First-Look, Outlook 2010 Beta

As new versions of Exchange Server have come out, Microsoft has typically given us a new version of Office right along with them.  Exchange Server 2010 is no exception, with Office 2010 soon to be released to the general marketplace. Sometime in the first half of this year we’ll see a formal release, but you can download the beta version now, which will continue working (and being updated) until October, well after the full release is slated to happen.  As your intrepid Exchange reporter, I of course took it upon myself to inflict the beta on my production systems.  Mind you, I waited for the first round of WTF?! to be over, but those horrific errors seem to have been corrected by now.

First things first, if you have an x64 system, you will need to uninstall the previous versions of Microsoft Office (even 2007) in order to install the 64-bit version of Office 2010.  I’m pleased to say that personalization is maintained, and 2010 seemed to remember most of my customizations from the earlier version.  If you are using a 32-bit system, you do not have to pre-uninstall earlier versions at all, just do an in-place upgrade. Also, the beta does require a key, so you’ll need to be invited into the beta program or be part of TechNET to get your hands on both the bits and they key. 

Once the installation is done, you’ll find that most of the applications look the same as they did in 2007, except that the Office Button is replaced with a File tab in the Ribbon.  This keeps all functions looking and feeling the same, and is easy to get used to.  Now, open Outlook 2010 and be ready for a big change.

As announced, the Ribbon interface is now part of Outlook 2010.  It is very well integrated, with button bars and functions smoothly changing as you move from Mail to Calendar to Contacts views.  Many have criticized the Ribbon, and for those who hate it, you can now hide it.  For everyone else, you’ll find it a welcome addition to the Outlook interface.

Also added to Outlook 2010 is the ability to group emails by conversation.  This allows you to see all emails in a certain thread at once, with an expanding drop-down format.  I’m not the biggest fan of this, as I prefer using the search feature, but I will say it is well executed, and easy to figure out and navigate.  The coolness factor here is that the conversation grouping extends to multiple folders, so you can find linked conversations even in folders outside the Inbox.

Moving on to mail functionality: The overall interaction with Exchange hasn’t changed radically.  AutoDiscover is still available, and seems to work great within a corporate Active Directory Domain.  You can still manually add accounts for most mail formats, and you can now add Text Messaging if you’re using Windows Mobile, Outlook Anywhere and Exchange 2010.  Once configured, email sync and workflow is very similar to earlier Outlook versions.  Both cached mode and online mode are still available for Exchange 2003 and up, as is Outlook Anywhere (formerly RPC over HTTPS).

There are, however, a few very welcome changes to workflows in Outlook 2010.  The most noticeable is how you’ll see Outlook/Exchange Meeting Request emails.  When you preview or open these messages, you will still see the usual data, but you will also see the event itself as it appears in a mini-view of your calendar.  This means if it is adjacent to or conflicting with another event, you can instantly see what event it’s touching without flipping over to the calendar.  As I work with a large group of people, and often end up with conflicting schedules, this feature makes life a whole lot easier for me and my co-workers.

You can highly customize the Ribbon within Outlook. This many not sound like a neat feature at first, but since the Ribbon changes with every view (Calendar, Contacts, Mail, etc); this becomes invaluable. Having different Ribbon buttons for each view means that you can click New Meeting Request when in the Mail view, but not have that button take up space in the Calendar view (where it is a default choice).

Now, on to the NetBook.  The smaller screens on these devices (I have a Toshiba N205) make Outlook a living nightmare to work with.  Microsoft has finally listened to their audience and created tools in Outlook 2010 to make this an easier tool set to view on a smaller screen.  One tap of the “Reading” view button (in the extreme lower-right corner by default) and all of the fly-out bars collapse to the sides. The Ribbon also minimizes, and you are left with a wide-open space for your email list and Preview Pane, and nothing else.  All the features are still there, you just expand the left and right fly-out panels to access whatever you need, and click the menu choice to temporarily expand the Ribbon.  Most of the fly-out bars have quick-links on them, so you can drag and drop email from your Inbox to a favorite folder, for example. Reading view (one that works this well) is a tremendously useful system for Netbooks, and one that has been sorely missing for generations of Outlook clients.

