The Microsoft Exchange team recently released Microsoft Exchange PST Capture which allows you to search for .pst files on computers in your organization and then import those files to mailboxes in both on-premises Exchange servers and Exchange Online.

PST Capture was initially developed by ISV partner, Red Gate, and was recently acquired by Microsoft. After some further development and testing, it can now be downloaded for free here. PST Capture is comprised of the following components:

• PST Capture Central Service: The Central Service maintains the list of all PST files found in your organization and manages the data as it’s moved to the Exchange servers or Exchange Online.
• PST Capture Agent: Discovery of the PST files is performed by PST Capture agents that are installed on computers in your organization. The agents also send the PST files they find to the host computer when an import operation is started on the PST Capture Console.
• PST Capture Console: The PST Capture Console is the interface you use to configure PST searches, specify the target mailboxes for PST files, and track the status of PST import operations and reports. You can also use the console to import PST files stored on network attached storage (NAS) devices, on which you can’t install PST agents.

For more information on Microsoft Exchange PST Capture see this TechNet article

To download Microsoft Exchange PST Capture click here

Some of Lync’s Client-side error messages don’t really explain the reason for the failure. Luckily my friend Greig Sheridan has started to compile a very handy list of these on his blog.

If you ever spend time troubleshooting Lync client side error messages, I would definitely recommend that you check it out. Here’s a link:

https://greiginsydney.com/decoding-lyncs-client-side-error-messages/

In almost every environment I have ever seen there are usually some devices and/or systems that need to send email and typically these will require some SMTP server to relay these messages. More often than not these also do not have the ability to authenticate to the relaying host.

How do we deal with these in Exchange? I have seen some pretty silly solutions and the default answer seems to be “Just allow anonymous users on the default connector”. This is not true and is actually quite a dangerous thing to do, so my advice is DON’T. In fact, I would go so far as to say, don’t ever touch the default connector. The correct way is to create a new receive connector and allow relay from only the devices that are required to use this connector.

Allowing anonymous relay is serious and requires thought and planning. If could be exploited by spammers and IMHO should not be configured on internet-facing servers.

So lets say that we have three devices that need to relay anonymously, their IPs are 10.0.0.30, 10.0.0.31 and 10.0.0.32. First we need to create a new receive connector:

New-ReceiveConnector -Name "Anonymous Relay Connector" -Usage Custom -PermissionGroups AnonymousUsers -Bindings 10.0.0.20:25 -RemoteIpRanges 10.0.0.30-10.0.0.32 –Banner "220 Anonymous Relay Connector"

Next we need to to grant relay permission to anonymous connections on the new Receive connector:

Get-ReceiveConnector -Identity "Anonymous Relay Connector" | Add-ADPermission -User "NT AUTHORITY\ANONYMOUS LOGON" -ExtendedRights "Ms-Exch-SMTP-Accept-Any-Recipient"

What happens if you have multiple servers and would like to duplicate your receive connector settings. Say for example you have two Exchange servers and you have a receive connector on a server called EXHUB01 that allows 100 devices to relay. You would now like to create the same connector on EXHUB02. Instead of manually adding each address, you could do this:

New-ReceiveConnector "Anonymous Relay Connector" -Server EXHUB02 -Usage Custom -PermissionGroups AnonymousUsers -Bindings 10.0.0.21:25 -RemoteIPRanges ( Get-ReceiveConnector "EXHUB01\Anonymous Relay Connector" ).RemoteIPRanges -Banner "220 Anonymous Relay Connector"

Don’t forget to grant relay permission to anonymous connections on the new Receive connector:

Get-ReceiveConnector -Identity "EXHUB02\Anonymous Relay Connector" | Add-ADPermission -User "NT AUTHORITY\ANONYMOUS LOGON" -ExtendedRights "Ms-Exch-SMTP-Accept-Any-Recipient"

Just in case you missed it, Exchange 2010 SP2 was released earlier this month. The following features and functionality has changed since Service Pack 1 for Exchange 2010:

• Hybrid Configuration Wizard
• Address Book Policies
• Cross-Site Silent Redirection for Outlook Web App
• Mini Version of Outlook Web App
• Mailbox Replication Service
• Mailbox Auto-Mapping
• Multi-Valued Custom Attributes
• Litigation Hold

I wanted to call out a couple of these that I have been eagerly awaiting:

Hybrid Configuration Wizard
Exchange 2010 SP2 introduces the Hybrid Configuration Wizard which provides you with a streamlined process to configure a hybrid deployment between on-premises and Office 365 Exchange organizations. Hybrid deployments provide the seamless look and feel of a single Exchange organization and offer administrators the ability to extend the feature-rich experience and administrative control of an on-premises organization to the cloud.

