Outlook Web Access (OWA) for Exchange 2010

OWA users with Chrome as their browser may be missing the ability to click on the TO or CC buttons to access their contacts. This is caused by Chrome disabling support for the Modal Dialog tag that Microsoft uses to call the Address Book.

This issue can be fixed by creating a new desktop shortcut for Chrome with the following properties:

Target: %ProgramFiles(x86)%\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe --enable-show-modal-dialog

Start in: %ProgramFiles(x86)%\Google\Chrome\Application

Accessing Chrome via this shortcut will allow users to access their address book through the TO and CC buttons.

Users may have noticed that after upgrading to Chrome 37 they can no longer click on the TO or CC buttons to access their contacts. This is caused by Chrome disabling support for the Modal Dialog tag that Microsoft uses to call the Address Book.

This issue can be fixed by making the following change to the registry:

In the Registry browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Chrome\

Create a folder titled EnableDeprecatedWebPlatformFeatures

Within the folder create a string value with name 1 and value ofShowModalDialog_EffectiveUntil20150430.

To check that this worked, browse to the chrome://policy URL.

By Michael Van Horenbeek, Techtarget.com

In part one, we looked at the value of having Exchange Online Archives in an organization and introduced you to how the archives work. Now we can take a look at some best practices for working with EOA.

This list of best practices highlights some of the most important things you can do to make sure Exchange Online Archiving works to its full potential. Educating your end users is just as important as having sufficient bandwidth and taking your time with the rollout.

These best practices are a result of several Exchange Online Archiving projects I've done and the feedback that came from each.

Provisioning archives. If you provision archives for users and plan to immediately populate the archive with historical data from their mailboxes, such as when configuring a Retention Policy to automatically move items created before a certain date to the archive, it's better not to build the archives in Office 365. Instead, create them on-premises, let the archives fill up and move them to Office 365 in a remote mailbox move. This will greatly improve the end user's experience.

What happens if you don't do this? It depends.

For a small number of messages, there is no issue. But if Exchange is moving more messages to Office 365 while the mailbox is actively used, the end user might experience extreme slowness or Outlook may become unresponsive.

Dragging and dropping messages. The problem above is similar to the behavior of dragging and dropping messages from the on-premises mailbox to the online archive. Outlook treats this action as what I like to call a "foreground" operation, which means Outlook immediately handles the action.

Rollout EOA gradually. Take your time with this deployment. There is no reason to rush the deployment as this will almost certainly have a negative effect on your end users' experience, and that's what really matters. Gradually introducing Exchange Online Archiving will give you time to collect feedback from your users and make changes to retention policies if needed. It's also a good test to see how the load on your support organization is after deploying the first archives.

Outlook connectivity. Although this isn't specific to Exchange Online Archiving, make sure you've installed the latest Outlook updates and patches, preferably for Outlook 2013since, in my experience, it works well with Exchange Online Archiving. This will rule out any connectivity issues that could be caused by a missing an update.

To read the full article, go to: searchexchange.techtarget.com

By Michael Van Horenbeek, Techtarget.com

When Microsoft launched Exchange Server 2010, it introduced the Personal Archives feature. Personal Archives are somewhat comparable to personal storage files, but hosted on the Exchange server in regular mailbox databases. The tradeoff to using Personal Archives is that you needed an online connection with the Exchange Server to access them.

With the release of Exchange Server 2010, Personal Archives had to be located in the same database as a user's primary mailbox. While this might have been fine for some customers, many customers asked for more flexibility with storing the archive mailbox in alternate locations, like on another database or on another server. Exchange 2010 SP 1 loosened the requirements and allowed the archives to be hosted on any database or server in the entire Exchange organization.

Because of the benefits of a hybrid Exchange deployment, you can also store Personal Archives in Office 365 while keeping the primary mailbox on-premises. This option is referred to as Exchange Online Archives and is available as a separate SKU in Office 365 or Exchange Online.

