment. If you are deploying multiple DAGs, then this is how many mailboxes you will deploy across all of the DAGs. For example, if you choose to deploy 5 servers, and want 3000 mailboxes per server, then enter 15000 here. Or if you plan to deploy 2 DAGs, each with 6 servers, and you entered 24000 total mailboxes, then 12000 mailboxes will be deployed per DAG.
What is the solution's projected growth in terms of number of mailboxes over its lifecycle? Enter in the total percentage by which you believe the number of mailboxes will grow during the solution's lifecycle. For example, if you believe the solution will increase by 30% over the lifecycle of the design and you are starting out with 1000 mailboxes, then at the end of the lifecycle, the solution will have 1300 mailboxes. The calculator will utilize the projected growth plus the number of mailboxes to ensure that the capacity and performance requirements can be sustained throughout the solution's lifecycle.
How much mail do the users send and receive per day on average? The usage profiles found here are based on the work done around the memory and processor scalability requirements.
What is the average message size? For most customers the average message size is around 75KB.
What will be the prohibit send & receive mailbox size limit? If you want to adequately control your capacity requirements, you need to set a hard mailbox size limit (prohibit send and receive) for the majority of your users.
If deploying a personal archive mailbox, what will be the personal archive quota limit? If you want to adequately control your capacity requirements, you need to set a hard mailbox size limit (prohibit send and receive) for the majority of your users.
What is the deleted item retention period? Enter in the deleted item retention period you plan to utilize within the environment. The default retention period is 14 days, however, you should adjust this to match your policy concerning deleted item recovery when enabling Single Item Recovery to eliminate going to backup media to recover deleted items.
Are you deploying Single Item Recovery? Single Item Recovery ensures that all deleted and modified items are preserved for the duration of the deleted item retention window. By default in Exchange 2010 RTM, this is not enabled. When enabled, this feature increases the capacity requirements for the mailbox.
Will you have calendar version logging enabled? By default, all changes to a calendar item are recorded in the mailbox of a user to keep older versions of meeting items for 120 days and can be used to repair the calendar in the event of an issue. This data is stored in the mailbox's dumpster folder. When enabled, this feature increases the capacity requirements for the mailbox.
Do you want to include an IOPS Multiplication Factor in the prediction or custom I/O profile? The IOPS Multiplication Factor can be used to increase the IOPS/mailbox footprint for mailboxes that require additional I/O (for example, these mailboxes may use third-party mobile devices). The way this value is used is as follows: (IOPS value * Multiplication Factor) + IOPS Value = new IOPS value.
Do your Outlook Online Mode clients have versions of Windows Desktop Search older than 4.0 or third-party desktop search engines deployed? The addition of these indexing tools to the online mode clients incur additional read I/O penalties to the mailbox server storage subsystem. Care should be taken when enabling these desktop search engines. Windows Desktop Search 4.0 and later utilizes synchronization protocols that are similar to how Outlook operates in cached mode to index the mailbox contents, and thus has a very minor impact in terms of disk read I/O.
Are you planning to use the I/O prediction formula or define your own IOPS profile to design toward? This question asks whether you want to override the calculator in determining the IOPS / mailbox value. By default the calculator will predict the IOPS / mailbox value based on the number of messages per mailbox, and the user memory profile. For some customers that want to design toward a specific I/O profile, this option will not be viable. Therefore, if you want to design toward a specific I/O profile, select No.
What is your custom IOPS profile / mailbox? Only enter a value in this field if you selected "No" to the "Predict IOPS Value" question.
What will be the database read:write ratio for your custom IOPS profile? Only adjust this value if you selected "No" to the "Predict IOPS Value" parameter. When IOPS prediction is enabled, the calculator will calculate the read:write ratio based on the user profile.

Backup Configuration

Within Step 3 you will define your backup model and your tolerance settings, as well as, choose whether to isolate the transaction logs from the database.

What backup methodology will be used to backup the solution? You have several options for a backup methodology, including leveraging a VSS solution (hardware or software based) or leveraging the native data protection features that Exchange provides. The solution you choose will depend on many factors. For example, if you are deploying the mailbox resiliency and single item recovery features, you may be able to forgo a traditional backup architecture in favor of leveraging Exchange as its own backup. Or if you still require a backup (e.g. legal/compliance reasons), then you need to deploy a VSS solution. The type of VSS solution you deploy will depend on your storage architecture. Hardware VSS solutions are available with storage area networks. Software VSS solutions can be leveraged against either storage area networks or direct attached storage architectures. Also, the backup methodology will affect the LUN design; for example, hardware VSS solutions require a LUN architecture that is 2 LUNs / Database.
What will be the backup frequency? You can choose Daily Full, Weekly Full with Daily Differential, Weekly Full with Daily Incremental, or Bi-Monthly Full with Daily Incremental. The backup frequency will affect the LUN design and the disk space requirements (e.g. if performing daily differentials, then you need to account for 7 days of log generation in your capacity design).
How many times can you operate without log truncation? Select how many times you can survive without a full backup or an incremental backup (the minimum value is 1). For example, if you are a performing weekly full backup and daily differential backups, the only time log truncation occurs is during the full backup. If the full backup fails, then you have to wait an entire week to perform another full backup or perform an emergency full backup. This parameter allows you to ensure that you have enough capacity to not have to perform an immediate full backup. If you are leveraging the native data protection features within Exchange as your backup mechanism, then you should enter 3 here to ensure you have enough capacity to allow for 3 days' worth of log generation to occur as a result of potential log replication issues.
How long can you survive a network outage? When a network outage occurs, log replication cannot occur. As a result, the copy queue length will increase on the source; in addition, log truncation cannot occur on the source. For geographically dispersed DAG deployments, network outages can seriously affect the solution's usefulness. If the outage is too long, log capacity on the source may become compromised and as result, capacity must be increased or a manual log truncation event must occur. Once that happens, the remote copies must be reseeded. The Network Failure Tolerance parameter ensures there is enough capacity on the log LUNs so that you can survive an excessive network outage.

Storage Configuration

Within Step 4 you will define your storage configuration.

Storage Options

Do you want to consider storage designs that leverage JBOD? JBOD storage refers to placing a database and its transaction logs on a single disk without leveraging RAID. In order to deploy this type of storage solution for your mailbox server environment, you must have 3 or more HA database copies and have a LUN architecture that is equal to 1 LUN / Database. If you select yes for this input, the calculator will attempt to design the solution so that it can be deployed on JBOD storage. Please note that other factors may alter the viability of JBOD, however (e.g. deploying a single lagged database copy on the same mailbox servers hosting your HA database copies).

Disk Configuration

What are the disk capacities and types you plan to deploy? For each type of LUN (database, log, and restore LUN) you plan to deploy, select the appropriate capacity and disk type model.

Log Replication Configuration

Within Step 5, you will define your hourly log generation rate, the network link, and the network link latency you expect to have within your site resilient architecture.

Log Replication Configuration

How many transaction logs are generated for each hour in the day? Enter in the percentage of transaction logs that are generated for each hour in the day by measuring an existing Exchange 2003 or Exchange 2007 server in your environment. If the existing messaging environment is not using Exchange, then evaluate the messaging environment and enter in the rate of change per hour here.

Now you may be wondering how you can collect this data. We've written a simple VBS script that will collect all files in a folder and output it to a log file. You can use Task Scheduler to execute this script at certain intervals in the day (e.g. every 15 minutes). Once you have generated the log file for a 24 hour period, you can import it into Excel, massage the data (i.e. remove duplicate entries) and determine how many logs are generated for each hour. If you do this for each storage group, you will be able to determine your log generation rate for each hour in the day. This script is named collectlogs.vbsrename (just rename it to collectlogs.vbs) and you can find it here: Collectlogs VBS script

Network Configuration

What type of network link will you be using between the servers? Select the appropriate network link you will be using between the two datacenters.
What is the latency on the network link? Enter in the latency (in milliseconds) that exists on the network link.

Role Requirements

This section provides the solution's I/O, capacity, memory, and CPU requirements.

Calculations Pane

The Calculations Pane performs all the calculations based on the input factors and outputs the key calculations into the Results Pane.

Results Pane

Based on the above input factors the calculator will recommend the following architecture:

Database Configuration

The Database Configuration table provides you with:

The Number of Databases is the calculated number of databases required to support the mailbox population within a standalone server or DAG.
The Recommended Number of Mailboxes / Database is the calculated number of mailboxes per database ensuring that the database size does not go above the recommended database size limit.
The Number of Tier-x Mailboxes / Database provides a breakdown of how many mailboxes from each mailbox tier will be stored within a database.
The Database Read I/O Percentage defines the percentage of database required IOPS that are read I/Os. This information is required to accurately design the storage subsystem I/O requirements.
The Available Database Cache / Mailbox value is the amount of database cache memory that is available per mailbox. A large database cache ensures that read I/Os can be reduced.

User Mailbox Configuration

The Mailbox Configuration table provides you with:

The Number of Mailboxes that you entered in the Input section (this value will include the projected growth).
The Mailbox Size is the actual mailbox size on disk that factors in the prohibit send/receive limit, the number of messages the user sends/receives per day, the deleted item retention window (with or without calendar version logging and single item recovery enabled), and the average database daily churn per mailbox. It is important to note that the Mailbox size on disk is actually higher than your mailbox size limit; this is to be expected.
The Transaction Logs Generated / Mailbox value is based on the message profile selected and the average message size and indicates how many transaction logs will be generated per mailbox per day. The log generation numbers per message profile account for:
- Message size impact. In our analysis of the databases internally we have found that 90% of the database is the attachments and message tables (message bodies and attachments). So if the average message size doubles (from 75 to 150), the worst case scenario would be for the log traffic to increase by 1.9 times. Thereafter, as message size doubles, the impact doubles.
- Amount of data Sent/received.
- Database health maintenance operations.
- Records Management operations
- Data stored in mailbox that is not a message (tasks, local calendar appts, contacts, etc).
- Forced log rollover (a mechanism that periodically closes the current transaction log file and creates the next generation).
The IOPS / Mailbox value is the calculated IOPS / Mailbox value that is based on the number of messages per mailbox, the user memory profile, and desktop search engine choices. If you had chosen to enter in a specific IOPS / mailbox value rather than allowing the calculator determining the value based on the above requirements, then this value will be that custom value.
The Read:Write ratio / Mailbox value defines the ratio of the mailbox's IOPS that are read I/Os. This information is required to accurately design the storage subsystem I/O requirements.