I will put out blog updates over time as I find new features and as Outlook 2010 moves closer to maturity and release.  This will include information on the new Social Connectors as they are available.  Outlook 2010 comes with the SharePoint Connector, but as we have SharePoint 2003 and the Connector requires SharePoint 2007 or up, I can’t report on that one just yet.  Stay tuned for more info as it is available, and of course check out the Microsoft Office Home Page for official details.

One final note for this posting.  When you install the beta, you see two tray icons appear - “Send a Smile” and “Send a Frown.” These are feedback buttons that you can use to send information to Microsoft including screenshots (optional, of course) and text-based messages.  Many have expressed their disdain for them, so it’s good to notice you can uninstall just that bit of code by going to Add/Remove Programs (or Programs and Features in Win7) and ditching the Send a Smile application.  Personally, I like them and have used both, but I understand how not everyone would want them installed full time.

More to come!

Hyper-V Me (Yes, Even for Exchange)

Due to the release of Hyper-V R2, there has been a lot of buzz about using Microsoft’s Virtualization Platform to create virtual machines for everything in the datacenter from file servers to high-capacity databases.  There are quite a few systems that are clearly ok to use virtualization with, but Exchange Server has always been one of those platforms where virtual tech has been a questionable course.  Not the least of the reasons for this is that folks have been confused on if MSFT supports running Exchange in production on a virtual platform.  So, I’ll spell out the current support stance as found on official MSFT sites only.  Note:  There are many blog postings that point one way or the other, so I have hunted down official MSFT sites to quote here (i.e. TechNET, MSDN, etc).  While many blogs can be trusted (like the official Exchange Team Blog at http://msexchangeteam.com – and http://www.BeingExchanged.com of course), many of my readers have corporate policies about needing to see the documentation from a MSFT site directly; and so here it is:

Exchange 2000 and earlier:

Not supported for production environments.  See the end of the TechNET article found here: Link to TechNET

Exchange 2003:

Supported in production.  Warnings are given that you must use Virtual Server (2005 R2 or higher) and that there are some performance limitation to be considered. Link to TechNET

Exchange 2007

Supported for production environments on Hyper-V, but with some limitations. You must be running Server 2008 as the Guest OS, and you have to be running Exchange 2007 SP1. Unified Messaging may not be run on a Hyper-V Guest.  You cannot use both SCR and/or CCR and Hyper-V clustering at the same time. Finally, the virtual machine itself must meet all the hardware requirements (processors, RAM, etc) for Exchange 2007 Sp1. Link to TechNET

Exchange 2010:

Supported for production environments on Hyper-V, with some restrictions:  You must be running Server 2008 SP2 or R2 as the Guest OS, and Unified Communications Roles are not supported at all.  As with 2007, the virtual machine you install Exchange into must meet all the hardware requirements for Exchange 2010. You will also need to choose between DAG availability or Hyper-V failover solutions, you cannot run both at once. Link to TechNET (see section on Hardware Virtualization)

Common notes:

In all supported versions, certain functions of the virtualization systems are not supported with Exchange Server.  Specifically, dynamically expanding virtual disks are not allowed, you have to use pre-configured fixed-sized VHD’s for Exchange Server virtual machines. Likewise, you cannot leverage differencing or VSS snapshot disks if you’re running Exchange Server.

There are several rules about virtual hardware that you must follow as well, so read the related TechNET articles for guidance on things like disk types (SCSI, IDE, etc) and the like.

Hyper-V technology is bringing new opportunities to the virtualization technologies platform in the modern datacenter.  By clarifying what is and is not supported in a virtual environment, Microsoft has begun the process of allowing customers to safely start using virtualization for the Exchange Server platform.  Many users will still choose physical hardware for Exchange (either because they cannot meet one or more of the requirements, or just due to having hardware already provisioned), but these rules help clarify that options for virtualization exist and are supported.

A word on Cluster Groups

Many clients are on Exchange 2003 or 2007 and will need to deal with Cluster Groups in Microsoft Cluster Services (MSCS) or Failover Clustering Services (FCS) including Cluster Continuous Replication (CCR).  So, it is important to understand one very critical restriction of Exchange Clustering that I’ve seen several clients trip over.

