Legacy Public Folders to Exchange 2013 migration tips

Reading Time: 6 minutesA couple of weeks ago I performed a Public Folder migration from Exchange 2007 (aka legacy) towards the modern Public Folders of Exchange 2013. As you may know, the traditional migration method using Public Folder replica's isn't available due to a radical redesign of the Public Folder architecture. Instead of dedicated databases, the hierarchy and data are now stored in mailboxes. The biggest benefit is that Public Folders can now be protected via a Database Availability Group, the downside is

Read more

From open source groupware solution Zarafa to Exchange: Part 2, Active Directory

Reading Time: 7 minutesSee also Part 1: A New Beginning When using Zarafa there are several possible directory services you can use for authentication. I will restrict this post to situations relevant to Active Directory (AD) integration. Even if you did not use Active Directory (or Zarafa for that matter) previously, I believe this post still contains valuable information. Getting to know your current environment is key if you want to change it. If you migrate from one version of a product to

Read more

Be careful with Outlook customizations! Use AutoDiscover!

Reading Time: 2 minutesDuring a migration from Exchange 2007 to 2013, we moved several mailboxes as pilot users. Coexistence was fully configured and on my test machine everything worked fine. However, the pilot users had trouble connecting with Exchange 2013 after their mailbox was successfully moved to Exchange 2013 servers. OWA and ActiveSync worked without any hitch. The problem was that Outlook would update its server settings, even though (internal) AutoDiscover worked perfectly. Outlook seemed to retain its settings for Exchange 2007, which

Read more

From open source groupware solution Zarafa to Exchange: Part 1, A New Beginning

Reading Time: 3 minutesThis blog series will describe my experiences and lessons learned from migrating the Zarafa Groupware solution to Microsoft Exchange, specifically Exchange Server 2013. I've done this twice now and although some things are quite obvious, there are some gotchas and it might be a daunting endeavor. A normal transition from Exchange to Exchange already requires good planning, but it is even more important when migrating from a third party solution that isn't supported by any available migration tool like Quest.

Read more

My portable lab hardware

Reading Time: 2 minutesRecently somebody asked via Twitter my what the make and model is of my laptop, used for Exchange testing environments. Well, 140 characters is not a lot of space so I decided to blog about it. Our company uses Dell laptops as a laptop standard, but other vendors might have comparable configurations. The main model type is a Precision M4700, but for lab purposes the configuration has been customized: CPU: Intel Core i7-3820QM @ 2,70GHz Memory: 32GB (4x8GB) 1600MHz DDR3

Read more

The UC Architects episode 14 is now available!

Reading Time: < 1 minuteEpisode 14 is now available for download! It is hosted by Steve Goodman and co-hosts were John Cook, Serkan Varoglu, Johan Veldhuis and Stale Hansen. Christmas Exchange 2010 SP2 RU5 Version 2 Issues with the Windows Management Framework on Exchange 2010 and 2007 Lync Pilot Kit Lync Conference 2013 Tips for early adaptors on Lync 2013 Issues with Live.edu to Office 365 migrations What will be hot in 2013? The newest UC Architects episode is now available from iTunes and

Read more

My company is migrating to Microsoft Exchange 2013!

Reading Time: 3 minutesI already knew this for several weeks, but wasn’t allowed to discuss this publicly yet. But as some know the company I work for, OGD ict-diensten, is using Zarafa as its groupware solution and recently decided to migrate to Microsoft Exchange 2013! Why Zarafa? A lot of the Exchange experts I met during the Microsoft Exchange Conference and some outside that event asked my why we were using Zarafa and how that works. Especially when they hear we also deployed Lync

Read more

Using the Microsoft Connectivity Analyzer Tool

Reading Time: 4 minutesRecently Microsoft released an updated version of the Microsoft Exchange Remote Connectivity Analyzer rebranding it as the Microsoft Remote Connectivity Analyzer as it now also can test Lync connections, next to Exchange and Office365. Another addition is the Microsoft Connectivity Analyzer Tool, a local variant of the online tool for Exchange connections. This is a very helpful tool for internal testing and despite being in beta, it already successfully helped me correctly identifying a certificate issue before I used it

Read more

Exchange 2013 is RTM, so… what now? (or Migrating to Exchange 2013)

Reading Time: 3 minutes*20121026 updated 2010 Schema prepped scenario* Last week Microsoft announced the Release to Manufacturing (RTM) status of it’s Office products including Exchange 2013. That’s exciting news! Now can we upgrade already? Well, no not yet. Firstly, the RTM bits will be available mid-november for MSDN/TechNet but also for Volume licensing customers. General availability is announced for first quarter of 2013. Secondly, availability of the bits is not everything. Depending on your situation you possibly have to wait for updates etc.,

Read more

Exchange 2010 calendar publishing URLs are not updated after migrating to Office 365

Reading Time: < 1 minuteWith Exchange 2010 Service Pack 1 it became possible to share your calendar with anyone outside of you organization, depending on the Sharing Policy implemented by your Exchange Administrator. Users can then share their calendar via an obfuscated or an relatively public URL without the need for authentication (and SSL for that matter). For more information on how to prepare your environment if you want to enable it, see this blog post. However, if an user has this enabled on

Read more
1 2