Anyone who has ever done an Exchange Online hybrid deployment can tell you that process can be frustrating. Before the Hybrid Configuration Wizard the process was long and complicated with too many steps and too many places to make a small mistake. With the advent of the HCW the process became much more of a “black box” where the guy doing the deployment really didn’t know what configuration changes were being made, so misconfigurations became very hard to troubleshoot. Add on top of all that the fact that you, and the person doing the deployment really have no control or visibility into the Microsoft side of thing, and a hybrid deployment quickly turns into a difficult task.
Read moreChanges to off boarding from Exchange Online
When I migrate customers to Exchange Online I always recommend they maintain an Exchange hybrid server. There are several reasons for this recommendation; it’s much easier to manage SMTP addresses with an Exchange server on-premises, and it’s much easier to get your mailboxes back out of Office 365 if you maintain a hybrid server. To me, one of the great advantages of Office 365 is that I have never felt Microsoft was trying to “trap” customers in the service. They have always made it fairly easy to move mailboxes in and out of Office 365.
Read moreMCSMLab: Now with 100% more MVP
On the morning of January 1, 2015 I received notification that I have been awarded my first MVP. Seems to me to be a pretty decent way to kick off a new year.
Microsoft’s MVP program is an award to recognize “exceptional, independent community leaders who share their passion, technical expertise, and real-world knowledge of Microsoft products with others”. I am honored to join their ranks.
Read moreMulti-Forest Migrations to Exchange Online →
Over the past few years, I've migrated many mailboxes into Exchange Online. I've talked to customers with every possible set of requirements, and I've been able to accommodate most of them. Until recently, there has been one category of migration requirements that I haven't been able to accommodate: multi-forest migrations. For customers with two or more separate Active Directory (AD) forests, each with their own Exchange deployment, the supported solutions for moving to a single Office 365 tenant were very limited. They could either consolidate their on-premises AD forests into a single forest, or they could contact Microsoft Consulting Services (MCS) and develop a custom solution using Forefront Identity Manager.
New features in Office 365 partner admin center
One great feature of Office 365 that many may not be aware of is the partner admin center. This gives Office 365 deployment partners who meet specific requirements the ability to have a connection into their customers Office 365 tenant with the customers permission. I have the ability to send a customer a link that will allow them to grant me access into their Office 365 tenant using my own Office 365 credentials, making it much easier for me to do deployment and support work for them.
Read moreUpdated PowerShell script: Activate-SyncedPasswords
A couple of weeks ago I published a script that assists with switching your Office 365 authentication method from federated to managed and back again. After playing with the script for a while, I have realized that I had made a couple of incorrect assumptions about the rep-requisites for this script.
Read moreExchange 2013 processor sizing: virtual server edition
In a recent article I explained the process of sizing your processors for Exchange 2013. Hopefully I explained that process is a clear and understandable way, but there is something I left out. How do virtual servers affect this process? The answer, as always, is “it depends”.
Read morePowerShell script: Activate-SyncedPasswords
In June of 2013, Microsoft released an update to the DirSync appliance that allowed it to sync passwords from an on-premises Active Directory into Azure Active Directory for use in authentication. Since then, Microsoft has also released AADSync, which is a more advance version of DirSync that allows for more complex on-premises Active Directory configurations to be connected to Azure Active Directory. Recently AADSync was updated to include the password sync feature.
Read moreExchange 2013 processor sizing
One component of properly sizing Exchange deployments that I do not think is well understood is the process of sizing processors. In this post, I am going to walk you through the process of sizing the processor for your new Exchange 2013 server deployment.
Read moreManaging Distribution Lists in Hybrid Exchange Online/Office 365 Environments →
Microsoft has done a great job of ensuring that hybrid Exchange Online/Office 365 tenants have almost all of the features and functionality of on-premises Exchange Server deployments, without the need for running and maintaining their own servers. However, there is still one major gap companies consistently run into as they move to a hybrid Exchange Online/Office 365 environment: distribution list (DL) management.
Read morePowerShell script: Get-UsersPerDB
I’m working on an Exchange migration project. I did a green field Exchange 2013 deployment to migrate users to from a hosted solution. During the process I created about 3200 new mailboxes, and I must have done something wrong because those mailboxes ended up all clumped up in a couple of the databases. The problem I ran into is there is no good way to see your mailbox distribution across a number of databases in the Exchange Admin Console.
Read moreUsers unable to delete public folder items after public folder migration to Exchange 2013
I recent ran across a case where a customer had recently migrated to Exchange 2013. As one of the final steps in the migration, they migrated their public folders to modern public folders on Exchange 2013. After the public folder migration was complete, the users were unable to delete or modify pre-existing public folder items even though they appeared to have the correct permissions
Read moreMaking the Office 365 portal work for true single sign-on
Deploying ADFS for use with Office 365 is intended to give users a single sign-on experience. As anyone who has deployed Office 365 will tell you, you don’t really get true single sign-on. Depending on the type of client you are using, your “single sign-on” experience can vary pretty widely. The Lync and CRM online clients do give users single sign-on, but Outlook does not. Sitting in the middle you have the experience of logging into the Office 365 Portal.
Read moreAnnouncing the Portland Office 365 Users Group
Today I am happy to announce the first meeting on the Portland Office 365 Users Group has been scheduled. On January 29th at 10:00 am we will hold our first meeting at the Microsoft office in downtown Portland.
Read moreQuickly Get the Data You Need for Troubleshooting Exchange Server 2013 Problems →
Historically, gathering performance data when troubleshooting Microsoft Exchange Server wasn't much fun. You had to figure out what performance counters you wanted to use, then set up Performance Monitor to gather data for several days before you could do any troubleshooting. Thanks to a new diagnostic feature in Exchange Server 2013, that's no longer the case.
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