The value of online archives

Using Exchange Online Archives allows you to provide users with the functionality of an archive without necessarily having to maintain the infrastructure to support it. This puts you in the unique position of importing existing PST files into Exchange with little to no additional effort. Not only will you get rid of the burden of running PSTs in your environment, but Exchange Online Archives also can protect stored data.

Another benefit -- and one of the main reasons why Exchange Online Archives is used -- is to offload data from the primary mailbox to the archives. Because Exchange actually moves the item with no stubbing, the items and their overall footprint in the primary mailbox will decrease. This results in a smaller OST file when working in cached mode and an inherently snappier Outlook experience.

This is especially true in environments that cannot yet take advantage of the new Outlook 2013slider. The slider allows you to specify how much data you want synchronized to your local OST file. In previous versions of Outlook, the entire primary mailbox is cached.

But as good as this option seems, there are some specifics to keep in mind. When Exchange Online Archives will primarily be used to replace PST files, there will be some additional things to think about.

How does Exchange Online Archives work?

From a functionality standpoint, there is no difference in how Personal Archives and Exchange Online Archives work -- only the place they're stored is different. This means the same retention policies and retention policy tags are used to determine what gets moved to the archive. Users can also drag and drop items to the archive, but this is strongly discouraged.

To read the full article, go to: searchexchange.techtarget.com

The option to access Message Options in Outlook 2010 has been removed from the context (right click) menu and also doesn't exist in Outlook 2013 but there are alternative ways to access the dialog still and see the Internet headers of that message.

By opening the message first

If you open the message in its own window (via a double click), then you can access the Message Options of the individual email in the following way:
File-> Info-> button: Properties

By leaving the message closed

If you do not want to open the message first, but want to access the Message Options dialog directly from within the main Outlook window, then you can add the Message Options command to your Quick Access Toolbar;

1. File-> Options
2. Select the Quick Access Toolbar on the left.
3. Set the "Choose commands from" dropdown list to; Commands Not in the Ribbon
4. From the command list select; Message Options.
5. Press the "Add > >" button.
6. Press OK.

The option is now added to the Quick Access Toolbar at the top of your Outlook window and view the Internet headers of a message without needing to open it first.

By Brian Posey, SearchExchange.TechTarget.com

While Exchange Server 2010 includes solid security out-of-the-box, further strengthening Outlook Web App is never a bad idea. After all, OWA is exposed to the Internet as a Web application and, like any other Internet-facing Web app, is prone to attacks. Here are a few tweaks you can make to bolster OWA 2010 security.

Eliminate the OWA private computer option

When users log into OWA 2010, they have the option to select whether they are accessing OWA 2010 from a public computer or a private computer; many users skip this step. If users do not explicitly choose public or private, OWA assumes they are logging on from a public computer, and therefore uses a more secure profile.

One way to improve OWA 2010 security is to eliminate the private computer access option entirely. This forces users into the more secure profile. The easiest way to do so is to modify the logon.aspx file.

Note: Make sure you create a backup of this file before modifying it.

The logon.aspx file is located in the c:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V14\ClientAccess\Owa\Auth folder. To modify it, open the file in Notepad, then locate the following line of code:

<td><input id="rdoPrvt" value="4" onclick="clkSec()"></td>

In this line of code, change the type from radio to hidden. After doing so, save your changes.

Next, open a command prompt window and enter the IISRESET command. This resets both Internet Information Services (IIS) and OWA. The logon.aspx file will use your modified code after the reset. Users can no longer select the This is a Private Computer option.

Another public/private computer option

In some cases it may actually be better to tighten the private computer security settings rather than abandon them altogether. One way to do so is to change the automatic logout setting. Idle OWA sessions are disconnected after 12 hours of inactivity by default. You can modify this setting to make the time-out period much shorter.

To read the full article, go to: SearchExchange

A short selection from the vast collection of administrative tools available for Exchange 2010:

Exchange Best Practices Analyzer: designed for administrators who want to determine the overall health of their Exchange servers and topology. One of the bests tools available and should be run regularly.

Calendar Checking Tool for Outlook (CalCheck): a program that checks Outlook Calendar and items for problems or for potential problems.

