Failed to find directory “\\ExchangeServerName\c$\Perflogs’ on the server

Problem:

Running META ( exchange troubleshooting Assistance on Cluster servers) producing error

“Failed to find directory “\\ExchangeServerName\c$\Perflogs’ on the server”

Fix:

• Click on Hide advance data collections options
• Go to Data Directory on the server

in here place the IP address of the CMS server as shown below

wincms	192.168.1.100	CMS IP
scc1	192.168.1.101	Node 1 ( Physical)
scc2	192.168.1.102	Node  2 ( Physical)

The problem is if you do , on one of the nodes if you click on run and do double back slash

\\CMSName\e$\Perflogs    ( in this example per flogs folders in being created on E drive) you get errors as shown below

If you do same with IP address instead of name , you will see the directory is accessible.

\\192.168.1.100\e$\PerfLogs

This is why the META isn't working , you will need to make sure the IP is there as shown below

To be honest I was not able to determine the root cause, the DNS and WINS appears to be working correctly in this situation.

Anyways the goal is to make META happy (-: and move on  this will be one way of doing it

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Merry X ‘ mas ! Happy new year

Dear friends,
As the holiday season approaches, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you for your continued encouraging support which makes me going over years.

May your holiday season and the new Year be filled with Exchange 2010 much joy, happiness and success. I look forward to write more article and share my humble experience with you all in the coming year at my blog and hope you guys valuable support never ends, it continues for many years to come and inspire me keep going..........

Happy holidays and Merry Christmas I could not be here without your support

Regards,

Oz Casey Dedeal

MCITP (EMA), MCITP (SA)
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Mailbox move fails username” is not valid for UserPrincipalName. Valid values

Problem:

• mailbox move wizard fails with fallowing errors “Username” is not valid for UserPrincableName. Valid values are:

Warning:
“username” is not valid for UserPrincipalName. Valid values are: Strings that includes ‘@’, where ‘@’ cannot be the last character..

To solve the problem, fill in a domain name for troubled user and re start the mail box move……

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Cluster Quorum & recover Quorum

I happen to be part of troubleshooting SQL cluster today. which was two node active passive cluster. The issue was the disk resources where not available for what ever reason SAN environment had. After bringing disk resources online we realized the Quorum disk was gone, and little more investigation we saw it was gone for good, even from SAN.

We end up having working cluster with no “Quorum” windows 20008 SQL cluster. I knew creating quorum resource wasn't a bid deal and wanted list the steps here incase any of you falls into same shoes.

Fist make sure your SAN guy maps  shared disk to your existing cluster. Give it a drive letter to your shared disk in most cases 1 GIG is plenty enough.

Quorum resource

In every cluster, a single resource is designated as the quorum resource. This resource maintains the configuration data necessary for recovery of the cluster. This data, in the form of recovery logs, contains details of all of the changes that have been applied to the cluster database. This provides node-independent storage for cluster configuration and state data.

TechNet

Now  you have the “Q” drive is waiting to be the quorum fallow the steps below.

To configure the quorum in a failover cluster:

• Open the Failover Cluster Management console
  Select the name of the cluster you have just created.
• Right-click on the cluster,
  select More Actions, and click Configure Cluster Quorum Settings, This will open up the Configure Cluster Quorum Wizard, and fallow the steps listed below to create the required files for healthy quorum.

After making sure all looks good you can go back to Q disk and will notice there are cluster configuration files in there.

 

Server clusters

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Migration Exchange Servers to Exchange 2010

I am sure one of the most asked question will be , how do I migrate from Exchange X version ( mostly 2003 I suspect (-: to Exchange 2010?

In general migration is much easier in my opinion. IF you have ever done migration in the past you will know the main focus points always been in a nut shell

• Size the new exchange 2010 server ( hardware configuration, mailbox , Hub, CAS, Edge etc )
• calculate the IOPS
• Design SG / DB for Exchange server or Servers
• Design or Architect the roles  ( Number of servers )
• Decide high availability ( cluster etc)
• Implement  / Execute the plan
• Once you have your  new Exchange ( new one 210 in this  example) server use mailbox move wizard to move mailboxes over to it.
• Use MS articles to make sure migration is smooth, move all required Exchange data, PF folders, mailboxes etc
• Make use mail flow works , other services are running properly OWA, Outlook anywhere etc…
• Shut down the old exchange server to make sure nothing is getting crazy
• After make sure everyone is happy Un-install your legacy Exchange server and complete the migration.