Cross-Site Silent Redirection for Outlook Web App
In Exchange 2010 SP1, there was three types of redirection for OWA in Exchange 2010 on-premises:

• Manual Redirection
• Temporary Manual Redirection
• Legacy Silent Redirection (for Exchange 2003/2007)

With Exchange 2010 SP2, you can enable a silent redirection when a Client Access server receives a client request that is better serviced by a Client Access server located in another Active Directory site. This silent redirection can also provide a single sign-on experience when forms-based authentication is enabled on each Client Access server.

For more information about what’s new in Exchange 2010 SP2, click here

To download Exchange 2010 SP2, click here

This handy little tool has been around for some time now but I’ve found that it does not seem to be very well known so I thought I would write up a quick post.

This performance tool tests your Internet connection to a Microsoft Online Services data center and measures the response times, bandwidth, and overall connection quality. The results can help you evaluate your network configuration for potential use with Microsoft Online Services.

For America use http://speedtest.microsoftonline.com

For Asia Pacific use http://speedtest.apac.microsoftonline.com

For Europe, Middle East and Africa use http://speedtest.emea.microsoftonline.com

I recently came across this error while using Jetstress to test and validate the performance of their Exchange storage. I was running the tool on Windows Server 2008 R2 and I don’t recall ever seeing this before. After finding what is actually an easy fix, I thought I would  write up this post just in case this has anyone else baffled. The entire error was:

Ensure that you’re running the application as a member of built-in Administrators security group.

The MSExchange Database or MSExchange Database ==> Instrances performance counter category isn't registered.

The admin account I was using is a member of the domain admins security group so I assumed I had the correct permissions but went away and checked just to be sure. I also checked to make sure that the domain admins group was a member of the local built-in Administrators security group, which it was. After spending a few minutes thinking about it, I thought I would try running Jetstress “as an administrator” (right-click the shortcut and select “Run as administrator”

That solved the problem.

I have since checked the Jetstress installation in my Exchange 2010 Lab which also runs on Windows Server 2008 R2 and this step is not required there, it works fine by just clicking the Jetstress shortcut (no right-click required). Not really worth spending time investigating the cause as it may just be a once-off occurrence, but at least it is now documented.

Toby and I talking about our “Microsoft Office 365: From Simple Migration to a Hybrid Environment” session at At Tech-Ed Australia 2011.

If you missed it, the recorded session and slides are available for download here: http://cgoo.se/ndiUkE

This post is slightly off-topic compared to my regular posts, but its something I’ve been thinking about for some time now and has been one of those things sitting on my to do list that always gets trumped by something more important.

While my blog has never been inaccessible from mobile devices, I have never really put much thought or effort into improving the experience for mobile users. I was recently reading some interesting statistics on the explosive growth of mobile internet usage and that prompted me to do something about it. These statistics are probably best summarised by this:

You will now be able to access all the same content from your mobile device in a much more mobile friendly manner. And just because I am a geek I’ve even added a .mobil domain name so you’ll also be able to access it at http://cgoosen.mobi

I also wanted to share this great video that goes into some smartphone mobile marketing statistics. Don’t worry.. I don’t ever intend on introducing ads or marketing of any kind here, I just think the stats are interesting.

Inforgraphic source

I recently saw this at Tech-Ed Australia and finally managed to track it down so I could share it. I think it’s such a great video and just excites me about the "future of productivity".

After an interesting and somewhat different keynote, Tech-Ed 2011 has officially kicked off. While everyone is enjoying a few cold ones, I thought I would take the time to tell you about some of the sessions I am excited about attending this year.

There are many great speakers at Tech-Ed this year, these are just some of the sessions I plan to attend.

• EXL310: "Upgrading to Exchange 2010: Notes from Field" with Colin Lee and Sofiane Behraoui
• EXL309: "Microsoft Lync 2010: How to go big with voice" with Brendan Carius and Selvan Loganathan
• OFS-OFC309: "From Zero to Productivity with Office 365" with Ben Walters, Chris Oconnor and Lee Hickin
• EXL303: "Exchange Server 2010: High Availability Concepts" with Scott Schnoll
• EXL304: "Load Balancing with Microsoft Exchange Server 2010" with Andrew Ehrensing

Then of course there is my session with Toby Knight, EXL-OFC311: “Microsoft Office 365: From Simple Migration to a Hybrid Environment” we will be in Arena 1B at 5 PM tomorrow… we’ve got some great schwag so make sure you stop by!