Exchange Client Network Bandwidth Calculator: helps to reduce the risks involved in Exchange Server network bandwidth planning, and to predict the network bandwidth requirements for a specific set of clients.

Exchange Remote Connectivity Analyzer (ExRCA): provides administrators with the ability to run connectivity diagnostics to validate external connectivity to Exchange.

Microsoft Outlook Configuration Analyzer Tool (OCAT): provides a quick and easy method to analyze Outlook profiles (and Office programs) for common configurations that cause problems.

Microsoft Exchange PST Capture: used to discover and import PST files into Exchange Server or Exchange Online.

Exchange Server Deployment Assistant (ExDeploy): generates custom instructions for moving your organization to Exchange 2010 on-premises or in the cloud.

MFCMAPI: uses Microsoft's published API's to provide access to MAPI stores through a GUI to facilitate investigation of Exchange and Outlook issues and to provide developers with a canonical sample for MAPI development.

Microsoft Active Directory Topology Diagrammer: reads an Active Directory configuration using LDAP, and automatically generates a Visio diagram of your Active Directory and/or Exchange Server topology. The diagrams can be changed manually in Visio if needed.

Microsoft Exchange 2010 Visio Stencil: contains a Microsoft Office Visio stencil with shapes for Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 and later.

Exchange 2010 Architecture Report: this script collects information about an Exchange 2010 organization. It generates an output HTML report to present all the collected data. With this report you can see very quickly what is working and what is not.

Below some good scripting resources:

Script Repository & TechNet Gallery: Download resources and applications for Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008, SharePoint, System Center, Office, and other products. Find resources written in VB Script, PowerShell, SQL, JavaScript, or other script languages.

All-In-One Script Framework: All-In-One Script Framework is an automation script sample library for IT Professionals. The key value that All-In-One Script Framework is trying to deliver is Scenario-Focused Script Samples driven by IT Pros' real-world pains and needs.

OWA 2010 provides users with basic tracking options allowing you to request and read a delivery receipt as well as control the importance and sensitivity of each E-mail. However, users are unable to send messages for deferred delivery or set to expire in OWA.

An important difference is that Microsoft Outlook allows users to work with e-mail, calendars, etc., even when a network connection is unavailable, whereas OWA requires a network connection to function. There is no option to work offline utilizing cached information.

Follow the steps below to set an out of office reply in OWA

1. Click on Options in the upper-right.

2. Select Set Automatic Replies from the drop-down menu.

3. Select Send automatic replies.

4. If desired, select the Send Replies only during this time period check box to schedule when your out of office replies are active. If you do not specify a start and end time, auto-replies will be sent until you select the Don't send automatic replies check box. NOTE: Previously used automatic replies associated with your email account may appear in the text boxes for your use, if desired.

5. For replies to senders inside your organization, type the response that you want to send to colleagues while you are out of the office. They will receive the notification only once.

6. For replies to senders outside your organization, select Send automatic reply messages to senders outside my organization check box. Select whether you want Send replies only to senders in my Contacts list or Send replies to all external senders. Type the response that you want to send while you are out of the office. They will receive the notification only once.

7. Click Save

Follow the steps below to create an email signature in OWA:

1. Click on Options in the upper-right.
2. Select See All Options from the drop-down menu.

3. Select Settings.

4. Compose your signature in the E-Mail Signature text box. If you have an existing signature in your mail client, copy and paste it here.

5. Click Automatically include my signature on messages I send if you want the signature to appear by default on your outgoing email.

6. Click Save in the lower-right portion of the screen.

7. If you did not choose to automatically include your signature on outgoing email, you must manually insert it. In the new email window, Click the Insert Signature button. Your signature will appear in the text of your message.

You must configure the Exchange Client App server to use Basic, NTLM, or KCD authentication, because Forefront UAG does not support forms-based authentication to perform single sign-on (SSO) to Outlook Web App.