Database Copy Instance Configuration

This table highlights how many HA mailbox database copy instances and lagged database copy instances your solution will have within each datacenter for a given DAG.

Environment Configuration

This table identifies how many mailbox servers and lagged copy servers you will deploy in each datacenter.

Server Configuration

The Server Configuration table provides you with the following:

The Recommended RAM Configuration for the primary datacenter mailbox servers, secondary datacenter mailbox servers, and lagged copy servers. This is the amount of RAM needed to support the number of maximum activated database copies on a given server, in addition to, the number of mailboxes based on their memory profile.
The Mailbox Role CPU Megacycle Requirements value defines the amount of megacycles the primary datacenter servers must be able to sustain when either all mailbox databases are active or the number of mailbox database copies that are activated based on a single server or double server failure event. For secondary servers hosting HA copies, this value defines the amount of megacycles required to support the activation of all databases after datacenter activation. For lagged copy servers, this value defines the amount of megacycles required to support all of the passive lagged copies.
The Mailbox Role CPU Utilization value is the expected CPU Utilization for a fully utilized mailbox server role based on the megacycles associated with the user profile and the number of database copies. Depending on the environment, this will either be for a standalone server hosting 100% active databases, or a server participating in a DAG that is dealing with a single or double server failure event (or secondary datacenter activation). It is recommended that standalone servers with only the mailbox role be designed to not exceed 70% utilization during peak period. If deploying multiple roles on the server, then the mailbox role should be designed not to exceed 35%. For solutions leveraging mailbox resiliency, it is recommended that the configuration not exceed 80% utilization after a single or double member server failure when the server only has the mailbox role installed. If deploying multiple roles on the server, then the mailbox role should be designed not to exceed 40%. The CPU utilization value is determined by taking the CPU Megacycle Requirements and dividing it by the total number of megacycles available on the server (which is based on the CPU and number of cores). If the calculator reports "Insufficient Processor Cores" this means the design cannot sustain the load - either you must change the design (number of mailboxes, number of copies, etc) or change the server CPU platform.
The Recommended Storage Architecture outlines whether the solution should utilize RAID or JBOD for the primary datacenter servers, secondary datacenter servers, and lagged copy servers. JBOD is only considered under the following conditions (this assumes you configured the calculator to consider JBOD):
- In order to deploy on JBOD in the primary datacenter servers: You need a total of 3 or more HA copies within the DAG. If you are mixing lagged copies on the same server that is hosting your HA copies (i.e. not using dedicated lagged copy servers), then you need at least 2 lagged copies.
- For the secondary datacenter servers to use JBOD: You should have at least 2 HA copies in secondary datacenter. That way loss of a copy in the secondary datacenter doesn't result in requiring a reseed across the WAN or loss of data (in the datacenter activation case). If you are mixing lagged copies on the same server that is hosting your HA copies (i.e. not using dedicated lagged copy servers), then you need at least 2 lagged copies.
- For dedicated lagged copy servers: You should have at least 2 lagged copies within a datacenter in order to use JBOD. Otherwise loss of disk results in loss of your lagged copy (and whatever protection mechanism that was providing).

Database Copy Configuration

The Database Copy Configuration table provides you with:

The total number of DAGs being deployed in the solution.
The total number of mailboxes being deployed within each DAG and within the environment.
The number of database copies being deployed within each server and the total number of database copies within the DAG.

Active Database Configuration

The Active Database Configuration table provides you with:

The Number of Active Databases (Normal Run Time) value defines the number of active databases hosted on each server when there are no server outages. Unlike Exchange 2007, Exchange 2010 is no longer bound by an active/passive high availability model. Instead, each server within a DAG can host active mailbox database copies. The calculator distributes the number of unique databases across the primary datacenter servers within the DAG, ensuring an equal distribution of mailbox database copies are activated on each server. In addition, you can also see the total number of mailboxes that are accessible on each server as a result of the activated database copies.
The Number of Active Databases (After First Server Failure) value defines the number of active databases hosted on each server when there is a single server outage. As a result of the single server outage, the database copies that were activated on the failed server are equally redistributed across all remaining server nodes. In addition, you can also see the total number of mailboxes that are accessible on each server as a result of the activated database copies.
The Number of Active Databases (After Double Server Failure) value is populated when you have at least 3 HA mailbox copies and at least 4 mailbox servers within your design. It defines the number of active databases hosted on each server when there are two server outages. As a result of the double server outage, the database copies that were activated on the failed servers are equally redistributed across all remaining server nodes In addition, you can also see the total number of mailboxes that are accessible on each server as a result of the activated database copies.
The Number of Active Databases (Secondary Datacenter Activation) value defines the number of database copies that are activated on each server within the second datacenter in a site resilient scenario. In addition, you can also see the total number of mailboxes that are accessible on this server as a result of the activated database copies.

Transaction Log Requirements

The Transaction Log Requirements table provides you with:

The User Transaction Logs Generated / Day indicates how many transaction logs will be generated during the day for each active database, each server, within the DAG, and within the environment.
The Average Mailbox Move Transaction Logs Generated / Day indicates how many transaction logs will be generated during the day for active database, each server, within a DAG, and within the environment. This number is an assumption and assumes that an equal percentage of mailboxes will be moved each day, as opposed to moving all mailboxes on the same day.
The Average Transaction Logs Generated / Day is the total number of transaction logs that are generated per day for active database, each server, within a DAG, and within the environment (includes user generated logs and mailbox move generated logs).

Disk Space & Performance Requirements

The Disk Space & Performance Requirements table provides you with:

The Database Space Required is the amount of space required to support each database and its corresponding copies. This value is derived from the mailbox size on disk, the data overhead factor, whether a dedicated restore LUN is available. This row also shows you the space requirements for each server (based on the total number of database copies), each DAG, and within the environment.
The Log Space Required is the amount of space required to support each database log stream and the corresponding copies. This value takes into account the number of mailboxes moved per week (assumes worst case and that all mailboxes are moved on the same day), the type of backup frequency in use, the number of days that can be tolerated without log truncation and the number of transaction logs generated per day. This row also shows you the space requirements for each server (based on the total number of database copies), each DAG, and within the environment.
The Database LUN Space Required is the LUN size required to support the database (and potentially its log stream). This calculation takes the total disk space required for the database and adds to it the size of a database plus 110% (if a dedicated restore LUN does not exist) for offline maintenance operations, an additional 10% of the database size for content indexing (if enabled), and includes an amount of free space to ensure the LUN is not 100% utilized (based on LUN Free Space Percentage). This row also shows you the space requirements for each server (based on the total number of database copies), each DAG, and within the environment.
The Log LUN Space Required is the LUN size required to support the databases log stream. This field lists the amount of space required to support the transaction logs for a given set of databases and includes an amount of free space to ensure the LUN is not 100% utilized (based on LUN Free Space Percentage). This row also shows you the space requirements for each server (based on the total number of database copies), each DAG, and within the environment.
The Restore LUN Space Required is the amount of space needed to support a restore LUN if the option was selected in the Input Factor section; this will include space for up to 7 databases and 7 transaction log sets. Each server will be provisioned with a restore LUN. This row also shows you the space requirements for each server (based on the total number of database copies), each DAG, and within the environment.
The Total Required Database IOPS is the amount of read and write host I/O the database disk set must sustain during peak load (this does not factor in any RAID penalties). This row also shows you the IOPS requirements for each server (based on the total number of database copies), each DAG, and within the environment
The Total Required Log IOPS is the amount of read and write host I/O that will occur against the transaction log disk set. This row also shows you the IOPS requirements for each server (based on the total number of database copies), each DAG, and within the environment.

Special Notes

The Special Notes table will provide you with additional information about your design:

When to use GPT disks (when a LUN size is greater than 2TB).
How to configure your mailbox server to control the maximum number of mailbox databases that can be activated.
Whether the design parameters you have chosen have resulted in more mailbox servers being required to support the design than what a DAG can support.

The LUN Requirements section is really a continuation of the Storage Requirements section. It outlines what we believe is the appropriate LUN design based on the input factors and the analysis performed in the previous section.

Note: The term LUN utilized in the calculator refers only the representation of the disk that is exposed to the host operating system. It does not define the disk configuration.

LUN Design

The LUN Design highlights the LUN architecture chosen for this server solution. The architecture is derived from the backup type, backup frequency, and high availability architecture that were chosen in the Storage Requirements section.

There are three types of LUN architecture that can be leveraged within Exchange 2010:

1 LUN / Database
2 LUNs / Database
2 LUNs / Backup Set

1 LUN / Database

A single LUN per Database architecture means that both the database and its corresponding log files are placed on the same LUN. In order to deploy a LUN architecture that only utilizes a single LUN per database, you must have a Database Availability Group that has 2 or more copies and not be utilizing a hardware based VSS solution.

Some of the benefits of this strategy include:

Simplified storage administration. Fewer LUNs to manage.
Potentially reduce the number of backup jobs.
Flexibility to isolate the performance between Databases when not sharing spindles between LUNs.

Some of the concerns with this strategy include:

Limits the ability to take hardware based VSS backup and restores (e.g., clone snapshots). See Best Practices for Using Volume Shadow Copy Service with Exchange Server 2003 for more VSS details.

2 LUNs / Database

With Exchange 2010, in the maximum case of 100 Databases, the number of LUNs you provision will depend upon your backup strategy. If your recovery time objective (RTO) is very small, or if you use VSS clones for fast recovery, it may be best to place each Database on its own transaction log LUN and database LUN. Because doing this will exceed the number of available drive letters, volume mount points must be used.

Some of the benefits of this strategy include:

Enables hardware-based VSS at a database level, providing single database backup and restore.
Flexibility to isolate the performance between databases when not sharing spindles between LUNs.
Increased reliability. A capacity or corruption problem on a single LUN will only impact one database. This is an important consideration when you are not leveraging the built-in mailbox resiliency features.

Some of the concerns with this strategy include:

100 databases requires 200 LUNs which could exceed some storage array maximums.
A separate LUN for each database causes more LUNs per server increasing the administrative costs and complexity.