As you can see from basic steps the required actions takes planning and doing your homework correctly (-:

Since Exchange 2010 is not upgrade to Exchange 2007, and it is entirely different powerful application you may want to take a bit more time to investigate some of outstanding futures, the redundancy option is one of the most powerful future ( DAG), High Availability and Site Resilience.

Planning and Deployment

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa998636.aspx

High Availability and Site Resilience

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd638121.aspx

Exchange 2010 System Requirement

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa996719.aspx

Exchange 2010 Prerequisites

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb691354.aspx

Upgrade to Exchange 2010

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa998604.aspx

Deploying Exchange 2010

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd351084.aspx

Roadmap for Exchange Features

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd351160.aspx

Database Availability Group Design Examples

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd979781.aspx

oz Casey Dedeal,

MVP (Exchange)

 

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Exchange 2010 and BES Support

I just found out couple minutes ago fallowing article showing the BES and Exchange 2010 support , click here to read more,,,,,

http://na.blackberry.com/eng/services/server/exchange/2010support.jsp

BlackBerry® Enterprise Server v5.0 with Service Pack 1 and Maintenance Release 1 is now fully certified with Microsoft® Exchange 2010 and BlackBerry® Technical Support Services are readily available……

All existing BlackBerry Enterprise Server customers running v5.0 are eligible for this maintenance release at no cost……

Update Rollup 1 for E210 Click here

Exchange Team Blog

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Setup previously failed while performing the action "Install". You cannot resume setup by performing the action "BuildToBuildUpgrade"

If you are upgrading your cluster Exchange server into SP2 and you did not fallow the release notes step by step in regards to cluster upgrade, most likely your cluster is not coming up, information store and other cluster resources cannot be brought up due to version mismatch , physical nodes exchange version numbs won’t match your CMS version number.

if you are receiving fallowing error keep reading this article the CMS SP2 upgrade it still possible as it is explained later on

Setup previously failed while performing the action "Install". You cannot resume setup by performing the action "BuildToBuildUpgrade"

Release notes

Before I talk about how to fix this I want to give mention about the installation recommended sequence and couple other important information you will need to look at it.

Upgrade your server in below sequence

• · Client Access servers
• · Unified Messaging servers
• · Hub Transport servers
• · Edge Transport servers
• · Mailbox servers

The most places the installation sequence will be C, H, M and easy way to keep memorize to see the letters goes same as Alphabet from beginning to next one ( this is notes in the release notes)

Cluster servers cannot be upgraded by using GUI setup, so you need to execute the setup from command line

Setup.com /mode:upgrade

If you have Exchange server in different AD site where your Schema master in on another AD site you will receive below errors on setup

to resolve this issue move the Schema master role to DC on the same site as your Exchange Server make sure changes got replicated and run the setup again. When Exchange setup is happy and done you can move the role back to original DC as fist time.

In order to move the schema master register below DLL file on the DC you wish to move to Schema role.

• regsvr32 schmmgmt.dll

Note: some people are very apprehensive moving SFMO roles among DC’s and to me , these worries are pointless.

Now upgrading Cluster servers read the article bb676559 carefully.

Lets say this is your configuration

• Exchange Server 1 ( Active Node)
• Exchange Server 1 ( CMS)
• Exchange Server 2 Passive node

• First ( upgrade the passive node Server 2) Reboot log back in and make sure server is happy at this point Server 2 is running on SP2
• Second ( Upgrade the CMS, CMS must be Stopped Cluster services must be “STOPED” ( see PS Command)
• After stopping Cluster. CMS needs to be moved to upgraded server, Exchange Server 2, via Cluster Fail over and be upgraded to SP2 there.
• Via command “Setup.com /UpgradeCMS”

Stop-ClusteredMailboxServer MBX –StopReason “SP2 Upgrade”

• Third upgrade the Active node AFRTER CMS Upgrade.

