Today I released my Exchange Management IP for Orchestrator 2012. It is currently available for download at the Microsoft Technet Galleries: GET IT HERE

This integration pack is an addition on the already available Exchange Mail and Exchange calendering integration packs. This IP will allow you to automate all (or at least most of them) Exchange (2010) related management tasks. For example:

• Adding and removing mailbox permissions
• Changing the Quota of a mailbox.
• Mailbox database and DAG management.

All activities are aware of your Exchange environment. There is no need to select a specific server. A server is automatically selected based on availability. There is also no need to install the Exchange Management Console or Powershell cmdlets. All activities use remote Powershell to connect to your Exchange environment.

Documentation is included in the ZIP file which explains most of the features including input parameters and published data. Integration with Microsoft System Center 2012 Service Manager is possible.

If you would like to have features added please drop me a line. Also you can follow me on twitter (@Bart_Inovativ) to receive updates on my development work and more System Center stuff.

Enjoy!

This (mini) blog article will demonstrate how to create a custom icon DLL which can be used with the Orchestrator Integration Toolkit. For this example we are using Microsoft Visual Studio 2010.

For every activity you will need two icons in bitmap format.  You will need to different icon sizes (16×16 and 32×32) and the filename must end with _16.bmp or _32.bmp. Below you can find an example of a icon called Exchange_MBX.

All images are clickable.

Step by step guide:

	1. Click on New Project…
	2. Select Visual C++ / Win32 Project Name: Orchestrator Exchange Icons (or another descriptive name) When done click on OK.
	3. Select DLL as the application type and click on Finish.
	4. Create a new folder called Resources within your Visual Studio Project folder. Copy all your icon files (both _16 and _32) to the Resources directory.
	5. Right click on Resources -> Add -> Resource…
	6. Select Bitmap and click on Import…
	7. Select all files from the earlier created Resources folder and click on Open.
	Now we are going to edit the .rc (resource) file to add/change the mappings to the icons. 8. From within the solution explorer Right click on the .rc file within you resources folder. Then click on View code.
Before:   After:	9. Now change the IDB_BITMAP names to something that describes the activity. I usually copy the icon name to the IDB_BITMAP name.
	Now we are going to build the solution / DLL. 10. Type Ctrl+Shift+B or use the Build menu.
	The DLL is now created and can be found within your Projects Debug folder. The DLL can now be used with the Orchestrator Integration Toolkit.
If you have questions or comments please let me know.

Yesterday I blogged about my new Exchange integration pack (IP) for System Center 2012 Orchestrator. This IP is still in development. Today I created the icon set for the first 20 activities.

Overview and color coding

I have created a color scheme for all the activity icons. I hope this will improve the user experience of the integration pack.

Integration pack activity icons v0.5

Based on the color scheme I have created the following activity icons.

This is how it looks within the Orchestrator Integration Pack Wizard:

Not all activities are included yet. Still looking for the best icon set from a user experience perspective.

Next blogpost will go about the creation of an icon set DLL with Visual Studio 2010.

Any comments or additions are very welcome.

Kind regards,

Bart Timmermans

Currently I am working on a new Exchange IP (Integration Pack) for System Center 2012 Orchestrator. With this IP you will have the ability to automate the process of almost all Exchange related tasks. A couple of examples:

Activities are still added day by day. So don’t worry if you are missing some activities.

All activities are aware of your Exchange environment. There is no need to select a specific server. A server is automatically selected based on availability and Active Directory Site. There is also no need to install the Exchange Management Console or Powershell cmdlets. All activities use remote Powershell to connect to your Exchange environment.

Within this blogpost I will give you a sneak preview about one of the activities which are part of the IP.

Changing the mailbox quota of a user

For the Change Mailbox Quota activity three input properties are required.

1. Mailbox (the username, alias, DN of the mailbox you would like to change)
2. Mailbox Quota (the size in MB of the quota)
3. Warning Percentage (when should a user be alerted)

Within this example we are going to change the mailbox quota of my own mailbox. Currently I don’t have a quota applied to my mailbox (lucky me).

Below a screenshot from my Exchange mailbox properties.

Now we are going to change my mailbox quota to 4096MB. So we change the input properties of my Orchestrator activity to:

• Mailbox: Bart Timmermans
• Quota: 4096 (choose between predefined value or a custom value)
• Warning: 10% (I would like to be alerted when there is only 10% of my mailbox quota left)

I am entering the properties manually but it is also possible to use the Orchestrator data bus for even more automation.