2 LUNs / Backup Set

A backup set is the number of databases that are fully backed up in a night. A solution that performs a full backup on 1/7th of the databases nightly (i.e. using a weekly or bi-monthly full backup with daily incrementals or differentials) can reduce complexity by placing all of the databases to be backed up on the same log and database LUN. This can reduce the number of LUNs on the server.

Some of the benefits of this strategy include:

Simplified storage administration. Fewer LUNs to manage.
Potentially reduce the number of backup jobs.

Some of the concerns with this strategy include:

Limits the ability to take hardware based VSS backup and restores (e.g., clone snapshots). See Best Practices for Using Volume Shadow Copy Service with Exchange Server 2003 for more VSS details.
A capacity or corruption problem on a single LUN could impact more than one Database.

Calculations Pane

The Calculations Pane performs all the calculations based on the input factors and outputs the key calculations into the Results Pane.

Results Pane

Based on the above input factors the calculator will recommend the following architecture:

LUN Design

The LUN Design table highlights the recommended LUN architecture.

LUN Configuration

The LUN Configuration table highlights the number of databases that should be placed on a single LUN. This is derived from LUN Architecture model.

This section also documents how many LUNs will be required for the entire solution, broken out by Database and Log sets, and the number of restore LUNs per server.

Database Configuration

The Database Configuration table outlines the number of databases (or copies) per server, the number of mailboxes per database, the size of each database, and the transaction log size required for each database.

Database and Log LUN Design

The database and log LUN Design table outlines the physical LUN layout and follows the recommended number of databases per LUN approach based on the LUN Architecture model. It also documents the LUN size required to support layout (this is where we factor in the additional capacity for content indexing, the LUN Free Space Percentage, and whether you are using a Restore LUN), as well as the transaction log LUN.

Important: The DB and Log LUN Design Table identify databases by a unique number. However, databases copies are distributed across the servers, and thus, these numbers hold no significance and are used solely as an example to show a server's LUN layout.

Backup Requirements

The Backup Requirements section is really a continuation of the Role Requirements section. It outlines what we believe is the appropriate backup design based on the input factors and the analysis performed in the previous sections.

Backup Configuration

The Backup Configuration table outlines the number of databases that will be placed within a single LUN and the type of backup methodology and frequency in which the backups will occur.

Backup Frequency Configuration

The Backup Frequency Configuration section will provide you with an outline on how you should perform the backups for each server, utilizing either a daily full backup or weekly or bi-monthly full backup frequency.

Log Replication Requirements

The Log Replication Requirements section is another continuation of the Role Requirements section. It outlines what we believe is the throughput required to replicate the transaction logs to each target database copy in the secondary datacenter.

Peak Log and Content Index Replication Throughput Requirements

The Peak Log and Content Index Replication Throughput Requirements table provides you with:

The Peak Log & Content Index Throughput Required / Database is the total throughput required for a single log stream and content index. This value is based on the peak log generation hour.
The Peak Log & Content Index Throughput Required Between Datacenters / DAG is the total throughput required to replicate the transaction logs and content index to all database copies (lagged and non-lagged) that exist within the alternate datacenter for the database availability group.
The Peak Log & Content Index Throughput Required Between Datacenters / Environment is the total throughput required to replicate the transaction logs and content index to all database copies (lagged and non-lagged) that exist within the alternate datacenter for all database availability groups.

RPO Log and Content Index Replication Throughput Requirements

In terms of log replication, RPO means how behind can you get in log shipping? The lower the RPO (a value of 0 or 1 essentially means you want to only lose the open log file), the higher the bandwidth you need because you cannot get behind in log replication. The higher the RPO (approaching 24) less bandwidth is needed as you are expecting to be behind (up to x hours) in log replication and to catch up at some point in the day.

The RPO Log and Content Index Replication Throughput Requirements table provides you with:

The RPO Log & Content Index Throughput Required / Database is the required throughput necessary to replicate the transaction logs and content index based on the RPO to the mailbox servers that are located within the secondary datacenter per database.
The RPO Log & Content Index Throughput Required Between Datacenters / DAG is the RPO total throughput required to replicate the transaction logs and content index to all database copies (lagged and non-lagged) that exist within the alternate datacenter for the database availability group.
The RPO Log & Content Index Throughput Required Between Datacenters / Environment is the RPO total throughput required to replicate the transaction logs and content index to all database copies (lagged and non-lagged) that exist within the alternate datacenter for all database availability groups.

Chosen Network Link Suitability

The Chosen Network Link Suitability table will dictate whether the chosen network link has sufficient capacity to sustain the peak replication throughput requirements and/or the RPO replication throughput requirements. If the network link cannot sustain the log replication traffic, then you will need to either upgrade the network link to the recommended network link throughput, or adjust the design appropriately.

Recommended Network Link

The Recommended Network Link table recommends an appropriate network link if the chosen network link does not have sufficient capacity to sustain log replication for solution for both the peak and RPO throughput requirements.

Note: The Network Link recommendations do not take into account database seeding or any other data that may also utilize the link.

Storage Design

The Storage Design worksheet is designed to take the data collected from the Input worksheet and Storage Requirements worksheet and help you determine the number of physical disks needed to support the databases, transaction logs, and Restore LUN configurations.

Storage Design Input Factors

In order to determine the physical disk requirements, you must enter in some basic information about your storage solution.

RAID Parity Configuration

For the RAID Parity Configuration table you need to select the type of RAID building block your storage solution utilizes. For example, some storage vendors build the underlying storage in sets of data+parity (d+p) groups. A RAID-5 3+1 configuration means that 3 disks will be used for capacity and 1 disk will be used for parity, even though parity is distributed across all the disks. So if you had a capacity requirement that would utilize 15 disks, then you would need to deploy 5 3+1 groups to build that RAID-5 array.

RAID-1/0 supports 1d+1p, 2d+2p, and 4d+4p groupings
RAID-5 supports 3d+1p through 20d+1p groupings (though storage solutions could support more than that).
RAID-6 supports 6d+2p groupings.

RAID Rebuild Overhead

When a disk is lost, the disk needs to be replaced and rebuilt. During this time, the performance of the RAID group is affected. This impact as a result can affect user actions. Therefore, to ensure that RAID rebuilds do not affect the overall performance of the mailbox server, Microsoft recommends that you should ensure sufficient overhead is provisioned into the performance calculations when designing for RAID parity. Most RAID-1/0 implementations will suffer a 25% performance penalty during a rebuild. Most RAID-5 and RAID-6 implementations will suffer a 50% performance penalty during a rebuild.

The calculator defaults with the following as Microsoft recommendations, but they are adjustable:

For RAID-1/0 implementations, ensure that you factor in an additional 35% performance overhead.
For RAID-5/RAID-6 implementations, ensure that you factor in an additional 100% performance overhead.

In addition, you should consult with your storage vendor to determine the appropriate RAID rebuild penalty.

RAID Configuration

By default, for RAID storage solutions, the calculator will recommend either RAID-1/0 or RAID-5 by evaluating capacity and I/O factors and determining which configuration utilizes the least amount of disks while satisfying the requirements. If you would like to override this and force the calculator to utilize a particular RAID configuration (e.g., RAID-0 or RAID-6), select "Yes" to this option and then select the appropriate RAID configuration in the cell labeled "Desired RAID Configuration."

By default the calculator utilizes RAID-5 for the Restore LUN. However, you can define a specific RAID configuration for the Restore LUN.

Note: The calculator prevents the use of RAID-5 or RAID-6 with 5.2K, 5.4K, 5.9K and 7.2K disk types, due to performance implications.

Calculations Pane

The Calculations Pane performs all the calculations based on the input factors and outputs the key calculations into the Results Pane.

Results Pane

The Storage Design Results section outputs the recommended configuration for the solution. The recommendations made are for implementing the solution potentially on RAID and JBOD storage.

RAID Storage Architecture

The Storage Architecture Table recommends which servers (primary datacenter servers, secondary datacenter servers, or lagged copy servers) should be deployed on RAID storage.

The Recommended Storage Architecture / Server table recommends the optimum RAID configuration and number of disks for each LUN (database, log and restore LUN) for each mailbox server ensuring that performance and capacity requirements are met within the design.

The Storage Configuration table will output the total number of disks required for each mailbox server that requires RAID storage, as well as, identify the total number of disks requiring RAID storage in each datacenter.

JBOD Storage Architecture

The Storage Architecture Table recommends which servers (primary datacenter servers, secondary datacenter servers, or lagged copy servers) should be deployed on JBOD storage.

The Recommended Storage Architecture / Server table recommends the optimum JBOD configuration and number of disks for each LUN (database, log and restore LUN) for each mailbox server ensuring that performance and capacity requirements are met within the design.

The Storage Configuration table will output the total number of disks required for each mailbox server that requires JBOD storage, as well as, identify the total number of disks requiring JBOD storage in each datacenter.

Total Disks Required

The Disk Requirements table outlines the total number of RAID and JBOD disks that are required for each DAG and within the environment.

Conclusion

Hopefully you will find this calculator invaluable in helping to determine your mailbox server role requirements for Exchange 2010 mailbox servers. If you have any questions or suggestions, please email strgcalc AT microsoft DOT com.

For the calculator itself, please see the following link:

Exchange 2010 Mailbox Server Role Requirements Calculator

- Ross Smith IV

Exchange Server 2010 is now available worldwide!

Exchange — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:23:00 GMT

It is my distinct pleasure to announce today the global availability of Exchange Server 2010. This has been an amazing journey from conception to launch, and the team has delivered an unprecedented line up of innovations in this release. I am incredibly proud of the team and our product.

The dedication of the Exchange community working side by side with us to deliver Exchange 2010 has been inspiring for me. I want to thank you for your commitment over the past 3 years helping us develop new ideas, make product enhancements and test pre-release bits to ensure our final product is rock solid. I believe Exchange has the most impressive IT Pro and Developer community in the world today. We could not have shipped this product without you!

In return, I hope you realize the full value of everything Exchange 2010 offers. We are all working in a very challenging economic environment today. Being cost conscious has never been more important - but also helping your organizations differentiate themselves and compete effectively is just as critical. I am delighted to see how Exchange 2010 is helping early adopters accomplish these goals. I want to share just a sampling of their stories, so you can see for yourself.