To configure Exchange to use basic authentication

1. Start the Exchange Management Console.
2. 2. In the Exchange Management Console, expand Server Configuration, and then click Client Access
3. Select your Client Access server, and then on the Outlook Web App tab, select OWA (Default Web Site).
4. In the Actions pane, under OWA (Default Web Site), click Properties.
5. On the Authentication tab, click Use one or more of the following standard authentication methods, select the Basic authentication (password is sent in clear text) check box, and then click OK.

To publish Outlook Web App on a Forefront UAG portal

1. 1. In the Forefront UAG Management console, click the portal through which you want to publish Exchange services, and then, below the Applications list, click Add. The Add Application Wizard opens.
2. 2. On the Select Application page of the wizard, in the Web list, click Microsoft Exchange Server 2010
3. 3. On the Select Exchange Services page of the wizard, in the Exchange version list, click the version of the Exchange server you want to publish. Under Exchange services, select the Outlook Web Access check box.

Note: In Outlook 2010, if you want to allow access to the Exchange Control Panel only (without other Outlook Web App functionality), run the Add Application Wizard as described, and then after finishing the wizard, edit the application properties and remove the /owa path.

1. 4. On the Configure Application page of the wizard, enter a name for the application.
2. 5. On the Select Endpoint Policies page of the wizard, select the policies to use for this application.
3. 6. On the Deploying an Application page of the wizard, choose whether to publish a single Exchange Client Access server or a farm of load-balanced Exchange Client Access servers.
4. 7. On the Web Servers page of the wizard:
   1. a. In the Addresses list, enter the IP address or host name of the Client Access server.
   2. In the Public host name box, enter the public host name for this application. The public host name must match the FQDN in the certificate. The public host name can be the same as the public host name of the trunk, if required.

(Note: When publishing OWA, Forefront UAG communicates with the Exchange Client Access server over HTTP or HTTPS.)

1. 8. On the Authentication page of the wizard, select an authentication server to authenticate users to the application, and click401 request.
   1. On the Portal Link page of the wizard, configure the portal link for the application.

If you are publishing Exchange 2010 and OWA is not the initial portal application, make sure that the Open in a new window check box is selected.

10. On the Authorization page of the wizard, select which users are authorized to access this application.

11. On the Completing the Add Application Wizard page of the wizard, click Finish.

The Add Application Wizard closes, and the application that you defined appears in the Forefront UAG Management console, in the Applications list.

12. If you want to define the Outlook Web App application as the portal home page, in the Forefront UAG Management console, in the Initial application list, click the application that you added in this procedure.

13. To apply the Outlook Web App look and feel to the Forefront UAG user interaction pages, in the Forefront UAG Management console, next to Configure trunk settings, click Configure, click the Authentication tab, and then select the Apply an Outlook Web App look and feel check box. Confirm the changes to the logon settings, and then click OK.

14. On the toolbar of the Forefront UAG Management console, click the Activate configuration icon, and then on the Activate Configuration dialog box, click Activate.

When the configuration is activated, the message "Forefront UAG configuration activated successfully" appears.

Users receive the following message while accessing OWA

"Your mailbox appears to be offline, Try to access it again in 10 seconds"

To test that the Exchange services are running correctly, run the following cmdlet using the Exchange Management Shell on the CAS:

Test-ServiceHealth

The results will show all services not started populated under ServicesNotRunning. Under each Exchange role, check to see if RequiredServicesRunning is False

To restart the services, enter the following cmdlet using the Exchange Management Shell:

Test-ServiceHealth | Select ServicesNotRunning | foreach { Start-Service $_.ServicesNotRunning }

The language settings are determined when you log in to OWA 2010 for the first time. This setting can be changed at any time by accessing the Regional Settings from the Options page.

1. Use a Web browser to sign into a mailbox that you have full access permission to via Outlook Web App
2. Click Options, and then click Regional Settings
3. Under Language, in the Choose language list, click the language that you want to use.
4. Click Save to save your language settings.

Once logged into OWA, select Mail from the Navigation pane. Hovering the mouse above your user name will present you with the amount of mailbox space used as well as the limit that can be used.

