Using Azure VMs for an Exchange DAG Witness Server

Last week, the Azure team released a cool new feature: support for a DAG Witness server inside an Azure VM. With the latest version of exchange, you can configure automatic data centre failover. But to do that, you new require three physical sites. However, according to Microsoft, many customers only had two physical sites deployed. This is where Azure comes in, since these clients can use Azure as their third physical site. This provides a cost-effective method for improving the overall availability and resiliency of their Exchange deployment, and requires no up front capital expenditure.

OF course, deployment of production Exchange servers is still unsupported on Azure virtual machines. But I can't help thinking that in due course we'll see this restriction changed.  MS kind of hint that by saying; "Stay tuned for future announcements about additional support for Azure deployment scenarios.".

Yet another cool scenario available to Azure customers today . For more details on how to do it, see the TechNet article at: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn903504(v=exchg.150).aspx.

del.icio.us Tags: Azure,Azure VM,Exchange. DAG,Exchange DAG Witness

SPs coming for Office, SharePoint and Exchange 2013-but not Lync

I notice over on Peter Bruzzewse’s InfoWorld column, more information about the upcoming Service Packs For Office, SharePoint and Exchange 2013. A key focus of these upcoming service packs is to bring the on-premise versions of these tools up to par with what’s being delivered in Office 365.  Office 365 has a much more frequent update schedule although the changes at each update are correspondingly smaller although over time these differences mount up.
Peter notes many of the features coming – and yes there are likely to be AD Schema changes too. One key feature of Exchange 2013 SP1 is the re-introduction of the Edge server role. This role was, for some reason, omitted from Exchange 2013 RTM, but is now brought back, although it’s unlikely, the article suggests, to have much in the way of major feature enhancements. Sounds a bit like Public Folders.
One thing missing from all this is SP1 for Lync. I am guessing that there is a good reason for this – there won’t be a SP for Lync 2013. Traditionally, the Lync team have eschewed Service Packs, relying instead on Cumulative Updates on a fairly frequent schedule. So is there going to be a new version of Lync? Well, probably -  but the real question is when.
My guess is that any new version will not be disclosed until the Lync Conference in February 2014 in Las Vegas. If it is announced then, we’d likely see a preview late Spring to early Summer and then see RTM in the autumn. Of course, this is only just a huge guess – if it’s correct you heard it here first, but if not, then it’s just another uninformed rumour.  Having said that, we’re sort of due for a new version in the coming 18 months at least. We’ll see.
But in the mean time, get planning on the updates to Office, SharePoint and Exchange 2013.

Technorati Tags: Lync,Lync 2013,Lync 2013 Next Generation

Exchange 2013 Service Pack 1 Coming Soon!

Over on Microsoft’s Office blog, Microsoft announced that a full service pack, SP1, for Exchange 2013 will be coming in the new year. That Service pack is, in effect, a single rollup patch that incorporates all the current cumulative updates.

For me, the most important feature of this upcoming SP is Exchange 2013 Support on Server 2012 R2. This means that I can build out my Lync 2013 farm using the latest version of the OS for both the Lync and the Exchange VMs. Yeah!

Both Exchange and Lync use a CU scheme to roll out updates for on-prem customers. These are regular updates and each one is cumulative. An SP then is sort of an uber-rollup. This is a really nice approach, IMHO. Hopefully, this will allow MSDN and TechNet to offer an SP1 included version of Exchange for building VM test farms.

Lync uses a similar cumulative update model, but thus far has not incorporated them into a formal Service Pack. I can understand it, but at the same time, it would be nice to be able to get ahold of a fully patched version of Lync – downloading all the patches from the Internet just takes time, especially for test labs. Mind you, the Lync team work on a different release rhythm and have been able to do updated versions faster than the Exchange team. We’ll see what happens in the spring!

Technorati Tags: Lync,Exchange,Exchange 2013 SP1

Exchange 2007 Updated Help File

For some products, suggesting someone read a help file is like suggesting they take a long walk on a short pier (albeit less wet). But for Exchange 2007, this seems good advice. Microsoft published an updated version of the help file for Exchange, available for download from the MS Downloads site.

I hope they continue this approach with the advent of Exchange 2010.

 

Technorati tags: Exchange 2007, Microsoft

Why Exchange Server 2003 will not run on the x64-based versions of Windows Server 2003

I have become a real fan of Exchange 2007 - which may surprise some readers as I've previously been a non-fan. But with Exchange 2007, I'm finding that Microsoft has done something really pretty cool. Exchange 2007 is not a little mail system - it is an enterprise messaging solution (apologies for driving off into marketing speak, but the distinction is, IMHO, important.

At home, I've been running MailTraq, a nice SME mail server. It does mail as well as NNTP and also provides both mailing lists and web mail. Well I used to run Mailtraq - I now am running Exchange 2007 Beta 2 and it rocks.

One of the interesting features of Exchange 2007 is that, in production, it's 64-bit only. There are to be no 32-bit versions (for production), although for testing and training, Microsoft will provide a 32-bit version. This requirement is being made for a combination of performance and security. But in making the move, there are some backwards compatibility issues - not least of which is that Exchange Server 2003 will NOT run on 64-bit. Microsoft has issued an KB article, Why Exchange Server 2003 will not run on the x64-based versions of Windows Server 2003 to explain why. The answer, simply, is that Exchange 2007 installs a 32-bit IFS driver which for reasons not explained has not be recompiled into 64-bit (and is not signed). Thus it won't run on 64-bit Windows Server systems that require all drivers to be both native 64-bit and signed.