Organizations are cutting costs and simplifying administration with Exchange 2010.

"Performance with large mailboxes greatly exceeds our expectations. With the growing amount of data that needs to be retained, it is not uncommon for us to have 30-gigabyte plus mailboxes, making these performance improvements crucial to our business. I have been using Exchange 2010 and Outlook 2010 for e-mail since June and have been extremely satisfied with the performance and the user experience. It is a robust, very stable platform. And, we found RBAC to be a huge benefit. That is something I have needed for a long time-to have more granular rights for administrators and lower-level IT staff to do targeted tasks." - Alexander Diaz, Enterprise Development Manager, Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP
"The cost savings from switching from fiber channel to SATA disks is about 70 percent. The I/O system of Exchange Server 2010 is really optimized. If you look at Exchange Server 2007, it's good; but Exchange Server 2010 is really great. You can significantly reduce the disk costs when you run Exchange Server 2010." - Thomas Keck, CIO, Elabs
"We're always moving users around. We've been doing that with custom scripts in Exchange Server 2003, but we will definitely be using the Online Move Mailbox feature in 2010. Now we can move them without taking the mailbox offline." - Allan Tagg, SVP, Global Messaging Exec, Bank of America

Organizations are improving everyday productivity and meeting the expectations of a new generation of workers with Exchange 2010.

"Our salespeople need to respond quickly to dealer concerns. With Exchange Server 2010 and voice-to-text conversion, within 20 seconds after a dealer leaves a voice-mail message, our users see an e-mail preview on their cell phone. Our mobile employees might check voice mail anywhere from 5 to 10 times a day, at 5 to 10 minutes a session. By using Office Communications Server 2007 R2 and taking advantage of the voice-mail preview feature in Exchange Server 2010, they can increase their responsiveness while saving more than 15 minutes a day. From a business perspective, that's an incredibly valuable productivity increase." - George Hamin, Director of E-Business and Information Systems, Subaru Canada
"Having Conversation View on the new mobile client is really nice. It provides an extremely fast and efficient means of surveying my inbox and taking needed actions on the go." - Steven Schafer, Director of Collaboration and Network Services, Global Crossing
"By taking advantage of Outlook Web App, employees can start being productive from new locations almost immediately. As soon as they get their workstation and network connectivity, administrators can quickly provide them with access to e-mail and IM at a moment's notice without having to manage a lot of logistics. That's tremendous. Just simplifying the process of giving our remote employees access to e-mail and IM with Exchange Server 2010 will increase the productivity of our IT administrators by at least 20 to 30 percent." - Dan Evans, Manager of Messaging and Collaboration, Morgan Keegan & Company

Organizations of all sizes are better managing risk and the cost of compliance with Exchange 2010.

"With Exchange Server 2010, we can give the auditors permission to pull mail out of mailboxes themselves, rather than having me pull the data and ship it to them in a PST file. Now the nine hours a month I spend on compliance will be cut down to zero. Getting rid of PST files using Exchange Server 2010 solves a whole series of nightmares that I'm sure every Exchange Server administrator has had" - Andrew McNair, Wintel Infrastructure Manager, Cell C
"By using the compliance features in Microsoft Exchange Server 2010, we can save about $400,000 in hardware and software costs. That's a big savings." - Joseph Nguyen, Systems Architect at a large U.S. university.
"With Exchange Server 2010, we can set up transport protection rules for things like social security numbers to comply with HIPAA and for voice mails to ensure that they can't be forwarded outside the company." - Thomas Dechmann, Senior Principal IT Technologist, Medtronic

I'm also particularly proud of the work the team has done delivering Exchange as a server and a service. This has been an incredible engineering endeavor that no one else in the industry comes close to delivering. Today, we've successfully scaled Exchange 2010 to more than 15 million Outlook Live accounts around the world and, moving forward, to millions more with Exchange Online. Our promise to deliver a seamless Exchange experience on premises with the server, in the cloud as a service or a combination of the two truly gives customers choice and peace of mind.

You can see more customer results from the case studies published today, read about the launch in press coverage, hear from MBD President Stephen Elop in his TechEd Europe keynote launching Exchange 2010 and this evening at the Exchange Connections conference in Las Vegas in my keynote.

I know many of you are already underway with your Exchange 2010 deployments and many more will be starting today. The Exchange Server 2010 bits are available for download now. As always, keep the feedback coming. Listening to customers and partners is how the team has made Exchange the premier e-mail solution across the globe and that's the way we intend to keep it.

Thank you!

- Rajesh Jha

Global Crossing -- Crossing Over to Exchange 2010

Exchange — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 01:23:27 GMT

Coming off the heels of our interview with Lifetime Products and hearing what excites them most about moving to Exchange 2010 (check out the interview here), I caught up with our customer, Global Crossing, while attending the recent SharePoint conference in Las Vegas.

Global Crossing is upgrading to Exchange 2010 to take advantage of the great new e-mail archiving, cheaper storage options, and as a replacement for its legacy voicemail system.

CIO Magazine also caught up with Global Crossing this week and posted this story on the cost savings the company hopes to realize by standardizing on Windows phones and EAS and moving off of BlackBerry smartphones.

I'd like to thanks Global Crossing for chatting with us. As you can see, they are very enthusiastic about Exchange 2010! See you soon.

-- Crystal Flores

Learn about the Exchange 2010 Developer Story Today!

Exchange — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:53:00 GMT

We've just finished our 6 part series of webcasts on six key topics that developers need to know about as they start planning for moving their applications to Exchange 2010. Those webcasts are now available as on-demand webcasts below, check them out today! If you'd like a bit more human contact than these webcasts, then come join us at TechEd in Germany or Exchange Connections in Las Vegas next week; or the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference in LA November 17-19^th where we'll have great Exchange 2010 Web Services sessions and program managers from the Exchange Web Services team there to answer your questions and get your applications Exchange 2010-ready.

View the webcast now- Exchange Server 2010 Development (Part 1 of 6): Migrating Applications to Exchange Web Services

View the webcast now - Exchange Server 2010 Development (Part 2 of 6): A Deep Dive into Using Autodiscover Service in Exchange Web Services

View the webcast now - Exchange Server 2010 Development (Part 3 of 6): A Deep Dive into Impersonation and Delegation in Exchange Web Services

View the webcase now - Exchange Server 2010 Development (Part 4 of 6): A Deep Dive into Exchange Web Services Notifications (Push/Pull)

View the webcast now - Exchange Server 2010 Development (Part 5 of 6): A Deep Dive into the Exchange Web Services Managed API

View the webcast now - Exchange Server 2010 Development (Part 6 of 6): Best Practices for Building Scalable Exchange Server Applications

- Jason Henderson

Lifetime Products and why they chose to move to Exchange 2010

Exchange — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 03:18:00 GMT

I had a chance to go on the road and talk to a few of our Exchange 2010 early adopter customers. My first stop was in Clearfield, Utah where I met up with the folks at Lifetime Products. Lifetime Products is an early adopter of E2010, and appreciates the concept of a unified Inbox-and related cost savings.

Check out the video:

CIO Magazine also thinks Lifetime Product's story is pretty compelling. Check it out here.

It was great chatting with the folks at Lifetime. As you heard, they are really excited about all the new features in Exchange 2010. I'll be back soon with more great customer videos.

-- Crystal Flores

Supporting Exchange 2007 on Windows Server 2008 R2

Exchange — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:41:00 GMT

We always talk about listening to customers and sometimes this is written off by many as 'marketing speak'. In fact, we do take feedback seriously and no input is more important to our engineering processes than your voice.

Earlier this year we made a decision in one direction, and due to the feedback we have received on this blog and elsewhere, we have reconsidered. In the coming calendar year we will issue an update for Exchange 2007 enabling full support of Windows Server 2008 R2. We heard from many customers that this was important for streamlining their operations and reducing administrative challenges, so we have changed course and will add R2 support. We are still working through the specifics and will let you know once we have more to share on the timing of this update.

So, keep the feedback coming. We are listening.

Kevin Allison
GM Exchange Customer Experience

Programmatic Access via Remote PowerShell in Exchange Server 2010

Exchange — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:24:08 GMT

The management experience given by Exchange 2010 through PowerShell has been moved all the way from Local to Remote. This will mean that enterprise Admins will have to adjust their regular scripts to connect to Remote PowerShell instead of creating a local session.

Here are some examples on how can this be achieved and the differences that may have to be done in order to create the connection and run the cmdlets.

Using programmatic API

The programmatic API is the simplest method that will allow you to make a remote connection requiring only the Uri for the connection and a set of suitable credentials that need to be provided through a method.

SCredential credential = new PSCredential(username, password);

Note: The password here must be of type SecureString.

After you just need to create the connection Information that will allow the creation of the runspace.

// Set the connection Info
    WSManConnectionInfo connectionInfo = new WSManConnectionInfo(
      new Uri(liveIdconnectionUri),
      http://schemas.microsoft.com/powershell/Microsoft.Exchange,
      credential);

    connectionInfo.AuthenticationMechanism = AuthenticationMechanism.Basic;

// create a runspace on a remote path
// the returned instance must be of type RemoteRunspace

Runspace runspace = System.Management.Automation.Runspaces.RunspaceFactory.CreateRunspace(connectionInfo);

From here it is just you only need to create a PowerShell instance and fill it with your cmdlets and then invoke it through the run space we've just created. Here is a simple example with get-mailbox.

PowerShell powershell = PowerShell.Create();
      PSCommand command = new PSCommand();
      command.AddCommand("Get-Mailbox");
      command.AddParameter("Identity", mailboxName);
      powershell.Commands = command;
      try
      {
          // open the remote runspace
          runspace.Open();
          // associate the runspace with powershell
          powershell.Runspace = runspace;
          // invoke the powershell to obtain the results
          return powershell.Invoke();
      }
      finally
      {
          // dispose the runspace and enable garbage collection
          runspace.Dispose();
          runspace = null;
          // Finally dispose the powershell and set all variables to null to free
          // up any resources.
          powershell.Dispose();
          powershell = null;
      }

Using Programmatic API and Certificate Thumbprint

This uses the exact same syntax than the Programmatic API except that we would need to connect to a Uri that is has a Certificate Thumbprint enabled when we create the WSMAN connection in this syntax.

