Category Exchange

The time is finally here! With Exchange 2010 on the horizon (Oh, and that I’m back from being out for three weeks… ) the time is finally here to finally be able to begin re-embracing Exchange

Incase you missed it, I’m a hardcore Exchange guy.  I first got into Exchange as a means to do certain functions which the mail systems at the time were unable to support, so I adopted the Exchange model in the Exchange 4.0 Timeframe (Oh, and MSMail but I won’t go there ;))

And for everyone who was ever involved in Exchange, you’ll know that like Star Trek Movies, there are good movies “Wow, that was amazing!” and there are bad ones “Wtf?! That was terrible! Oh, it’ must be an odd/even thing!”    We all experienced that with Windows versions too.  NT3.1 rocked, 3.5 sucked, 3.51 was decent, 4.0 was great, and in the Desktop Space.. Win95 was ‘eh’ win98 great, winME, WTF?! (And albeit I personally liked Vista, enough people seemed to have enough issues that it didn’t make it too technically feasible)

Well, these same rules did apply in star trek movie terms to Exchange (Yes, my very own beloved Exchange) whereby Exchange 4.0 was great (first…?) 5.0 was horrible.  5.5 was SOLID! Exchange 2000 was a nice intro, but Exchange 2003 was immaculate (for its needs) and Exchange 2007.  Well, lets just say, you’ll notice I haven’t talked about Exchange 2007 for the most part in the past 6 years.. Ever wonder if there was a reason for that?

So, it brings me great honor to say Exchange 2010 (E14) is going to be the rock which we all know it to be.    So like you, I will look forward to all the great solid things, like a management interface, configuration management.. things not being done as a SEVERE afterthought.  Pretty solid usability (Oh, and at no point have I ever disagreed with the UI/UX Experience, so my good friends in E2K7 UI/UX, none of this is a knock against you, you just had to ride the bad movie train ;))

Look out.. this blog may start to cover more Exchange related things again, considering most of my most frequently visited hits tend to be around messaging, an area I was forced out of by a terrible movie ;)

Wow! Welcome to Exton, Pennsylvania! We drove tirelessly from Greensboro, NC all through the night to end up here in PA this amazing (rainy) day.    But What a day and what an event that lay before us as we arrived!   It started with a wonderful greeting in the rain!

Ken Rosen shakes hands here with Nadine Sievers and Certified Trainer, MCT, MCTS Project server and Project, Melanie Rosen (Oh, did I mention Professional Photographer?! :))

Bruce Cooper starts off Springhouse TechFest 2009 to a full room. Full crowd on a Sunday!

The whole crowd was great, they all seemed eager to learn, and learn they did!   The day ended with the whole Springhouse team taking a photo in front of the bus in the rain, and many conversations and connections were had by all!

I encourage you to check out Springhouse’s blog, and you can also follow them on Twitter @springhouseeduc and Facebook!

So, You notice I mentioned above that there were great conversations and learning to be had by all right? Well, allow me to share with you some insight of those conversations that I found

I was fortunate to get to know the type of character and culture which makes up not only the organization of Springhouse, but also how their mission around Education and Consulting is above all one of the best I’ve seen!   Their focus on full value solutions and ensuring that you are taken care of in the long run, whether consultatively or educationally is awe inspiring and not the type of behavior you see from other training organizations.

The relationship they have with their own internal staff has people coming back for more and more, and the things I heard about the types of training they offer and their educational guarantees left my speechless!

I definitely encourage you to check them out at their website, because these are seriously great folks and while they’re doing amazing things today, I know we can expect them to grow on that in the future.

That’s right! April 16th is the day for the:

Microsoft Certification Coaching Session: Preparing for your Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 – Application Development Exam (70-541)

If you’re interested in SharePoint and want to get Certified, this is a must see event!

More details below!

Duration:
60 Minutes

Start Date:

Thursday, April 16, 2009 10:00 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada)

Event Overview

Take advantage of this coaching session hosted by a Microsoft Certified Trainer to help prepare for your Microsoft Certification exam.

This session is intended for Developers and IT Professionals pursuing Technical Specialist: Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 – Application Development certification.  You will review key exam topics including deploying Windows SharePoint Services and custom components, developing components, manipulating site content and configuration.  The session will help you understand the key exam topic areas and how to better focus your study efforts.

Registration Options

Event ID:
1032406314

Also, if you’re interested in other events ‘out in the future’ check out this link

Free Certification Exam Preparation

A glance into the future will reveal:

April 21: Preparing for your Windows Server 2008 Active Directory, Configuring / Windows Server 2008 Network Infrastructure, Configuring Exams (70-640/642)

Register Now:  7:30 A.M. Pacific Time   (What time is this in my region?)

April 23: Preparing for your PRO: Windows Server 2008, Server Administrator / PRO: Windows Server 2008, Enterprise Administrator Exams (70-646/647)

Register Now:  7:30 A.M. Pacific Time   (What time is this in my region?)

April 28: Preparing for your Exchange Server 2007, Configuring exam (70-236)

Register Now:  10:00 A.M. Pacific Time   (What time is this in my region?)

Thanks to our friends at Windows 7 Center for this post

I’ll break it down for you!

Windows 7 RC2 scheduled for May 2009 release.

Windows 7 “scheduled” RTM/Release looks like November of 2009 (Whoa!?!)

Office 14 RTM is looking like March 2010 (Which means Exchange should be in alignment with that)

It’s a dark night, you’re in a cold murky alley.   There’s a random file found in the root of your drive (or mount point).   Suddenly, your cluster goes offline.   WTF!

If you’re thinking, “Damnit, what did my storage vendor do now!” You’d be mistaken.

There’s this little doozy out there:

“A physical disk resource may unexpectedly fail or go offline when the IsAlive function is executed on a Windows Server 2008 cluster node” to the tune of Q953652

Microsoft declares it to happen when you meet the following scenario:

• You have a Windows Server 2008 cluster node.
• The IsAlive function is executed on the cluster node while a file is being accessed in the root folder of the cluster disk.

In this scenario, a physical disk resource on the Windows Server 2008 cluster node may unexpectedly fail or go offline. This behavior occurs randomly.

Or otherwise read as: If you have a file in the root of Drive letter or Mount point, the drive may ‘disappear’ when you have this configured in a cluster (This does not apply to Server 2008 single servers)

Quite often this is blamed on the storage (regardless of vendor) so be sure to keep your clusters up to spec and make sure to apply this Hotfix from Microsoft, especially if you meet this criteria!

Good luck Clusters, and those cold dark alleys won’t be so bad.