After filling in all the properties we can fire up the runbook.

After about 10 seconds the quota of my mailbox has changed to 4096MB.

Would it be cool if a user can request a higher quota and the quota will be changed with zero-touch? Yes and it is possible to integrate all activities within the Service Manager 2012 self-service portal!

Stay tuned for more sneak previews of the new Exchange IP for Orchestrator 2012. Feature request are always welcome. The final IP will be released before the end of May.

I am currently working on a new or extended Orchestrator 2012 integration pack for Exchange Server 2010.First (test) release will hopefully be released next friday (april 27th). It will include the following activities:

Current release schedule:

• First beta (0.1): April 27th
• Second beta with additional features (0.2): May 7th
• Release Candidate with bug fixes (0.5): May 20th
• Final first release (1.0): May 27th

If you would like to see additional features for this integration pack or want to take part of the testing phase please let me know @twitter (https://twitter.com/#!/Bart_Inovativ)

Source: Microsoft MSDN

ReFS, has been designed from the ground up to meet a broad set of customer requirements, both today’s and tomorrow’s, for all the different ways that Windows is deployed.

The key goals of ReFS are:

• Maintain a high degree of compatibility with a subset of NTFS features that are widely adopted while deprecating others that provide limited value at the cost of system complexity and footprint.
• Verify and auto-correct data. Data can get corrupted due to a number of reasons and therefore must be verified and, when possible, corrected automatically. Metadata must not be written in place to avoid the possibility of “torn writes,” which we will talk about in more detail below.
• Optimize for extreme scale. Use scalable structures for everything. Don’t assume that disk-checking algorithms, in particular, can scale to the size of the entire file system.
• Never take the file system offline. Assume that in the event of corruptions, it is advantageous to isolate the fault while allowing access to the rest of the volume. This is done while salvaging the maximum amount of data possible, all done live.
• Provide a full end-to-end resiliency architecture when used in conjunction with the Storage Spaces feature, which was co-designed and built in conjunction with ReFS.

The key features of ReFS are as follows (note that some of these features are provided in conjunction with Storage Spaces).

• Metadata integrity with checksums
• Integrity streams providing optional user data integrity
• Allocate on write transactional model for robust disk updates (also known as copy on write)
• Large volume, file and directory sizes
• Storage pooling and virtualization makes file system creation and management easy
• Data striping for performance (bandwidth can be managed) and redundancy for fault tolerance
• Disk scrubbing for protection against latent disk errors
• Resiliency to corruptions with “salvage” for maximum volume availability in all cases
• Shared storage pools across machines for additional failure tolerance and load balancing

In addition, ReFS inherits the features and semantics from NTFS including BitLocker encryption, access-control lists for security, USN journal, change notifications, symbolic links, junction points, mount points, reparse points, volume snapshots, file IDs, and oplocks.

And of course, data stored on ReFS is accessible through the same file access APIs on clients that are used on any operating system that can access today’s NTFS volumes.

Key design attributes and features

Our design attributes are closely related to our goals. As we go through these attributes, keep in mind the history of producing file systems used by hundreds of millions of devices scaling from the smallest footprint machines to the largest data centers, from the smallest storage format to the largest multi-spindle format, from solid state storage to the largest drives and storage systems available. Yet at the same time, Windows file systems are accessed by the widest array of application and system software anywhere. ReFS takes that learning and builds on it. We didn’t start from scratch, but reimagined it where it made sense and built on the right parts of NTFS where that made sense. Above all, we are delivering this in a pragmatic manner consistent with the delivery of a major file system—something only Microsoft has done at this scale.

Code reuse and compatibility

When we look at the file system API, this is the area where compatibility is the most critical and technically, the most challenging. Rewriting the code that implements file system semantics would not lead to the right level of compatibility and the issues introduced would be highly dependent on application code, call timing, and hardware. Therefore in building ReFS, we reused the code responsible for implementing the Windows file system semantics. This code implements the file system interface (read, write, open, close, change notification, etc.), maintains in-memory file and volume state, enforces security, and maintains memory caching and synchronization for file data. This reuse ensures a high degree of compatibility with the features of NTFS that we’re carrying forward.