WSManConnectionInfo connectionInfo = new WSManConnectionInfo(
              "E75C847ADF7B355DAAC2C6D1A4EDD8284A0C0FDC",
              new Uri(certconnectionUri),
              "http://schemas.microsoft.com/powershell/Microsoft.Exchange");

Remote Request using a local run space (Scripting the remote class)

This is the best to create scripts and run your cmdlets using remote PowerShell. For this case, we have to script in the code a call to create a New-PSSession using our credential, the connection Uri and method of authentication. This is basically using the cmdlet:

New-PSSession -ConnectionUri Microsoft.Exchange -ConnectionUri $Uri -Credential $LiveCred -Authentication Basic

To do this, we have to create the Run space in which we will run the cmdlet and then create a PowerShell instance to add the cmdlet.

Runspace runspace = System.Management.Automation.Runspaces.RunspaceFactory.CreateRunspace();
        PowerShell powershell = PowerShell.Create();
        PSCommand command = new PSCommand();
        command.AddCommand("New-PSSession");
        command.AddParameter("ConfigurationName", "Microsoft.Exchange");
        command.AddParameter("ConnectionUri", new Uri(liveIdconnectionUri));
        command.AddParameter("Credential", cred);
        command.AddParameter("Authentication", "Basic");
        powershell.Commands = command;

Now invoke this cmdlet and set it as a variable on the local Run Space that will be used to do the remote calls.

try
     {
         // open the remote runspace
         runspace.Open();
         // associate the runspace with powershell
         powershell.Runspace = runspace;
         // invoke the powershell to obtain the results
         Collection<RemoteRunspaceInfo> result = powershell.Invoke<RemoteRunspaceInfo>();
         foreach (ErrorRecord current in powershell.Streams.Error)
         Console.WriteLine("The following Error happen when opening the remote Runspace: " + current.Exception.ToString() + " | InnerException: " + current.Exception.InnerException);
         if (result.Count != 1)
             throw new Exception("Unexpected number of Remote Runspace connections returned.");
         // Set the runspace as a local variable on the runspace
     powershell = PowerShell.Create();
     command = new PSCommand();
     command.AddCommand("Set-Variable");
     command.AddParameter("Name", "ra");
     command.AddParameter("Value", result[0]);
     powershell.Commands = command;
         powershell.Runspace = runspace;
         powershell.Invoke();

After we have done this, we can now do the remote calls that will be executed on the server side as script blocks.

         powershell = PowerShell.Create();
     command = new PSCommand();
     command.AddScript("Invoke-Command -ScriptBlock { Get-Mailbox -Identity:" + mailboxName + " } -     Session $ra");
     powershell.Commands = command;
     powershell.Runspace = runspace;
         return powershell.Invoke();
     }
     finally
     {
         // dispose the runspace and enable garbage collection
         runspace.Dispose();
         runspace = null;
         // Finally dispose the powershell and set all variables to null to free
         // up any resources.
         powershell.Dispose();
         powershell = null;
     }

- Mario Trigueros Solorio

Getting Ready for the Exchange 2010 Launch

Exchange — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:07:51 GMT

Three weeks ago we announced that Exchange 2010 was code complete. As we get ready for launch, we're seeing some amazing results from our early adopter customers. Julia White, Director of Exchange Marketing, shares some of these early highlights on the Unified Communications Blog.

Check out her post and see how Exchange 2010 (and you) can do the work of 4 or 5 other servers - and do it better and more cost-effectively.

Upcoming Webcast: Best Practices for Virtualizing Microsoft Exchange

Exchange — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:45:00 GMT

We've got a great webcast coming up next week to discuss recommendations for virtualizing Exchange server and the benefits of choosing Hyper-V + System Center as your virtualization solution.

TechNet Webcast: Microsoft Virtualization Best Practices for Exchange Server (Level 300)

Wednesday, Nov. 4 at 10am Pacific time

Virtualizing business critical applications will deliver significant customer benefits including cost savings, enhanced business continuity and an agile and efficient management solution. This session will focus on virtualizing Exchange using Microsoft solutions, and guidance for virtualizing Exchange for various Production scenarios. We will go into technical details with best practices.

Exchange 2010 and SLD / Disjoint / Discontiguous Namespaces

Exchange — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:43:38 GMT

This is an update to the blog post Next version of Exchange and Single Label Domain (SLD) policy under review.

In response to customer feedback, the Exchange team has updated their testing matrix and has determined that Exchange Server 2010 will be supported on Single Label Domains (SLD), Disjoint Namespaces, and Discontiguous Namespaces. This post contains a brief description of each of these scenarios and special considerations. If you intend to install Exchange 2010 into one of these environments you need to read the documentation about the applicable subject.

In adding support for these types of topologies, there is an underlying requirement for DNS to be properly installed and configured. Before proceeding with any deployment defined here, clients and servers must be able to reliably resolve DNS queries for a given resource in the appropriate namespace.

Single Label Domains

Single-label DNS names are DNS names that do not contain a suffix such as .com, .corp, .net, or .org. For example contoso would be an SLD while contoso.com, contoso.net, or contoso.local would not be an SLD.

Not a recommended configuration

While Exchange 2010 is supported with SLDs, the Exchange product team's view is that SLDs are not a recommended configuration, and may not be supported by future Exchange versions. Other Microsoft or third party applications that you want to run in your environment may not be supported on an SLD. This could have an adverse effect on your environment. While we will allow installation of Exchange 2010 in an SLD, we strongly recommend that you take steps to move your organization out of this configuration.

Disjoint Namespaces

A disjoint namespace scenario is one in which the primary DNS suffix of a computer does not match the DNS domain name where that computer resides. The computer with the primary DNS suffix that does not match is said to be disjoint. Another disjoint namespace scenario occurs if the NetBIOS domain name of a domain controller does not match the DNS domain name.

Exchange 2010 and Disjoint Namespaces

In Microsoft Exchange 2010, there are three supported scenarios for deploying Exchange in a domain that has a disjoint namespace. The supported scenarios are as follows:

Scenario 1 The primary DNS suffix of the domain controller is not the same as the DNS domain name. Computers that are members of the domain can be either disjoint or not disjoint.
Scenario 2 A member computer in an Active Directory domain is disjoint, even though the domain controller is not disjoint.
Scenario 3 The NetBIOS domain name of the domain controller is not the same as the subdomain of the DNS domain name of that domain controller.

For more information on Exchange 2010 and disjoint namespaces see Understanding Disjoint Namespace Scenarios.

Special Considerations

In Exchange 2010 you may need to configure the DNS suffix search list to include multiple DNS suffixes if you have a disjoint namespace. For more information please see Configure the DNS Suffix Search List for a Disjoint Namespace.
It is a requirement that msds-allowedDNSSuffixes be configured within the Active Directory environment for all namespaces used within the forest. For instructions on configuring this, please see the Tech Net article "The computer's primary DNS suffix does not match the FQDN of the domain where it resides."

Discontiguous Namespaces

A discontiguous namespace, also referred to as non-contiguous namespace, is one in which the domains in a forest are not defined hierarchically. If the domains in a forest have discontiguous DNS names, they form separate domain trees within the forest. An Active Directory forest can have one or more domain trees. An example of a multi-tree forest would be a forest containing the domains, contoso.com and fabrikam.net. Note: contoso.com and contoso.net in the same forest would be an invalid configuration. This is because they would both be using a NetBIOS name of contoso in their respective domains. In the case of discontiguous DNS namespaces, each domain must still register a unique legacy NetBIOS domain name.

Special Considerations

For discontiguous namespaces, DNS must be configured such that Exchange servers are able to resolve all domain names in the environment. It is also a requirement that msds-allowedDNSSuffixes be configured within the Active Directory environment for all namespaces used within the forest. For instructions on configuring this, please see the Tech Net article "Understanding DNS Client Settings."

Exchange 2010 System Requirements

For more information on Exchange 2010 System Requirements please see the Tech Net article "Exchange 2010 System Requirements"

- Ed Beck

HelpUri property from commandInfo object type

Exchange — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 18:10:58 GMT

This post applies to Exchange 2010.

By default, PowerShell has 7 Cmdlets loaded in the remote session for "import-session *" scenario which leads to about 30 MB of memory spike. Any additional Exchange help files that are loaded will cause additional spike. We will see this spike when users would call get-help on our Cmdlets, PowerShell is just preempting the spike.

In order to correct and prevent these spikes there is a manual configuration that can be done as part of the steps during an Exchange Server deployment. This configuration is not part of Exchange setup because the file belongs to PowerShell. In this particular case the change can be made using a simple script that will go into the PowerShell directory and make the necessary change to the ComandInfo object type removing the HelpUri property from it.

Running from ConfigurrePowerShell.cmd:

$path = "$pshome\types.ps1xml"
$xmlDoc = New-Object System.Xml.XmlDocument
$xmlDoc.Load($path)
$nodeList = $xmlDoc.GetElementsByTagName("Type")
$ShouldUpdateTypeFile = $false

foreach ($node in $nodeList)
{
if ($node.Name -eq "System.Management.Automation.CommandInfo")
{
    foreach ($child in $node.Members.ChildNodes)
    {
      if ($child.Name -eq "HelpUri")
      {
        $removedChild = $node.Members.RemoveChild($child)
        $ShouldUpdateTypeFile = $true
      }
    }
}
}

if($ShouldUpdateTypeFile)
{
$xmlDoc.Save($path)
}

This short script will iterate through the nodes of the types.ps1xml file removing the HelpUri property saving around 40Mb of memory by not loading all the help content for cmdlets in the beginning of the session. Note that this will have no bad effects, in other words you will still be able to use get-help.

- Mario Trigueros Solorio

Don't put CAS in the Perimeter network!

Exchange — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 13:27:00 GMT

We sometimes hear customers talking about putting Exchange 2007 or Exchange 2010 Client Access Servers (CAS) into the Perimeter network (sometimes referred to as the "DMZ" - Demilitarized Zone). A Perimeter network is a network zone many companies deploy between the Internet and their intranet as defense-in-depth. The idea behind a perimeter network is to add additional steps to what a hacker would have to do to get access to any intranet resources. To add as strong defense-in-depth as possible, you want to put only servers you trust to withstand Internet attacks in the perimeter, and then you should assume they can be broken into anyway.

