Book: Pro Exchange 2013 SP1 PowerShell Administration

Posted on December 20, 2014 by Michel de Rooij

As some of you may have noticed, it has been a bit more quiet here than it used to be. Well, the reason for that, after several months of collaborative hard work, blood, sweat and tears, is finally here (and in stores just in time for the Holidays): A book titled Pro Exchange 2013 Service Pack 1 PowerShell Administration!

Together with fellow Exchange MVP Jaap Wesselius, we will talk you through topics such as:

Deployment and co-existence scenarios.
The Client Access Server role and topics such as namespaces, certificates, load balancing, and publishing.
The Mailbox Server role and topics such as managing mailboxes, distribution lists and recipients, message transport
High availability topics like Database Availability Groups and Client Access and Transport availability.
Message Hygiene using the Edge Transport server role and anti-spam features.
Backup, Restore and Disaster Recovery, including the backup-less’ Native Data Protection scenario.
Unified Messaging features and integration with IP telephony solutions such as Microsoft Lync Server.
Compliance features like In-Place Archiving and MRM, In-Place Discovery, In-Place Hold, Data Loss Prevention including fingerprinting, and auditing.
Role-Based Access Control model and Split Permissions model for organizations that require this.
Office 365 and Exchange Online (EXO) scenarios, federating organizations, directory synchronization, ADFS and Multi-Factor Authentication, as well as basic tasks like onboarding and offboarding mailboxes.

Our 600+ page book will take a PowerShell-first approach when talking about Exchange Server 2013. You can order the book from Amazon here.

I have also added it to the book page here, which also contains other useful books when you want to learn about Exchange or related technologies like PowerShell, Active Directory or Lync Server.

HCW 2013 Subtask CheckPrereqs execution failed

Posted on August 4, 2014 by Michel de Rooij

A quick heads-up on the Hybrid Configuration Wizard (HCW) in Exchange 2013, which is broken. The HCW in Exchange 2010 does not have this issue.

The HCW is needed when you want to configure or maintain your Exchange 2013 Hybrid configuration. When checking the prerequisites, the Exchange 2013 HCW may throw the following error message:

Subtask CheckPrereqs execution failed: Check Tenant Prerequisites
Deserialization fails due to one SerializationException: 
Microsoft.Exchange.Compliance.Serialization.Formatters.BlockedTypeException: 
The type to be (de)serialized is not allowed: 
Microsoft.Exchange.Data.Directory.DirectoryBackendType

The issue has been documented in KB2988229. An Interim Update is available, as reported here. The IU is available for Exhange 2013 Service Pack 1 (CU4) and Cumulative Update 5. Unfortunately, the IU is not available publicly, but must be requested through support.

The fix will be incorporated in Exchange 2013 Cumulative Update 6.

If you must, you can use Exchange fellow Steve Goodman’s instructions documented here, which describes the process to manually configure Exchange 2013 Hybrid deployments. Be advised that, as Steve also points out, the Exchange Hybrid deployment support status depends on the ability to run HCW successfully.

Multi-Factor Authentication in Office 365 (Part 2)

Posted on July 9, 2014 by Michel de Rooij

Multifactor Authentication is a must-have for services based in the cloud, especially for accounts with administrative purposes. We have already covered what Office 365 Multifactor Authentication is and how to configure it in Office 365 tenants with the Office 365 admin center, and we briefly showed the end user experience. Now we will look at how we can use the Azure Active Directory Module for Windows PowerShell to configure Office 365 authentication with MFA.

Azure Active Directory Module for Windows PowerShell (AADMPS) enables organizations to not only configure MFA for existing end users who use PowerShell, but also enhance their current provisioning process with MFA options. By pre-configuring MFA, administrators can prevent end users from having to go through the initial MFA setup process and use their currently configured mobile phone or office number for verification.

Read the full article over on SearchExchange

Multi-Factor Authentication in Office 365 (Part 1)

Posted on June 17, 2014 by Michel de Rooij

Multi-Factor Authentication identifies an end user with more than one factor. Authentication is based on something you know, such as your password; something you have, such as a security token or smart card; or something that’s a physical characteristic of who you are, such as biometrics. By creating an additional factor on top of the password, identity is better protected. Multi-Factor Authentication is seen as a must-have for cloud-based services, especially for administrative types of accounts.

In this first tip on SearchExchange, I explain how you can configure Multi-Factor Authentication in Office 365, discuss the so-called contact methods, explain app passwords for non-MFA applications as well as show the MFA end user experience.

Read the full article over on SearchExchange

Script Updates

Posted on June 9, 2014 by Michel de Rooij

A small heads-up for those not following me on Twitter of one of the other social media channels. Last week I made updates to the following three scripts:

Install-Exchange2013.ps1, version 1.72

Added CU5 support
Added KB2971467 (CU5 Disable Shared Cache Service Managed Availability probes)

Remove-DuplicateItems.ps1, version 1.3

Changed parameter Mailbox, you can now use an e-mail address as well.
Added parameter Credentials.
Added item class and size for certain duplication checks.
Changed item removal process
Remove items after, not while processing folder. Avoids asynchronous deletion issues.
Works against Office 365.

Remove-MessageClassItems.ps1, version 1.3

Changed parameter Mailbox, you can now use an e-mail address as well
Added parameter Credentials
Added parameter PartialMatching for partial class name matching.
Changed item removal process. Remove items after, not while processing folder. Avoids asynchronous deletion issues.
Works against Office 365.
Deleted Items folder will be processed, unless MoveToDeletedItems is used.
Changed EWS DLL loading, can now be in current folder as well.

Be advised I keep am overview of the scripts and their current versions with publish dates here.