Microsoft is currently working on a fix for this vulnerability; in the meantime they have suggested a workaround to disable Web Ready Viewing. To perform this action, follow the steps below:

1. Open up the Exchange Management Shell as an Exchange Organization Administrator

2. Type the following command: Get-OwaVirtualDirectory | where {$_.OwaVersion -eq 'Exchange2007' -or $_.OwaVersion -eq 'Exchange2010'} | Set-OwaVirtualDirectory -WebReadyDocumentViewingOnPublicComputersEnabled:$False -WebReadyDocumentViewingOnPrivateComputersEnabled:$False

Alternatively, if you are concerned about attachment security you could look at a third party product from Messageware AttachView.

For additional information view the external links below: Microsoft Security Advisory (2737111) Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange and FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint Parsing Could Allow Remote Code Execution

https://technet.microsoft.com/security/advisory/2737111

And how can I change it to show everything by calendar date?

In OWA 2010, emails are sorted in conversations by default. Conversations collect all email with the same subject into one thread to allow easy reference to past messages and keep your inbox organized by subject.

To stop viewing conversation view in your inbox:

1. Click Conversations by Date.
2. Click Conversation in the drop-down menu. This will uncheck the box next to conversation and remove the conversation view groupings from your inbox.

On Tuesday this week Microsoft released updates for Exchange Server 2010, and 2007. Exchange server 2007 SP3 Update Rollup 15 contains a number of minor updates and security fixes.

Exchange Server 2010Update Rollup 8 was released as well, but after identifying an issue with RU8 which impacts the ability of Outlook to connect to Exchange, the update was recalled and is no longer available on the download center.

More details can be found at: https://blogs.technet.com/b/exchange/archive/2014/12/09/exchange-releases-december-2014.aspx

By The Exchange Team; Technet.com

The Exchange team is announcing the availability of the following updates:

Update Rollup 5 for Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 3

Update Rollup 13 for Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 3

Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 3 Update Rollup 5 resolves customer reported issues and includes previously released security bulletins for Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 3. A complete list of the issues resolved in this rollup is available in KB2917508.

Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 3 Update Rollup 13 provides recent DST changes and adds the ability to publish a 2007 Edge Server from Exchange Server 2013. Update Rollup 13 also contains all previously released security bulletins and fixes and updates for Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 3. More information on this rollup is available in KB2917522.

Neither release is classified as a security release but customers are encouraged to deploy these updates to their environment once proper validation has been completed.

To read the full article, go to: blogs.technet.com

By Anderson Patricio, MSExchange.org

In this article series we are going over the step-by-step process to upgrade your servers running Exchange Server 2010 to new Service Packs and Rollup Updates using either GUI (graphical user interface) or command line.

The Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 3 is a milestone in the product because that is the basic requirement to allow a transition from Exchange Server 2010 to Exchange Server 2013 CU1. Besides the transition capabilities we can also install it on Windows Server 2012 (new deployments only, it is not supported on OS upgrades) and support for Internet Explorer 10.

Our scenario is simple and provides for great flexibility to test all possible scenarios. You may find yourself in one of the tests that we perform throughout this article series. In our article scenario we have 2 (two) servers with the Client Access and Hub Transport role and 2 (two) servers running Mailbox role in a DAG while all servers are running Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 1. You can check out the current servers by clicking on Server Configuration or running Get-ExchangeServer cmdlet.

That is just great. but Version and Build are all Greek to me, what should I do? No worries, if you are not sure which Service Pack and/or Rollup Update you have in your environment the Build Numbers can be scary at first glance, but using this page you can easily match the building number with the Service pack/Rollup Update.

Order to apply the Service Pack 3 and a few hints.

The first thing when you are planning is the order to apply Service Pack 3 on your servers. These are the key rules to apply a new Service Pack in your organization.

1. Client Access Server (if you have multiple sites internet facing sites first)
2. Hub Transport
3. Mailbox
4. Unified Messaging

Before going any further let's go over a couple of items that can speed up your upgrade process in your environment, as follows:

• Backup, backup, backup!