With Exchange 2000/2003, it was supported and there was documentation explaining how to put an Exchange 2000/2003 Front-End (FE) server into the perimeter network, with a firewall between the FE and the Exchange Back-End (BE) servers it accessed. This leads some customers who upgrade from E2000/E2003 to expect the same deployment pattern with E2007/E2010.

As you start planning for deploying an E2007/E2010 CAS server in the perimeter network, you quickly notice that there is no documentation for how to do this though. You will probably even find the TechNet documentation which explains this is explicitly not supported by Microsoft. Microsoft doesn't test or support any topologies which put firewalls between a CAS and a Mailbox (MBX) server. The only Exchange 2007/2010 role which is supported for deployment in a perimeter network, and with a firewall server separating it from other Exchange server it talks to, is the Edge role. This is true for Exchange servers talking to one another within and between AD Sites.

The fact that there is no support for using firewalls between Exchange servers (except for the Edge role) sometimes causes confusion for how to use the Windows OS firewall on Exchange. It is supported to have the Windows OS firewall turned on for Exchange servers. In fact, we strongly recommend you leave the Windows OS firewall turned on as a defense-in-depth measure. Exchange 2010 setup is smart enough to configure the Windows OS firewall so it'll let through all Exchange traffic appropriately (for Exchange 2007 you need to run the Security Configuration Wizard and apply the Exchange 2007 role based template).

When discussing the fact that it is not supported to put CAS in the perimeter network, the next question is obviously "why?". If this was supported and documented for E2000/E2003 FE, why not for E2007/E2010 CAS?

The most important reason why customers wanted to install Exchange FE servers in the perimeter network was to block any unauthenticated traffic from reaching servers on the intranet. This is a good practice, but as you'll see below doing this with Exchange FE/CAS servers is no longer the best way to accomplish this goal.

It is important to understand that the CAS role in Exchange 2007 is significantly different from the FE server in E2000/E2003.

· The E2000/E2003 FE servers were there to authenticate users and proxy traffic to the BE server where the traffic was actually interpreted and responded to. For example, the FE servers in E2000/E2003 don't do any Outlook Web Access (OWA) rendering. That all takes place on the BE servers.

· The E2007/E2010 CAS role on the other hand contains all middle-tier logic and rendering code for processes like OWA, Exchange ActiveSync (EAS), Exchange Web Services (EWS), and more.

In the same timeframe as E2007 was available, enough customers had also started using reverse proxies (e.g. Internet Security and Acceleration server (ISA) 2000 FP1, 2004 or 2006) with functionality like pre-authentication. This meant there was now a good way to do authentication of Exchange traffic before the traffic reached the Exchange servers. The role the E2000/E2003 FE server had played for defense-in-depth by pre-authenticating traffic before it reached servers which included a lot of Exchange business logic could now be better handled by these new reverse proxies. The reasons a reverse proxy like this does a better job than an Exchange FE or CAS server for this defense-in-depth role are:

· Exchange CAS servers require full access to all mailboxes in an AD Site, and significant access rights to the AD. That's a level of access privileged which you should avoid having in the perimeter network.

· The Exchange FE executed a little bit of Exchange business logic, and the Exchange CAS executes a lot of Exchange business logic. The more business logic you expose in the perimeter network, the more risk you're taking that something in that logic can be hacked. For servers you put in the perimeter network, you want to minimize the logic/code surface area they run and which is exposed to attack from the outside. Reverse Proxies are built with the primary purpose of withstanding Internet attacks like that. Although Exchange servers are also hardened from a security perspective, they run much more logic than a reverse proxy, which increases the risk.

· Reverse Proxies are built to be put in the perimeter network or at the edge of the network. They include many security features and flexibility for customers to determine the level of defense-in-depth which is right in any particular environment. Some of these defense-in-depth features are easy to just turn on (e.g. using pre-authentication while your reverse proxy is an AD domain member; or avoiding AD domain membership and limiting pre-authentication capabilities) whereas other defense-in-depth features take more work (e.g. using pre-authentication without domain membership by using RADIUS). But the important distinction between the reverse proxies and the CAS is that the reverse proxies have many more defense-in-depth features and deployment models available than Exchange CAS.

In addition to these reasons why a reverse proxy does a better job in the perimeter network than an Exchange FE/CAS does, there is also a problem with FE/CAS in the perimeter which goes away when using a reverse proxy there instead:

· Deploying an E2000/E2003 FE server in the Perimeter network was difficult. The port settings and other internal firewall configuration required was complicated and many customers ran into problems setting this up correctly. Different types of internal firewalls required different configuration and the symptoms experienced by Internet clients when something was misconfigured weren't always easy to diagnose. This complexity and the errors it caused was a problem for Exchange customers. The internal firewall configuration required when using a reverse proxy in the perimeter is much simpler. This is why we don't offer "CAS in the perimeter network" as a supported solution even for customers who want to take the security risks listed above: people accidentally end up shooting themselves in the foot when trying to configure things for a FE/CAS to work in a perimeter network.
If you are curious, the ports used between server roles by E2007 are listed in http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb331973.aspx.

The best way to deploy Exchange CAS with respect to a perimeter network is to put a reverse proxy you trust in the perimeter, configure the firewall between the perimeter and the intranet to be as restrictive as possible and to host the CAS server on the intranet. This will get traffic inspection and other reverse proxy security filtering in place in the perimeter.
As extra defense, you can also configure pre-authentication to be done on the reverse proxy. This might not be possible for all Exchange protocols if you want to expose some advanced functionality like E2010 Federated Free/Busy and Calendar Sharing to the Internet. But you can configure the pre-authentication for as many clients and protocols as is supported by the reverse proxy and the scenarios you want to enable.

Regards,

Kristian Andaker and Jason Henderson

New version of Exchange Remote Connectivity Analyzer has been released

Exchange — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 12:46:00 GMT

Today we released an updated version of the Exchange Remote Connectivity Analyzer. For those of you not familiar with this site, it is a Web-based tool that helps you troubleshoot connectivity issues. The tool simulates several client logon and mail flow scenarios. When a test fails, many of the errors have troubleshooting tips to assist you in correcting the problem. For more information, see our previous blog post here.

New/updated features

Updated user interface
New CAPTCHA implementation. (This is the hard to read words that make you prove you are a human)
No more 'Beta' label
Additional tests
- Exchange Web Services - This allows you to perform connectivity testing for Exchange Web Services client such as Entourage. Developers can also use the Service Account Verification test to ensure things are configured and working properly for access with an alternate account or ExchangeImpersonation.
- Outbound SMTP - Performs Reverse DNS testing, DNS RBL Checks, and SenderID validation against a provided "outbound" IP address
Updated the Outlook Anywhere test logic to work with Exchange 2010
Added a link in the footer to the Remote Connectivity Analyzer TechNet forum
Added a password confirmation text box to ensure the proper password was entered before running a test. This will reduce the number of tests that fail simply due to a typo in the password.

Known Issues

The Exchange ActiveSync tests allow you to "Ignore trusts for SSL". Checking this option only tells the tool to not fail if the certificate you are using is not in the list of Trusted Root Certificates... for example if you were using a certificate from your own Windows CA. This option does not allow the test to be completed over a non-SSL connection. That is, if you do not have a certificate and want to test whether Exchange ActiveSync works over port 80 - this tool cannot perform this validation. (Note: We will not be able to add this feature in the future). Note: Due to limitations in the RPC API, we are currently unable to ignore the trust requirement for SSL for the RPC over HTTP / Outlook Anywhere tests. We are looking into alternatives for future releases.

Thank you to everyone who sent feedback to us. The above list is a direct result of the comments you provided. Please keep the feedback coming. We also like to hear when the tool helps make you successful. The "Feedback" link is in the footer of each page on the site. This goes directly to Brad and me.

Link to tool: https://www.TestExchangeConnectivity.com

Here's a little video I created about the tool:

Enjoy!

- Shawn McGrath & Brad Hughes.

Exchange 2007 Search - Part 3: The Search Process

Exchange — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 02:44:00 GMT

This is the final part of the three part series on Exchange 2007 search. Part 1 can be found here and part 2 is here. The following post outlines the search process for Exchange 2007.

Search Process

Search Methods for Exchange 2007

There are five basic ways to search mailbox data.

Three types of search Methods can be using when querying data directly against an Exchange 2007 Sever.

1. Exchange Search (New Content Indexing Feature) is used when a search request for Mailbox store data is requested. Outlook is in online mode and indexing is enabled on the store.
2. Store Search is the default search method that is used if Content Indexing is disabled on the Exchange Server. This is also the method used in previous versions of Exchange. Outlook is in online mode and indexing is disabled.

This blog post focuses on the first option - Exchange Search with Outlook 2007 in online mode and Exchange 2007 indexing is enabled. The difference between searching the Index with and without WDS installed on the Outlook 2007 client machine is covered in detail later in this section.

3. Outlook Online Search w. WDS - Outlook is online mode with WDS enabled to index the store.

This method is disabled in WDS by default beginning with WDS version 3.01 and not recommended because it causes performance issues on the Exchange 2007 server. It can be enabled or disabled on (a) an individual client machine or (b) by group policy. The Administration Guide for 3.01 and the Group Policy for Windows Search provide detailed information, while the 4.0 Administrator's Guide provides general information:

Windows Desktop Search 3.01 Administration Guide

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=00645e54-70a8-4d05-906d-af8773cbc728&DisplayLang=en

Group Policy for Windows Search

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc732491.aspx

Note: The latest version of WDS is 4.0

Windows Search 4.0 Administrator's Guide

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc772446.aspx

For further information on why this method is disabled by default beginning with WDS 3.01 and the performance problems it causes if enabled, please see this reference:

905184 Exchange 2000 Server and Exchange Server 2003 performance may be affected when desktop search engine software is running on Outlook or other MAPI client computers

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;905184

Two additional methods of search are available with Outlook 2007.

4. Outlook Cached Search - Outlook is in cached mode and Windows Desktop Search is not installed.

5. Outlook Cached Search w. WDS - Outlook in cached mode and Windows Desktop Search is installed, the local index files are used.