Now if you did not fallow the sequence and trying to run CMS upgrade setup will fail. In order to get the setup going you need to change the watermark registry Values.

on the Exchange server click start run , type regedit , hit enter

• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
• Software
• Microsoft\Exchange
• v8.0

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Exchange\v8.0

You will see separate sub keys for each role installed, since the CMS installation is failing you will see sub key called “ClusteredMailboxServer”

• AdminTools
• ClusteredMailboxServer
• MailboxRole
• Setup

Double click on the watermark and make sure there is nothing in the Value data filed.

This Watermark is very important! It is how setup notes where it left off, and what still needs to be completed. Since your CMS installation has failed when you try to run it again the setup comes back here reads this valued and wont run again since it knows is has run already. When there is no “Value” you can delete the key as well which will be created on the setup process, the setup will run happily and you will be able to upgrade your CMS to SP2

oz Casey Dedeal,

MVP (Exchange)
MCITP (EMA), MCITP (SA)
MCSE 2003, M+, S+, MCDST
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Exchange 2010 Installation Prep work.

Below steps are showing prep work installing Exchange 2010. You will need to open “CMD” and navigate to script folder in the Exchange 2010 installation CD or folder in order to run these commands. In my case I have placed Exchange 2010 binaries on second drive folder called 2010. Every new version of Exchange installation is becoming more efficient and easy and evolving in a smart way in my opinion, which is making our job more efficient and painless

You will also need to download and install

• .NET Framework 3.5
• WIN RM 2.0 PS V2
• HTS , install Microsoft filter pack

E:\2010\Scripts>

• For a server that will have the typical installation of CAS, HTS, and the Mailbox role:

sc config NetTcpPortSharing start= auto

ServerManagerCmd -ip Exchange-Typical.xml -Restart

• For a server that will host only the Client Access role

sc config NetTcpPortSharing start= auto

ServerManagerCmd -ip Exchange-CAS.xml -Restart

• For a server that will host only the Mailbox role:

ServerManagerCmd -ip Exchange-MBX.xml -Restart

Exchange 2010 Prerequisites ( TechNet)

Exchange Team Blog

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!!!!Exchange 2010 Deployment Assistant!!!!!!

First quick look to EDA 2010. Exchange 2010 is for sure shinning in many areas and yet another great tool to help us migration existing mail infrastructure to Exchange 2010.

Here is the link to EDA 2010

The idea behind this tool is real nice to be honest. I will list some of my feedbacks and if you can think of anything please do leave some comments, hopefully we can contribute to make this great tool even better

Tool should include some basic PS scripts and should be able to generate reports

• Mailbox count ( number of mailboxes on existing environment)
• Size of the mailboxes and item count ( good to know prior to mail move and capacity planning)
• Some basic Information for mail growth, some guidelines how to measure it ( capacity planning, leads for design)
• Measure current IOPS on the Exchange servers
• PS scripts showing white space on each database ( capacity planning , after move, it will be great to know estimated data for each mail database
• Some guidelines & best practices how to design the databases given scenario, maybe links to download white papers right from this tool.
• Estimated time for mailbox move, some estimated numbers ** indicating , Exchange is able to accomplish four concurrent move treat each time***
• Build instruction for each server role ( this is already included in the current tool)
• Some reporting capabilities to be represented to upper management during preparation and after start accomplishing move mailbox task.
• Some Design best practices with Exchange 2010, Redundancy configurations (DAG) and DB size considerations , along with some basic DAS and disk recommendations given some basic scenario.
• Some backup recommendations , best practices
• Decommission check list , steps and KB links

• Anything I did not mention you guys would like to include, please leave some comments

oz Casey Dedeal,

MVP (Exchange)
MCITP (EMA), MCITP (SA)
MCSE 2003, M+, S+, MCDST
Security+, Project +, Server +

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Exchange Online $5 , what is next ?

