The 12 Commandments of Exchange Deployments

Brien Posey has written another good article over at SearchExchange.com, this one is covering The 12 Commandments of Exchange Deployments

"Rolling out an Exchange Server deployment can be a complicated task. Need some help? I have put together my list of 12 commandments to follow when you find yourself heading an Exchange 2000 or 2003 deployment"

Q Article 284204

If you're having a problem trying to track down an error code for an NDR, do a quick Google search for Q article 284204. This Microsoft technical article lists a number of codes, their possible cause, and troubleshooting options.

Quest Software - Quest MessageStats

Quest has just released the latest update to their Microsoft Exchange reporting product. Last fall I evaluated a number of these products and found the Quest application to be the most feature rich. More info can be found at:

http://wm.quest.com/products/messagestats/

Microsoft Lookout v1.2

An addin to Outlook to quickly search all of your e-mail, contacts, calendar, and filesystem.

Overview
Lookout is lightning-fast search for your e-mail, files, and desktop integrated with Microsoft Outlook™. Built on top of a powerful search engine, Lookout is the only personal search engine that can search all of your e-mail from directly within Outlook - in seconds...

You can use Lookout to search:
* E-mail messages
* Contacts, calendar, notes, tasks, etc.
* Data from exchange, POP, IMAP, PST files, Public Folders
* Files on your computer or other computers

Just enter your search and press enter. Results are instant. Lookout will find your search terms hiding nearly anywhere in your Outlook mailbox - subjects, bodies, phone numbers, addresses, etc.

System Requirements
* Supported Operating Systems: Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP

* Microsoft Outlook 2000, Outlook XP, or Outlook 2003 must be installed on your computer.

* Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1

Click this link for additional information and to download the addin:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=09b835ee-16e5-4961-91b8-2200ba31ea37&displaylang=en

Priv.edb File Size Tracking Through Perl

I've updated the Disk Space Utilization Perl script to add a column which displays file size information for your Exchange private information store. This is nice to use to compare with the disk free space on the server to determine if you're going to have a potential issue if you need to do offline Exchange maintenance. Here is the main subroutine I've added:

# Figuring out the file size for the priv1.edb file
$filename="\\\\@Drivearray[0]\\@Drivearray[2]\\Program Files\\Exchansrvr\\MDBDATA\\priv1.edb";
$edb=0;
$edb=(stat($filename))[7];
$edb1=$edb / 1023741824;
$edb1=sprintf("%5.2f/n", "$edb1");

The full script with the modifications for the edb addition can be downloaded at:

http://webpages.charter.net/mhenderson1/Blogs/PerlDriveSpace.pl

Current constraints in the subroutine limit the tracking of only one .edb file per Exchange server. I may change this in the future if we move to a multiple store standard.

Microsoft Exchange Server Best Practices Analyzer Tool

Here is the link to the recently released Microsoft Exchange Best Practices Analyzer tool. It's a good test to see how your currently installed configuration is performing compared to what Microsoft recommends...

http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/downloads/2003/ExBPA/default.asp

Message Tracking Logs Report Script and Database

This link will take you to a reporting solution which allows you to keep track of mailbox sizes, number of messages, total messages, etc... saved to an Access database. This script uses WMI and could be converted to SQL for a more robust (and cheaper) solution for those that have a large installed base of systems. Credit goes to Glen Scales :) Also check out a number of other scripting solutions that Glen has posted on his web log.

http://www.outlookexchange.com/articles/glenscales/mtrackrs.asp