Before playing with production environments, please make sure that you have valid backups of your servers, Active Directory and Databases.

In addition, a good file-level backup of any Exchange (especially OWA customization) may be useful.

• Document your environment

Make sure that you have all your server names, and most important information recorded. My fellow MVP Steve Goodman wrote a script that gives you a list of all servers, their versions, databases, roles, Operating system and so forth. You can check his Exchange Environment Report.

• Plan your outage

Make sure that you test the process on an environment similar to production and plan well your outage time and communicate that to the end-users.

Note:
If you are upgrading your environment from RTM to Service Pack 3, then you should add 30 minutes per database due a Database Schema upgrade that was done on Service Pack 1 of the product and since Service Pack 3 is slipstream then those upgrades will be performed when you move from RTM to SP3. There is no database schema upgrade from SP1 or SP2 to SP3.

To read the full article, go to: MSExchange.com

When a user syncs a mailbox by using an iOS 6.1 or 6.1.1-based device, Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Client Access server (CAS) and Mailbox (MBX) server resources are consumed, log growth becomes excessive, excessive growth in Recoverable Items may occur, and memory and CPU use may increase significantly. Server performance is affected.

Released: Update Rollup 1 for Exchange Server 2010 SP3

This update contains fixes for a number of customer-reported and internally found issues including Apple iOS 6.1 Sync Flaw

For more details, including a list of fixes included in this update, see KB 2803727. Following fixes which are included in this release:

• 2561346 Mailbox storage limit error when a delegate uses the manager's mailbox to send an email message in an Exchange Server 2010 environment
• 2756460 You cannot open a mailbox that is located in a different site by using Outlook Anywhere in an Exchange Server 2010 environment
• 2802569 Mailbox synchronization fails on an Exchange ActiveSync device in an Exchange Server 2010 environment
• 2814847 Rapid growth in transaction logs, CPU use, and memory consumption in Exchange Server 2010 when a user syncs a mailbox by using an iOS 6.1 or 6.1.1-based device
• 2822208 Unable to soft delete some messages after installing Exchange 2010 SP2 RU6 or SP3

Below are few known issues with Exchange 2010 SP3 RU1

A known issue with Exchange 2010 SP3 RU1 Setup

You cannot install or uninstall Update Rollup 1 for Exchange Server 2010 SP3 on the double-byte character set (DBCS) version of Windows Server 2012 if the language preference for non-Unicode programs is set to the default language. To work around this issue, you must first change this setting. To do this, follow these steps:

1. In Control Panel, open the Clock, Region and Language item, and then click Region.
2. Click the Administrative tab.
3. In the Language for non-Unicode programs area, click Change system locale.
4. On the Current system locale list, click English (United States), and then click OK.

After you successfully install or uninstall Update Rollup 1, revert this language setting, as appropriate.

We have identified the cause of this problem and plan to resolve it in a future rollup, but did not want to further delay the release of RU1 for customers who are not impacted by it.

A known issue with transport rules after E2010 SP3 RU1 is installed

We have an issue where the messages stick in poison queue and transport continually crashes after this rollup is applied.

We have gathered enough information and have determined the issue. Specifically, the issue is caused by a transport rule (disclaimer) attempting to append the disclaimer to the end of HTML formatted messages. When this occurs, messages will be placed in the poison queue and the transport service will crash with an exception. We are investing resources to develop a code fix. You can either disable or reconfigure the disclaimer transport rule.

On May 29th 2013, the Exchange CXP team released Update Rollup 1 for Exchange Server 2010 SP3 to the Download Center.

This update contains fixes for a number of customer-reported and internally found issues. For more details, includeing a list of fixes included in this update, see KB 2803727

To read the full article, go to: The Exchange Team Blog

These updates address an issue in which digital signatures on files produced and signed by Microsoft will expire prematurely, as described in Microsoft Security Advisory 2749655. Also see Security Advisory 2749655 and Timestamping on the Security, Research & Defense blog.