I talked about several times in regards to improvements in Exchange 2010 and tried to explain why this version is not similar to any other previous versions. The most significant difference is shining on ***Cost*** as I brought up. Here is the article talking about the cost of Exchange mailbox for $5 dollars per users ( BPOS) . The future of Exchange seems to be living in hosted services “ in the cloud “ as it was , intended. We have seen benefits moving into cloud computing and some of us to be honest not liked the idea of running e-mail within the cloud for many valid reasons, per scenario which I wont get into details here. The big and most important point to see or understand to me is that, the cloud computing is here and getting more and more powerfully and eventually, most critical applications will be running from cloud and getting ready for the cloud experience seems real. I am not big supporter of cloud computing but , I foreseen quickly changes in IT will always exist and keeping up with these changes always fun and new learning material is beneficial to most of people I work and worked with so far (-:

The drop from $10 per user per month to $5 for Exchange Online is significant because it brings Microsoft much closer to the price Google charges for its Google Apps Premier Edition (GAPE) suite that is anchored by Gmail. In addition, Microsoft said allowable mailbox sizes would go from 5GB to 25GB, a move that ups Microsoft’s stake in the so-called “bottomless” inbox war with other online providers.

Read more

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Microsoft Exchange couldn't find a certificate that contains the domain name mail.smtp25.org in the personal…. EVENT ID 12014

Error:

Microsoft Exchange couldn't find a certificate that contains the domain name mail.smtp25.org in the personal store on the local computer. Therefore, it is unable to support the STARTTLS SMTP verb for the connector HTS-IronPort with a FQDN parameter of mail.smtp25.gov. If the connector's FQDN is not specified, the computer's FQDN is used. Verify the connector configuration and the installed certificates to make sure that there is a certificate with a domain name for that FQDN. If this certificate exists, run Enable-ExchangeCertificate -Services SMTP to make sure that the Microsoft Exchange Transport service has access to the certificate key.

Solution

Open EMS

Get-ExchangeCertificate | FL

You will need to highlight the Thumbprint and paste into fallowing PS command

Enable-ExchangeCertificate –Thumbprint DBA3601A10DF90E0F00462C03940C90B8BA87292 -Services "SMTP"

Corresponding KB 555855

oz Casey Dedeal,

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EXCHANGE 2010 has been Released !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It has been so long wait for me to be honest (-: and finally Exchange 2010 had been officially released couple minutes ago

At 11:33am pacific time, the Exchange Product Group declared RTM for build 14.00.0639.021. Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 has left the building!

Thanks million for hard work put into this, this is for sure one of most exciting news we all have been waiting

Regards,

Ocd

oz Casey Dedeal,

MVP (Exchange)
MCITP (EMA), MCITP (SA)
MCSE 2003, M+, S+, MCDST
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Exchange 2010 is COMING (-:

Below article is taken from MSExcahnge team site, if you have not seen it yet , here it is.

Exchange 2010 is Code Complete and on its way to General Availability

We are happy to announce that Exchange 2010 is Code Complete! Our senior leadership team has signed off on the final code, and it has been sent to our early adopters for one final look before its public release. This Release to Manufacturing (RTM) milestone means we are on our way to general availability and the launch at Tech·Ed Europe 2009 (http://www.microsoft.com/europe/teched/) in early November.

For those of you attending Tech·Ed in Berlin this year, be sure to check out the Unified Communications track, which is packed with technical content on Exchange 2010. And be sure to visit us at the Exchange product booth in the Exhibition Hall and let us know what you think of the product. Crystal Flores, who interviewed some of you on video at Tech·Ed North America earlier this year, will be on-hand in Berlin in a few weeks, armed with a camera and interview questions. A group of us are also marching to Las Vegas for Exchange Connections the same week where our fearless leader Rajesh is giving the keynote.

http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2009/10/08/452775.aspx

Regards,

Ocd

oz Casey Dedeal,

MVP (Exchange)
MCITP (EMA), MCITP (SA)
MCSE 2003, M+, S+, MCDST
Security+, Project +, Server +

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