Recently I have been all about teaching my customers how to be prepared for disaster situations. One area that is new in Exchange 2007 is the queue database file on the HUB servers and steps needed to recover this file. What I did is put together a lab to walk through the process of copying the queue database file from one HUB server to another HUB server so that you can become familiar with the steps before you need them (or when you need them I suppose also). Environment Setup: CCR Cluster: ... [More]

Like most Windows administrators, I grew up on the NET executable for command-line service management.  I think every article that Microsoft has ever written which requires or suggests command-line management of services recommends the usage of the NET executable.  For those that may not be aware, or familiar, I want to introduce you to the SC executable and provide a comparison to the NET executable. For the most part, everything that NET does, SC can do.  The subtle differences... [More]

Each migration I work on has a different set of requirements to move users from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2007. Some customers use the Exchange Manager Console to move users, which works fine. My latest customer asked me to help them move mailboxes based on users in a specific OU. So I created a powershell command that will export the alias and database for accounts that reside in a specific OU. Once we had the output file we could pipe the CSV file (with a couple modifications) into our move ma... [More]

FtBP: End-to-End, B-to-A Part 8/8                   Last time we talked about how a network packet changes through a NAT device, and we finished off the transit of our network packet to Computer B. Today we will follow a network packet from Computer B back to Computer A. Here is the Diagram we will work with:                   ... [More]

FtBP: NAT and PAT Part 7/8                   Last time we talked about how a network packet transverses a VPN tunnel, today we will discuss how a NAT device works. Here is where we left off last time with our network packet:                 L2-[Source MAC: 04-04-04-04-04-04 | Destination MAC: 05-05-05-05-05-05]     ... [More]

FtBP: VPN Tunnels Part 6/8                   Last time we talked about how a firewall will handle a network packet, today we will discuss how a packet gets across a VPN Tunnel. Here is where we left off last time with our network packet:                 L2-[Source MAC: 04-04-04-04-04-04 | Destination MAC: 05-05-05-05-05-05]  &n... [More]

FtBP: Firewalls Part 5/8                   Last time we talked about how a router will direct a network packet, today we will discuss how a packet gets assessed by a network firewall in determining whether to forward the traffic, or squash it. Here is where we left off last time with our network packet:                   L2-[Sour... [More]