The Instant Search feature, new to Outlook 2007 and which is only available if Windows Desktop Search is installed on the client machine, gives the user the following functionality:

Hit Highlighting, which helps the user understand why an item was returned with their search results by highlighting the matching text.
Word Wheeling, automatically filters the items in the current view based on what the user types in, and continues to update as the search is modified, this is sometimes referred to as "Search as I type".
Query Builder, allows the user to use query syntax, explained in further detail later in this section.
All Folder Search, also examined in further detail later in this chapter this feature allows an Outlook user to search multiple folders in their Outlook profile, including multiple top-level folders.

Note: If you are accessing an Exchange 2007 Server with Outlook 2007 (without WDS) hit highlighting will still function.

Searching Mailbox Data - More Information

Locale and Language

In order to return consistent search results in environments of multiple locales, the following points must be true:

The locale of the message must match the language the email was written
Search queries are submitted in a single language
The language of the search query must match the locale of the client computer as identified by the connection to the server

Searching Junk and Dumpster Items

All your mailbox folders are available for search in Outlook 2007 and OWA 2007, including the junk mail folder. It is not currently possible to search your mailbox dumpster from Outlook or OWA. For a dumpster workaround, see the section below on Cross Mailbox Search.

Cross Mailbox Search

An Exchange Administrator has the ability using the Exchange Management Shell to search across multiple mailboxes using the Export-Mailbox cmdlet. This cmdlet will search all mailbox items in multiple, or a single mailbox. What is interesting about this cmdlet is that a search of a single mailbox or across mailboxes will include the dumpster of a mailbox or multiple mailboxes. Deleted items are converted to regular messages and included in the search. Items that match your search are then exported to a specified pst or specified single target mailbox. You can use Cross Mailbox Search to search for text in the Subject or Body of the message. For additional information on how to perform a Cross Mailbox search, see the links below:

How To Use Exchange Search to Locate Messages for the Purposes of Review or Deletion:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa997688.aspx

Exchange Server 2007 Cross Mailbox Search using Export-mailbox:
http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2006/12/18/431934.aspx

Searching Attachments

With the use of installed IFilters Exchange Search indexes attachments. Depending on the client you are using to search, you may need to take additional steps to include attachments in the search.

For OWA 2007, attachments in your search are included automatically
For Outlook 2007, use Instant Search or Advanced Find
For Outlook 2003, use Find or Advanced Find and select Subject Field & Message Body
For Outlook 2002, use Advanced Find and select Subject Field & Message Body

Note that indexing is currently performed on embedded items for one level. If you have an email within an email, Exchange 2007 Search will index both items. If there is another email embedded in the second email, that email will not be indexed.

Another issue is that if you combine attachment keyword searching with another form of searching such as a keyword in an attachment (which gives hits) and a keyword in the TO: field (which gives hits), you will not get any hits if you combine these two parameters into one search because the attachment keywords and the TO: keywords are kept in different store tables. The only workaround currently is to do the searches separately and then compare the results for matching items.

Exchange Search vs. Store Search

When a user is in online mode in Outlook 2003 or Outlook 2007 and creates a search request within Outlook, the request is sent to the Exchange 2007 Server and serviced by one of two methods, Exchange Search or Exchange Store Search. A table comparing the two methods is below, followed by an overview of the process of querying using Exchange Search.

Mode	WDS Installed		WDS Not Installed
Mode	Advanced Find	Find Pane	Advanced Find	Find Pane
Cached	no	no	yes	yes
Online	yes	yes	yes	yes

The query processor checks on the status of the msftesql-Exchange and MSExchangeSearch services every 30 seconds and caches their status in Memory; if either is unavailable Exchange Store Search is used. Note that if the catalog is unavailable, or the database is not enabled for full text search, then Exchange Store Search is used. Note that Substring searching refers specifically to a substring anywhere within a word rather than simply Prefix searching which refers to a substring at the beginning of a word.

Exchange Search Process without WDS Installed

The following Exchange Search procedure assumes the Outlook online mode client is using the Advanced Find feature, or does not have Windows Desktop Search (WDS)/Instant Search, or any other local indexing application installed.

1. A client (Outlook or Web Client) creates search query, a search query contains the restriction and the scope, the "What" and "Where".

a. The Exchange Server Query Processor inside the store takes the query and builds a request based on the restriction and scope. The restriction is evaluated and converted to a MAPI restriction tree, providing the parameters of the query. The scope is the folder list and sets the boundaries of the query.

i. During this query evaluation (if a Noise Word File has been implemented), the query processes common words called Noise Words are removed. "A", "and", "the", are all examples of noise words.

b. The query is now sent to MSSearch.

2. MSSearch creates a temporary folder called a Search Folder that will contain its results. MSSearch then reads the Index Catalogs and returns the Document ID's from the catalog that match the request.

a. The Search Folder is stored in a hidden folder hierarchy with a top level folder named Restrictions. These search folders are only temporary and the client does not directly access them.

3. The Query Processor then reads the Property Store to find the Entry ID's that match the Document ID's returned by MSSearch, these back links are then stored in the Search Folder.

4. A restricted view is then created based on the contents of the search folder. The information store then sends this view to the client. The client can now see all the items that match the restriction and scope of their query.

a. The search folder is deleted by the store when not used for a certain amount of time.

Exchange Search Process with WDS Installed

In order to perform Advanced Searching in online mode (against the Index, not against the Store), Windows Desktop Search (WDS) must be installed. That can be illustrated by using an advanced search example of Phrase Searching.

In our example (Outlook 2007 SP1 in online mode) phrase searching using Instant Search fails against Exchange 2007 SP1 with indexing enabled against mailboxes if WDS is not installed. Phrase searches use quotation marks. For example, if you do a phrase search using Instant Search for "One Two Three" you receive the same results if you search for One Two Three (without ""). The result you receive is that One and Two and Three all exist in the email, whether they are in the subject or the title of the email - all three terms have to be there to get hits, but One Two Three does not have to be in exact order.
By design in Exchange 2007 with Indexing enabled, Phrase Searching (i.e., using quotation marks to search for a phrase in the subject or body of a message) using Instant Search in Outlook 2007 online mode only works if Windows Desktop Search (WDS) is installed. This is by design in Outlook 2007 because the Semantic Analyzer Component of Windows Desktop Search (WDS) is required by Instant Search for advanced searching syntax (also called advanced search grammar or advanced searching language). This type of searching is officially known as Advanced Query Search or AQS that is only added to Instant Search from WDS.

Phrase and Keyword Searching
If you want to do phrase searching (using "") with Outlook 2007 Instant search in online mode with Exchange 2007, you must install Windows Desktop Search to go along with Outlook 2007. In summary, this is by design in Exchange 2007 and by design in Outlook 2007. This applies to all types of advanced queries against the Exchange 2007 index - WDS must be installed on the Outlook 2007 client in online mode.
When you install Outlook 2007, Outlook 2007 shows a prompt to have WDS installed
because Outlook 2007 would like to make use of the semantic analyzer component in WDS. Once WDS is installed, WDS enables Instant Search to perform AQS queries such as phrase searching (using ""), keyword searching and more. Online mode search works without WDS, but the AQS or Advanced Query Syntax such as using quotes for searching does not work. AQS is the query language for WDS and can be used to narrow the scope of your searches. For example, using AQS you can use keywords like sent:, from:, read:yes/no, NOT, AND, +, OR, to name a few. For a complete list of AQS search options, click on the following links:

Chapter 11: Searching Outlook Data
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc513841.aspx

Advanced Query Syntax
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/Bb266512(VS.85).aspx

Advanced Query Syntax
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa965711.aspx

Advanced Query Syntax: What, Where, Why, and How
http://blogs.msdn.com/cheller/archive/2006/12/05/advanced-query-syntax-what-where-why-and-how.aspx

NOTE: Outlook 2007 without WDS installed will not support the Advance Query Syntax. This functionality is only provided with Windows Desktop Search.

Outlook 2007 with WDS installed supports Prefix and Exact Phrase Matching when double quotes are used around any word or words to specify an Exact Phase.
Windows XP does not have Windows Desktop Search (WDS) installed by default. If you want to use the Advanced Query Search functions in Instant Search in Outlook 2007 online mode such as searching for phrases by using quotation marks, you will need to include Windows Desktop Search as a part of the Outlook 2007 install or add WDS after installing Outlook 2007.

WDS is installed by default on Windows Vista. Therefore, Outlook 2007 installed on Windows Vista, in online mode, is able to utilize the Advanced Query Search functions by default.

OWA uses Basic Search instead of Advanced Search Query. Therefore, when using OWA to search the Exchange 2007 index on the server, it is by design that phrase searching and other advanced queries do not work.

Prefix matching is the default for the Advanced Find feature in earlier versions of Outlook but this is not necessarily the case in Outlook 2007. The table below lists the different modes and searching features in Outlook 2007 and whether or not Prefix searching is supported. Note that the table below refers to Prefix matching specifically (the beginning of a word), rather than Substring searching (a string found anywhere in word). Note also that when Indexing is enabled and available and the mailbox has been crawled, Advanced Find in Online Mode uses Exchange Search when it searches for a property in a message that is indexed by Content Indexing, uses Store Search when it searches for a property in a message that is indexed by Content Indexing, and uses a combination of Exchange Search and Store Search for a complex search of a combination of properties in a message, one of which is indexed by Content Indexing and one of which is not indexed by Content Indexing.

Mode	WDS Installed		WDS Not Installed
Mode	Advanced Find	Find Pane	Advanced Find	Find Pane
Cached	no	no	yes	yes
Online	yes	yes	yes	yes

Support Matrix for Prefix Matching

Further Information on WDS and Outlook 2007

Outlook 2007 is the first client version providing Instant Search in a pane which integrates Windows Desktop Search (WDS) into the Outlook interface. Instant Search makes it possible to easily search all mail folders in online mode and all personal folder files at the same time. Instant Search works in online mode against Exchange 2007 mailboxes. Instant Search also works in online mode against Exchange 2003 and Exchange 2000 mailboxes. For further information and to download WDS, see the following link:

Windows Desktop Search 4.0

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/desktopsearch/choose/windowssearch4.mspx

Outlook 2007 with WDS installed allows you to return results for the selected folder (only) or All Folders. There is not an option for subfolder searching. However, this can always be performed through the Advanced Find feature.

