Eightwone.com

Posted on August 18, 2010 by Michel de Rooij

As of yesterday this blog can be reached on a native URL, http://eightwone.com. Looking at where this blog is going, I made things in order regarding DNS and the mail server (still on Postfix, sorry), so no more redirections to WordPress URL when surfing to eightwone.com (I already purchased the domain when I started this blog). It also looks more professional than that tertiary domain name. Note that all links to eightwone.wordpress.com remain valid and are automatically mapped to their eightwone.com counterpart.

Also, I took 70-638, “Office Communications Server 2007, Configuring” exam today. Hurray, I passed!

Remote Desktop Connection Manager

Posted on May 31, 2010 by Michel de Rooij

A few days ago, Microsoft released an installable Remote Desktop Connection Manager, or RDCMan for short. RDCMan (v2.2) looks like the MMC version of Remote Desktops, but contains additional functionality like grouping and export/import. Great for people working in lab or demo environments where you have to switch back and forth – and manage – a lot of remote sessions.

You can download Remote Desktop Connection Manager here.

Public Folder DAV-Admin Tool updated

Posted on May 14, 2010 by Michel de Rooij

The PFDAVAdmin tool has been updated to version 6.05.8170. As you probably know, PFDAVAdmin can be used to perform management tasks related to Exchange’s public folders and mailboxes and is supported on Exchange 2000, Exchange 2003 and Exchange 2007.

You can download it from here.

Forefront Protection 2010 Capacity Planning Tool

Posted on May 11, 2010 by Michel de Rooij

The folks at Microsoft released version 1.0 of the Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Server capacity planning tool. This tool is to aid you in planning and sizing your FPE configuration.

The tool starts with the question if you want to evaluate your current setup or are planning for a new environment. After that you need to select the required architecture, Standard for small to medium sized organizations or Enterprise for large organizations (e.g. combined Exchange Server roles). You can define the required level of protection (i.e. number of engines on Edge, Hub Transport and Mailbox Server roles) and see the predicted effect on the hardware requirements. After completing the questionnaire you receive the recommended hardware configuration.

You can also see the predicted performance for different setups, i.e. virtual or non-virtual setup, Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2008 R2 as well as Exchange level (2007 or 2010).

You can download the FPE capacity planning tool here.

Exchange 2007 Mailbox Role Calculator 17.3

Posted on May 10, 2010 by Michel de Rooij

Exchange 2007? Yes! With all this Exchange 2010 coverage one might forget about Exchange 2007, but not the Exchange team who updated the Exchange 2007 Mailbox Server Role Storage Requirements Calculator to version 17.3.

The major change in this version compared to version 16.9 (released April, 2009!) is a change in the IOPS calculation. This change is to based on the BlackBerry Enterprise Server for Microsoft Exchange 2007 Performance Benchmarking Guide which simplifies the IOPS calculation in combination with 3rd party software.

The update also contains some bug fixes which are contained in the release notes. You can download the calculator here; usage instructions can be found here.