About Michel de Rooij

Michel de Rooij, with over 25 years of mixed consulting and automation experience with Exchange and related technologies, is a consultant for Rapid Circle. He assists organizations in their journey to and using Microsoft 365, primarily focusing on Exchange and associated technologies and automating processes using PowerShell or Graph. Michel's authorship of several Exchange books and role in the Office 365 for IT Pros author team are a testament to his knowledge. Besides writing for Practical365.com, he maintains a blog on eightwone.com with supporting scripts on GitHub. Michel has been a Microsoft MVP since 2013.

Exchange 2007 SP3 Rollup 15

Posted on December 9, 2014 by Michel de Rooij

Today the Exchange Team released Rollup 15 for Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 3 (KB2996150). This update raises Exchange 2007 version number to 8.3.389.2.

This Rollup contains a security update to fix a potential elevation of privilege issue (bulletin MS14-075), as well as the following fixes:

3004235 Exchange Server meetings in Russian time zones as well as names of time zones are incorrect after October 26, 2014
3008308 Public folder database migration issue in a mixed Exchange Server environment

Notes:

When running ForeFront Protection for Exchange, make sure you disable ForeFront before installing the rollup and re-enable it afterwards, otherwise the Information Store and Transport services may not start. You can disable ForeFront using fscutility /disable and enable it using the fscutility /enable command;
If you want to speed up the update process for systems without internet access, you can follow the procedure described here to disable publisher’s certificate revocation checking;
Rollups are cumulative per service pack level, i.e. they contain fixes released in earlier update Rollups for the same product level (RTM, SP). This means you don’t need to install previous Rollups during a fresh installation but can start with the latest Rollup package.

As with any Hotfix, Rollup or Service Pack, I’d recommend to thoroughly test this rollup in a test and acceptance environment first, prior to implementing it in production.
You can download Exchange 2007 SP3 Rollup 15 here.

Ignite 2015: Call for Topics

Posted on November 21, 2014 by Michel de Rooij

In October, I reported on the new ‘mother of all Microsoft events’, Microsoft Ignite. This event is going to take place from May 4-8, 2015 in Chicago, US.

Contrary to how the agenda used to be determined for events like TechEd or the Microsoft Exchange Conference (MEC), Microsoft is now asking for your help by scoring contents and topics. By completing a short, anonymous Call for Topics survey here, you can let those in charge of assigning session slots know what you would like to see at Ignite.

If you have any questions on Ignite, Microsoft is also having some Twitter sessions for specific products. More on this in the original Call for Topics post here. The Exchange session takes place at Tuesday, December 2^nd 9 am (Pacific Time) and use hashtag #ignitejam to participate.

So, if you went to MEC and would like to see a fair share of Exchange or Office 365 should you visit Ignite, be sure to complete the Call for Topics survey and plug your favorite product or platform.

Exchange 2013 Server Role Requirements Calculator 6.6

Posted on October 22, 2014 by Michel de Rooij

Note: Shortly after publishing, a minor update was made in to fix circular referencing in the sheet.

Next to an updated Exchange 2010 Server Role Requirements calculator, the Exchange team published an update for the Exchange 2013 Server Role Requirements Calculator as well. The new version number is 6.5.

This new version includes a nice new feature, courtesey of Excel, which will plot mailbox usage using the provided input. You can find this chart on the Mailbox Space Modeling tab.

Changes since version 6.5:

Fixed circular logic issue with initial mailbox size calculation

Changes since version 6.3:

New: The calculator now includes mailbox space modeling graphs that extrapolates (for each mailbox tier) the projected amount of time it will take to consume the mailbox quota.
Fixed “Number of Exchange Data Volumes per Server” to support more than 50 volumes.
Optimized memory sizing for FAST which reduces memory requirements for small mailbox server designs.
Added the ability to specify multiple AutoReseed volumes per DAG server to calculator and scripts.
Fixed 3 database/volume layout scenario involving 100 copies/server.
Fixed rounding error in calculating number of databases/volume in “2 Volumes / Backup Set”
Log isolation is now a calculated property to align with best practices guidance.
Changed “Disk” to “Vol” in left column of Distribution tab to align with scenarios that do not involve JBOD configurations.
Added additional processor core options.
Fixed JBOD storage design results table to accurately account for Restore Disk capacity being set to “–” and for differences between PDC and SDC Restore Disk capacity settings.
Fixed Backup Requirements worksheet to expose Weekly Full backups correctly.
Various comment changes/corrections.

You can download the calculator here. For more information, please consult the list of changes here or Read Me here.

Exchange 2010 Server Role Requirements Calculator 20.9

Posted on October 22, 2014 by Michel de Rooij

Almost 1,5 year after, the Exchange Team released an update for the Exchange 2010 Server Role Requirements Calculator. The updated version is 20.9 and contains minor bug fixes over the previous version.

Fixes since version 20.8:

Additional fixes on CAS/HT CPU calculations formulas
Disabled Distribution tab for Active/Active Single DAG model
Added Distribution tab warning that only one of the two DAGs is shown
Fixed RAID disk calculation for A/A scenario and lagged copies

You can download the calculator here. For more information please consult list of changes here or view usage instructions here.

The UC Architects Podcast Ep44

Posted on October 20, 2014 by Michel de Rooij

Episode 44 of The UC Architects podcast is now available,which was recorded at the Norwegian Lync Day. This episode is hosted by Pat Richard, who joined by Ståle Hansen, Tom Arbuthnot and Steve Goodman. Special guests are Lasse Nordvik Wedø, Adam Gent, Johan Delimon, Tommy Clarke, and Martin Lidholm. Editing was done by Andrew Price.

Some of the topics discussed in this episode are:

Configuring QoS for Lync IP Phones
New version of Lync SDN interface
Lync Call Concurrency Calculator
Never be late for a meeting again
MS14-055 Broke My Edge Server
Norwegian Lync Day recap
Session recap: Lync Backup and Restore by Lasse Nordvik Wedø
Session recap: Lync Hybrid and Skype by Tommy Clarke
Session recap: Lync Mobile sign in process and media flow by Tom Arbuthnot
Session recap: SIP and media in Lync explained by Johan Delimon
Session recap: Lync voice explained by Adam Gent
Lessons learned about holding a conference by Ståle Hansen
Session recap: 5 Elements That Ensure a Successful Lync Deployment by Martin Lidholm
TechEd Europe events

More information on the podcast including references and a link to download the podcast here or you can subscribe to the podcasts using iTunes, Zune or use the RSS feed.

About
The UC Architects is a bi-weekly community podcast by people with a passion for Unified Communications; our main focus is on Exchange, Lync or related subjects.