Underneath this reused portion, the NTFS version of the code-base uses a newly architected engine that implements on-disk structures such as the Master File Table (MFT) to represent files and directories. ReFS combines this reused code with a brand-new engine, where a significant portion of the innovation behind ReFS lies. Graphically, it looks like this:

Read more at the source: Microsoft MSDN

This guide explains how to install and configure an offline Root Certificate Authority on a Windows Server 2008 R2 core edtion.

This guide is splitted in three seperate parts:

• Part 1: Introduction and pre-installation tasks
• Part 2: Encrypting the drive of the Root CA using BitLocker
• Part 3: Installing Active Directory Certificate Services on the Root CA

Main reason to configure the Root CA on a core edition is to lower the attack surface. The attack surface should be as low as possible to prevent hackers from stealing the private key of the root certificate. Therefore most of the time the Root CA will be shutdown and disconnected from the network. More about security hardening on an Root CA in a later article.

Prerequisites

The following must be available before using this guide:

• A dedicated physical or virtual machine;
• Root access to the server (ILO, VMware, vSphere console);
• Windows Server 2008 R2 core edition already installed;
• Hostname and network settings already configured;
• Very complex password set for the administrator account;
• Firewall must be on with no exceptions;
• Access to Windows update, WSUS, SCCM or other patching mechanism.

Installation steps

Step1: Install all updates (securing the server)

1. Open up the command prompt on the Root CA server.

2. Run the following command to open up the server configuration: sconfig

3. Press "6" to download and install Windows Updates.

4. Press "A" to search for all available updates.

5. Press "A" to select all updates.

6. Click Yes to restart te server.

This is the end of part 1. Next part we are going to encrypt the drive of the Root CA with BitLocker.

Source: Microsoft

Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 SP2 helps IT Professionals achieve new levels of reliability with greater flexibility, enhanced user experiences, and increased protection for business communications.

• Flexible and reliable – Exchange Server 2010 SP2 gives you the flexibility to tailor your deployment based on your company's unique needs and a simplified way to keep e-mail continuously available for your users.
• Anywhere access – Exchange Server 2010 SP2 helps your users get more done by giving them the freedom to securely access all their communications – e-mail, voice mail, instant messaging, and more – from virtually any platform, Web browser, or device.
• Protection and compliance – Exchange Server 2010 SP2 delivers integrated information loss prevention, and compliance tools aimed at helping you simplify the process of protecting your company's communications and meeting regulatory requirements.

You must accept the license terms for the software before you are authorized to use it. There is no product support for the trial edition of the software. You are welcome to participate in the forums to share your trial experiences with others and to ask for advice.

Download it here.

During migration projects a lot of customers asks me how to import all accepted domains the easy way. The script I provide below is very basic but it will save you a lot of time.

But first create a CSV file with on the first line AcceptedDomains. Insert all your accepted domains on seperate lines starting from the second line.

$File = Read-Host "Please enter location and filename of the CSV file (example: D:TempAcceptedDomain.CSV)"

# Reading of all lines within the specified CSV file.

$list = Import-Csv $File

foreach($entry in $list) {

# Reading the AcceptedDomain variable from the CSV file.

$AcceptedDomain = $entry.AcceptedDomain

# Running the powershell command for creation of all Accepted Domains.

New-AcceptedDomain -Name $AcceptedDomain -DomainName $AcceptedDomain

}

Source: Microsoft Exchange blog

Earlier today the Exchange CXP team released Update Rollup 4 for Exchange Server 2010 SP1 to the Download Center.

This update contains a number of customer-reported and internally found issues since the release of RU1. See 'KB 2509910: Description of Update Rollup 4 for Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 1' for more details. In particular we would like to specifically call out the following fixes which are included in this release:

• 2519359 Unable to Create a 'Reply With' Rule on Public Folders Even With Owner and Send As Permissions
• 2394554 Generating DSN fails if original mail uses non-support encoding charset.
• 2490134 Outlook 2007 does not deliver "Delayed Delivery" Messages against an Exchange 2010 Server in Online mode with any additional Transport loaded in the Outlook Profile

Some of the above KnowledgeBase articles are not replicated/live at the time of writing this post. Please check back later in the day if you can't reach them.

Update Rollup 5 for Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 1 is currently scheduled to release in August 2011.

General Notes

Note for Exchange 2010 Customers using the Arabic and Hebrew language version: We introduced two new languages with the release of Service Pack 1, Arabic and Hebrew. At present we are working through the process of modifying our installers to incorporate these two languages. Customers running either of the two language versions affected are advised to download and install the English language version of the rollup which contains all of the same fixes.

Download it here.