• Update Rollup 4-v2 for Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 2 (KB2756485)
• Update Rollup 7-v2 for Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 1 (KB2756496)
• Update Rollup 8-v2 for Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 3 (KB2756497)

The re-released Exchange 2010 SP2 RU4 includes the following additional fix:

Update rollup 2756987; only one result is returned after you click "view all results" in Outlook 2010 or in Outlook 2013 in an Exchange Server 2010 environment

It is not required to uninstall the previous rollups to install the re-released rollups listed above.

Juniper Networks

eightwone.com

One of the features of Exchange versions up to 2007 is Single Instance Storage (SIS). What SIS does is that it creates a single instance of messages sent to multiple recipients within the same database. Simply said, the first one gets a copy of the message in his or her mailbox, others get a referral to the message.

With the arrival of Exchange 2010 Microsoft made changes to the Extensible Storage Engine (ESE) .. again. Many of these changes are beneficiary to the performance of the system (read: less IOPS). For instance, Exchange 2010 uses larger pages and it orders database pages in the background. In an optimal situation this will result in an IOPS reduction of 70% versus Exchange 2007 (against Exchange 2003 a whopping 90%).

However, one of the victims of the new ESE is Single Instance Storage. This sounds worse than it is. Large (1 GB+) mailboxes are common nowadays, the maximum number of databases has increased and when looking at recovery times you are more likely to use multiple databases to reduce recovery times.

These developments also reduce the effectiveness of Single Instance Storage, which only works in a single database. In addition, the price of storage has dropped enormeously and focus these days is more on performance than on disk space.

To read the full article, go to:

https://eightwone.com/2009/11/25/exchange-2010-database-compression/

Microsoft Exchange Team Blog

In Exchange Server 2010, there is no more single instance storage (SIS). To help understand why SIS is gone, let's review a brief history of Exchange.

During the development of Exchange 4.0, we had two primary goals in mind, and SIS was borne out of these goals:

1. Ensure that messages were delivered as fast and as efficient as possible.
2. Reduce the amount of disk space required to store messages, as disk capacity was premium.

Exchange 4.0 (and, to a certain extent, Exchange 5.0 and Exchange 5.5) was really designed as a departmental solution. Back then, users were typically placed on an Exchange server based on their organization structure (often, the entire company was on the same server). Since there was only one mailbox database, we maximized our use of SIS for both message delivery (only store the body and attachments once) and space efficiency. The only time we created another copy within the store was when the user modified their individual instance.

For almost 19 years, the internal Exchange database table structure has remained relatively the same...

To read the full article, go to:

https://blogs.technet.com/b/exchange/archive/2010/02/22/dude-where-s-my-single-instance.aspx

windowsitpro.com

IT pros usually don't enjoy applying updates and fixes to existing software because of the chance that such "fixes" could introduce new problems. (We've all seen it happen.) So when those updates come with welcome new features, it makes the process just a little sweeter, and could even get IT shops to fast-track the implementation. Such is the case with Update Rollup 4 (RU4) for Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 SP2 because of the new support for retention policies on Calendar and Tasks.

In versions of Exchange 2010 prior to RU4, you can't apply retention tags or policies either to individual calendar or task items or to the main Calendar folder or Tasks folder. So, businesses with particularly stringent retention needs for compliance might be running into trouble relying only on Exchange's built-in features. Of course, third-party vendors that provide e-discovery or compliance solutions will tell you that Exchange 2010's retention and compliance features are limited even in the best of cases.

Nonetheless, the calendar and tasks update in RU4 is certainly being met with approval; many Exchange users have clearly been waiting for this feature. If you're using retention policies already, Calendar and Tasks will inherit the Default Policy Tag (DPT) automatically. However, you can exclude these folders from the DPT through a registry hack, if necessary, to avoid unexpected results for your end users. The process is explained in the Exchange Team Blog post about this update by Ross Smith IV.

To read the full article, go to:

https://www.windowsitpro.com/blog/exchange-and-outlook-blog-8/exchange-2013/exchange-2013-exchange-2010-sp2-ru4-address-compliance-issues-144019