When installing a Microsoft Cluster of most flavors, you will configure Groups, which are logical units used to contain Resources like IP Addresses, Network Names, Disks and Services.  By default, a Cluster Group will be created that contains the name, IP address and Quorum Disk for the cluster itself.  It may also contain a networked Distributed Transaction Coordinator (DTC) resource for the cluster as a whole.  It is very tempting to place all other resources in this group, but you should avoid doing that at all costs for 2 significant reasons:

1 – It’s not supported by Microsoft.  For proof, I refer you to This TechNET article.  There is a long explanation of many thing having to do with configuring an Exchange Cluster, but here’s the specific info I’m referring to:

“It is an Exchange best practice to install the MSDTC resource into the default cluster group. However, the MSDTC resource is the only resource supported in the default cluster group. Exchange resources should not be added to the default cluster group, as that configuration is not supported.” [emphasis added]

TechNET and the Microsoft Sites have many other examples of this warning, and it is well documented by Microsoft and the Exchange Product Team.

2 – It makes life more difficult in day-to-day administration.  There may be instances where you want to perform operations on the Cluster Group without interrupting Exchange services for your organization.  You can normally accomplish this by moving the Cluster Group to a Cluster Node that isn’t hosting any Exchange Resource Groups, and perform your activities on that node.  If you have Exchange Resources in the Cluster Group, then this options disappears.  The same goes for many 3rd-Party products (see disclaimer at the end of the blog) which may not accept Exchange Resources that appear in the Cluster Group, as they must treat the Cluster Group and the Exchange Resource Group independently for administrative purposes.

So, as tempting as it is, avoid installing Exchange Resources into the Cluster Group at all costs.  If you already have put Exchange Resources into the Cluster Group, and you don’t plan on upgrading just yet, then seriously consider migrating to a supported cluster configuration when time permits.  Issues that arise from unsupported configuration and limited administration tend to hit without warning, and at the worst possible time.  Taking time to move to a supported platform will keep your organization in the safe zone, and make life a lot easier for you over time.

When it’s time to say goodbye to 2003…

Let’s face facts, 2010 is out, 2007 has been out, and that means that 2003 is slowly but surely fading into obscurity.  Make no mistake, we’ll see lots of 2003 in the real world for some time to come, but many of my clients are starting their migrations to the newer Exchange Server platforms.  There’s a lot of good reasons to migrate, and a lot of great native and 3rd-Party tools to help, but when you are at the point where you want to turn off the Exchange 2003 servers for good, don’t forget you need to do a few things first.

Exchange 2003 servers may seem to be alike, but the first server you installed in your environment holds special significance in the Exchange Organization.  So as you migrate users off and into the new systems, make sure you don’t simply shut down the first Exchange 2003 server and walk away.  Some of the things you need to do to that first server are critical!

If you use Public Folders, you need to replicate any folders that reside on the first Exchange server of the site. Chances are that you have already done this for your more common folders, but have a long, hard look at the PF tree and make sure that there are no folders homed only on that Exchange 2003 box.

The Exchange 2003 Offline Address Book will be homed on that first server as well.  If you are upgrading, make sure to create multiple versions of the OAB on one or more of the new servers (OAB3 OAB4, etc).  Make sure your users are then getting their OAB info from the new servers instead of the first 2003 server in the site.

Ensure that another server holds all necessary Master Roles for Exchange.  Many of these roles aren’t required for newer versions of Exchange, but it pays to do the homework to make sure.

If you use custom connectors that must continue to work in the new versions of Exchange; make sure you get them set up on your Hub/Transport and Edge servers to ensure communication continues.  SMTP is native, but others are not.

Once you step through these items (and possibly a few others like Schedule+ info which needs to be migrated, not simply moved), you can safely remove that first Exchange 2003 server in your site.  If you need to figure out which one was the first, or if you need more details, check out the KB article from Microsoft on how to go about doing this:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/822931

Migration is a fact of life that most of us will face in the next year or two.  Don’t get caught short because you missed one or more critical steps for that one last Exchange 2003 box.