ForeFront TMG BPA released

Posted on January 21, 2010 by Michel de Rooij

Today, Microsoft released the Forefront Threat Management Gateway Best Practices Analyzer, or ForeFront TMG BPA for short. Like other Best Practice Analyzer tools, this tool is to analyze the configuration and health of systems, based on predetermined best practices rules. The tool reports any issues, after which you can take action. Note that the installation also contains a tool, titles BPA2Visio, to (as you can probably guess) generate Visio drawings using the information found in TMG. BPA2Visio requires a Visio installation. You can download ForeFront TMG BPA, which is labeled version 8.0.1, here.

Be advised that TMG BPA only works on TMG, not on ISA installations. For ISA analysis, use ISA BPA which can be downloaded here.

Quest product updates for Exchange 2010

Posted on January 19, 2010 by Michel de Rooij

Only four days after BinaryTree announced their Notes migration product update, Quest announced and released an update of their Quest Notes Migrator for Exchange (NME) product today. NME version 4.2, now with Exchange 2010 support, supports Notes to Exchange/Exchange Online migrations. NME is part of Quest’s suite of Lotus/Notes migration products, which also contains products to support Notes to Sharepoint and SameTime to OCS migrations.

You can find the press release here, more information on Notes Migrator for Exchange can be found here.

Exchange 2010 DAG port

Posted on January 19, 2010 by Michel de Rooij

The Technet site contains a nice reference to all ports used by Exchange 2010 and its various roles, as well as an overview of the firewall rules created by Exchange 2010’s setup. Very handy when you need to provide IP and port information to the network people.

One port which stands out from the rest is the port used for DAG log shipping and seeding, which is 64327 by default. Looking back at Exchange 2007 this is good; the port is static and DAGs use regular TCP, where CCR/SCR in Exchange 2007 uses 445 for log shipping (over SMB) and a dynamic port for seeding. And if it’s two things some network people hate it’s SMB and dynamic ports. On the other hand, 64327 in the dynamic range defined by IANA; according to IANA dynamic ports cannot be registered (claimed).

Fortunately, the port can be changed when required. To change the port for a DAG use the Set-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup cmdlet with the ReplicationPort parameter like this, where <n> can be any number between 1 and 65535:

Set-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup -Identity DAGID -ReplicationPort <n>.

Note that Exchange will not adjust the Windows Firewall rules accordingly, so you need to create a firewall exception on each DAG member to make replication work. Even better, you should do this before changing the DAG port to prevent interrupting the replication longer than necessary.

BinaryTree product updates for Exchange 2010

Posted on January 15, 2010 by Michel de Rooij

Binary Tree’s Common Migration Tool for Exchange, a cross-platform messaging migration and coexistence tool, has been updated to support direct migration and coexistence between Lotus Domino and Exchange Server 2010.

You can register here for an online event and presentation on their upgraded products and direct migration from Domino to Exchange 2010.

(Thanks to Brettjo)

Exchange 2010 Deployment Assistant updated

Posted on January 14, 2010 by Michel de Rooij

Today Microsoft updated their Exchange 2010 Deployment Assistant.It got updated after the initial release in mid-November where you could only select upgrading from Exchange 2003. Now all scenarios work, so you can select if you’re upgrading from Exchange 2003, Exchange 2007, Exchange 2003/2007 or performing a greenfield Exchange 2010 installation.

After selecting the scenario you will be asked a few questions, such as “Are you running a disjounted namespace?” or “Are you planning to to use public folders in Exchange 2010?” (nooooo). When finished you’ll be presented a checklist.

While the tool is available online-only, you can download the checklist for offline use by clicking Download Checklist (top right). This will download the checklist in PDF format. It’s a good reference for planning and can be a useful tool to keep track of where you are in the process.