Note that in previous versions of Outlook, WDS is not integrated into the Outlook interface. In Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2002, the Advanced Find dialog only allows you to search one mailbox folder plus its subfolders. You can choose to search the Mailbox top level folder and its subfolders and you can then search all items in the Mailbox in online mode. Or you can search one personal folder plus its subfolders at a time. However, you cannot search multiple top level folders or multiple .pst files (or a combination of folders and .pst files) at the same time. In Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2002, you must use the WDS interface by itself to be able to search all items in the mailbox and all items in personal folders at the same time.

Searching Exchange 2007 Public Folder Databases with Outlook 2007

Using Instant Search in Outlook 2007 or Advanced Find in Outlook 2007 or Outlook 2003, you can search Public folders only in cached mode and only your Public Folder Favorites and only when you check the Cached Exchange Mode Settings box which says Download Public Folder Favorites. You can also optionally mandate local cached indexing of public folder data on a per machine basis or by group policy.

Indexing Exchange 2007 Public Folder Databases

Note that Exchange 2007 indexes only mailbox store databases. In Exchange 2000 and Exchange 2003, full-text indexing could also be implemented for the public store database. That functionality has been replaced with SharePoint 2007 SP1 server running on Windows 2003 to index Exchange Server 2007 SP1 public folders for Exchange 2007 SP1. For further information, see the following links:

942390 Description of the SharePoint Server 2007 issues that are fixed by the 2007 Microsoft Office servers Service Pack 1
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;942390

If the SharePoint 2007 server is on Windows 2008 64-bit, there is an issue that is fixed in SharePoint 2007 SP2 which will allow SharePoint 2007 on Windows 2008 to be able to index Exchange 2007 SP1 public folders. Note that it is required that you apply BOTH Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Service Pack 2 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Service Pack 2 (64-bit versions):

KB Article Links

953338 Description of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SP2 and of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Language Pack SP2
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;953338

953334 Description of 2007 Microsoft Office servers Service Pack 2 and of 2007 Microsoft Office servers Language Pack Service Pack 2
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;953334

Download Links

Service Pack 2 for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, x86 & x64
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=79BADA82-C13F-44C1-BDC1-D0447337051B&displaylang=en

Service Pack 2 for Office SharePoint Server 2007, x86 & x64
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=B7816D90-5FC6-4347-89B0-A80DEB27A082&displaylang=en

Summary

In summary, there are five basic ways to search Exchange 2007 mailbox data. This blog post focused on the first option - Exchange Search with Outlook 2007 in online mode with Exchange 2007 indexing enabled. Searching the Index with WDS installed on the Outlook 2007 client machine provides a new feature called Instant Search and includes the ability to do Advanced Query Searching. Also, using Instant Search that has WDS integrated into the Outlook 2007 interface allows you to search all mailbox folders in online mode and all .pst files simultaneously in a supported and reliable manner. For performance reasons, indexing the mailbox store by WDS is disabled by default.

Search queries are performed in one language only, the language of the client performing the search. Cross Mailbox Search to a target mailbox or target .pst file is available through the Export-Mailbox command. Attachment searching, new to Exchange 2007, is only provided with the use of installed default Filters and additional Filters may be installed for other document types. In order to do attachment searching, you must be in online mode or use OWA. Instant Search automatically includes attachments and Advanced Find can search attachments in Outlook 2007, Outlook 2003, and Outlook 2002. OWA 2007 includes attachment searching automatically.

Exchange Search (default) is preferred over Store Search (only used when the Index Catalog is not present or not available). Exchange Search is much faster than Store Search, searches words and phrases instead of streams of bytes, searches attachments, and can search in various languages.

Searching Exchange 2007 Public Folder Databases with Outlook 2007 (and Outlook 2003) is only possible if you are in Cached Exchange Mode, and only on Public Folder Favorites, and only if you check the box which says Download Public Folder Favorites.

By design, Exchange 2007 only indexes mailbox store databases, while both previous versions Exchange 2003 and 2000 also indexed public folder databases. By design, the current method of indexing Exchange 2007 public folder databases is to use SharePoint 2007.

In Exchange 2007 SP1, SharePoint 2007 SP1 is used to index public folder databases. SharePoint 2007 SP1 servers can currently index public folder databases on Exchange 2007 SP1 servers. SharePoint 2007 SP2 servers running on Windows 2008 are expected to be able to index Exchange 2007 SP1 public folder databases.

Conclusions

Exchange 2007 full-text indexing is now a best practice for all Exchange 2007 mailbox databases due to the fact that searching is much faster, mail is immediately indexed when it arrives, the reduced catalog size, and both Search and Index are much less resource intensive than previous versions.

Crawling in Exchange 2007 is now performed automatically as new items arrive or a significant event such as a mailbox move to a database occurs rather than on a schedule as in previous versions. This means that the Catalog Index is always up-to-date within seconds of new items arrival. Exchange 2007 provides a Noise Word file capability per the language of the client.

Exchange 2007 Content Indexing for High Availability SCC servers is much like Clustered Servers content indexing for Exchange 2003 and Exchange 2000: there is one copy of the Catalog. For Exchange 2007 CCR servers, there are two copies of the mailbox database and each database has its own unique catalog which is only crawled at any one time on the active node.

There are five basic ways to search Exchange 2007 mailboxes, and this bulletin concentrates specifically on the new Features available for Outlook 2007 online mode clients with WDS installed against Exchange 2007 mailbox database with indexing enabled such as searching attachments and using Advanced Query Syntax. Indexing of Exchange 2007 public folder databases has been completely deprecated for Exchange 2007 and searching for Exchange 2007 public folder databases has been partially deprecated in Outlook 2007. The current method of indexing and searching for Exchange 2007 public folder databases is now using SharePoint 2007.

In conclusion, deploying Exchange 2007 together with Outlook 2007 and SharePoint 2007 gives advanced features, much faster and up-to-date indexing and searching than previous versions of full-text indexing for Exchange 2003 and Exchange 2000. Full-text indexing and the use of Exchange Search rather than Store Search are now recommended as a Best Practice for all Exchange 2007 mailbox databases.

Exchange 2007 Search Resources and Links

Technet

How to Diagnose Exchange Search Issues
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb123701(EXCHG.80).aspx?track=cc_exchange_sync

How to Disable or Enable Exchange Search
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa996416.aspx

How to Rebuild the Full-Text Index Catalog
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa995966(EXCHG.80).aspx

How To Use Exchange Search to Locate Messages for the Purposes of Review or Deletion
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa997688.aspx

Indexing Exchange Server 2007 Public Folders
http://blogs.msdn.com/enterprisesearch/archive/2008/06/06/indexing-exchange-server-2007-public-folders.aspx

Managing Exchange Search
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa998289.aspx

Understanding Client Throttling
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc540454.aspx

Understanding Exchange Search
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb232132(EXCHG.80).aspx

How To Use Exchange Search to Locate Messages for the Purposes of Review or Deletion
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa997688.aspx

Microsoft Exchange Team Blog and Team Wiki

Exchange Search FAQ
http://www.exchangeninjas.com/ExchangeSearchFAQ

Exchange Server 2007 Cross Mailbox Search using Export-mailbox
http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2006/12/18/431934.aspx

The new Search in Exchange Server 2007
http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2006/10/11/429163.aspx

KB Articles

944516 How to register Filter Pack IFilters with Exchange Server 2007
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;944516

945077 The Outlook Web Access search function does not work for some users in Exchange 2007
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;945077

Office Online

Can I remove the Instant Search pane?
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA102388301033.aspx

Chapter 11: Searching Outlook Data
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc513841.aspx

Create a Search Folder
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA100389111033.aspx

Enable or disable Instant Search
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA102378331033.aspx

Find a message or item by using Instant Search
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA012305851033.aspx

Find and organize messages with Search Folders
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA102341231033.aspx

Instant Search is not finding items
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA101980851033.aspx

Learn to narrow your search criteria for better searches in Outlook
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA102388311033.aspx

Reset indexing by rebuilding your Instant Search catalog
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA102378321033.aspx

Turn off the prompt for installing Windows Desktop Search
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA102429341033.aspx

Use Search Folders to gather messages marked as Important
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA012305791033.aspx

Advanced Query Syntax

Chapter 11: Searching Outlook Data
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc513841.aspx

Advanced Query Syntax
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa965711.aspx

Advanced Query Syntax
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/Bb266512(VS.85).aspx

Windows Search Advanced Query Syntax
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/desktopsearch/technicalresources/advquery.mspx

New Mansions in Search - Advanced Query Syntax
http://blogs.msdn.com/jonasbar/archive/2007/01/31/new-mansions-in-search-advanced-query-syntax.aspx

Advanced Query Syntax: What, Where, Why, and How
http://blogs.msdn.com/cheller/archive/2006/12/05/advanced-query-syntax-what-where-why-and-how.aspx

Windows Desktop Search

Group Policy for Windows Search
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc732491.aspx

Windows Desktop Search 3.01 Administration Guide
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=00645e54-70a8-4d05-906d-af8773cbc728&DisplayLang=en

Windows Search 4.0 Administrator's Guide
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc772446.aspx

Windows Search
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa965362(VS.85).aspx

Windows Search 4.0
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/desktopsearch/choose/windowssearch4.mspx

Windows Search: Technical Resources Overview
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/desktopsearch/technicalresources.mspx

Description of Windows Desktop Search 3.01 and the Multilingual User Interface Pack for Windows Desktop Search 3.01
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/917013

-- Bob Want and Jack French

Exchange 2010 Schema was back ported to Exchange 2007 SP2, but why are files different?

Exchange — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 13:05:05 GMT

It was mentioned before that Exchange 2007 SP2 contained Exchange 2010 schema completely back ported to it, but if you check the LDF files that generate the schema you may notice that they are in fact different.

Back porting the schema was not a straight forward action code wise. In order to do it, we had to add some of the properties that were in a separated file in Exchange 2010 to all the *99.ldf files in Exchange 2007 SP2. This is why you may notice that there are differences in the files that generate the schemas in between the 2 versions.

However, this change has no impact on what happens when you install E2007 SP2. Schema versions are synchronized and after installing it, the schema in your environment will be that of Exchange 2010.

- Mario Trigueros Solorio