Exchange MVP Jaap Wesselius has published a free Exchange 2010 eBook. You can download the eBook from the Red Gate Software site.

Chapter 1: Introduction to Exchange Server 2010
    1.1 Getting Started
    1.2 What’s been removed from Exchange Server 2010?
    1.3 What’s new in Exchange Server 2010?
    1.4 Exchange Server 2010 and Active Directory
    1.5 Exchange Server coexistence
    1.6 Exchange Server 2010 Server roles
    1.7 Summary
Chapter 2: Installing Exchange Server 2010
Chapter 3: Exchange Server 2010 Coexistence
    3.1 Coexistence with Exchange Server 2003
    3.2 Installing Exchange Server 2010 in an Exchange Server 2003 environment
    3.3 Coexistence with Exchange Server 2007
    3.4 Installing Exchange Server 2010 into an Existing Exchange Server 2007 Environment
    3.5 Summary
Chapter 4: Managing Exchange Server 2010
    4.1 The Exchange Management Shell
    4.2 The Exchange Management Console
    4.3 The Exchange Control Panel (ECP)
    4.4 Role Based Access Control (RBAC)
    4.5 Archiving and Compliancy
    4.6 Summary
Chapter 5: High Availability in Exchange Server 2010
    5.1 High Availability in Exchange Server 2010
    5.2 Exchange Server Database technologies
    5.3 High Availability in Exchange Server
    5.4 High Availability on other Server Roles
    5.5 Summary

A cool new feature in Exchange 2010 is the Database Availability Group (DAG). With this feature you can put a copy of your mailbox database on multiple mailbox server (max 16.). The Database Availability Group uses the Windows Failover Clustering feature and you can manage everything through the Exchange Management Shell (EMS) and the Exchange Management Console (EMC). Let’s have a look on that…

This is my Exchange 2010 environment:

Server 1 – SRV-EXDC-01
OS: Microosft Windows 2008 R2 Enterprise x64
IP: 172.16.1.10
Roles: Active Directory, DNS

Server 2 – SRV-EX10HT-01
OS: Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 Enterprise x64
IP: 172.16.1.11
Roles: Exchange 2010 HT/CAS

Server 3 – SRV-EX10MB-01
OS: Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 Enterprise x64
IP: 172.16.1.12
Roles: Exchange 2010 MBX

Server 4 – SRV-EX10MB-02
OS: Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 Enterprise x64
IP: 172.16.1.13
Roles: Exchange 2010 MBX

1.) First I’ve created 2 new mailbox database on each mailbox server.
SRV-EX10MB-01 - MD01, MD02
SRV-EX10MB-02 - MD03, MD04
2.) The next step is to create a new Database Availability Group.
Groupname: DAG01
Witness Server: SRV-EX10HT-01 (Could also be a another server, but not a member of the DAG!!)
Witness Directory: C:\FSW_DAG01
3.) After succesfully creating the DAG, we can added some mailbox servers to it
SRV-EX10MB-01 and SRV-EX10MB-02
4.) The Windows Failover Clustering feature will automatically installed on each Mailbox server
5.) Give the Database Availability Group an IP address. This can be done with the following command:
Set-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup -Identity DAG01 -DatabaseAvailabilityGroupIpAddresses 172.16.1.50
6.) The next step is to add a Mailbox Database Copy
7.) The copy of the Mailbox Database will be copied to the other mailbox server. As you can see, Mailbox Server SRV-EX10MB-02 is now also containing Mailbox Database MD01 and MD02
8.) Login through the Outlook Web App with a user in Mailbox Database MD01
9.) Disable the LAN connection on Mailbox Server SRV-EX10MB-01 (fake a failover!)
10.) You’ll now receive an error in your Outlook Web App, this is normal, because the active mailbox is unavailable!! Wait a copple of seconds and click another e-mail message! As you can see, the passive Mailbox Database copy is now become active!! cool….
11.) After enabling the LAN connection on Mailbox Server SRV-EX10MB-01, the copy status become Healthy again!
12.) You can also test the “Fail Over” manually. Right click on your Mailbox Database, choose Move Active Mailbox Databse, and select the new active Mailbox Server.

So….after all, a copple of seconds downtime for the users!

Exchange 2010 introduces a new archiving capability. With the archive, users have a second mailbox, the archive mailbox that exists in the same Mailbox database and is available from both the Outlook client and Outlook Web Access. The Archive mailbox is associated with the user’s primary normal mailbox and the management of the archive and primary is identical. The primary mailbox is available online and offline and its content is stored in the Outlook OST cache file. The archive mailbox isn’t cached on the user’s local machine and is therefore only available online.

As you increase the size of mailboxes, you don’t necessarily want all the data stored locally on user machines, because it can lead to very long initial download times when users get a new machine. The data users frequently access is stored in the primary mailbox, which is ideally less than 10GB and is cached locally. Everything else is stored in the archive mailbox and available online, so it can be much larger and contain historical data. Because the archive mailbox is part of the same mailbox database, its availability is the same as the primary mailbox (it will be replicated as part of a DAG, database availability group).

Users will see their mailbox and their archive mailbox. They can drag and drop a PST file into the archive and the PST will be imported into the archive automatically. The viewing and navigation of the primary and archive mailbox is the same. If a user searches all mail items, the archive content is included. Users or administrators can set retention policies so that mail is automatically moved to the archive after a number of days, and different policies can be set on different folders.

Here are some keynotes for the archiving feature in Exchange 2010:

- Archive mailbox gets rid of PST files by giving the user an additional mailbox
- PST files are local to the user’s machine, gets corrupted easily and is hard to include the files in backup.
- Archive mailbox sits in the same mailbox database as the user’s main mailbox and can be included in the backup easily
- Archive Mailbox is available in Outlook as well as Outlook Web App (OWA), which is a huge improvement.
- Users can access their email archive irrespective of where they are
- Archive Mailbox is included as part of the Exchange Enterprise CALs and hence no extra cost is required (for those who have ECALs)
- Retention policies can be set for emails/folders in the archive mailbox
- User has the option to search for emails in archive only or both primary & archive mailbox
- Archive Quota can be set separate to the primary mailbox
- Emails in existing PSTs can be dragged into the archive mailbox very easily
- The archive and primary mailbox share the same user account
- Only one archive mailbox can be configured for a user
- Archive mailbox gets created on the same mailbox database as the primary one, which is a drawback.
- Future service packs might bring the option to create the archive mailbox in a different database
- The default quota warning for the archive mailbox is 10GB, which can be changed

How to configure a archive mailbox for a specific user:

1.) Open the Exchange Management Console
2.) Navigate to Recipient Configuration and select the specific user
3.) On the action pane, select “Enable Archive”
Note: Online archiving requires an Exchange Enterprise Client Access License (CAL)!
4.) The icon of the specific user has changed to an archive  icon.
5.) Login to the Outlook Web App with the specific user and you’ll see the archive mailbox
6.) Drag and drop some e-mail into the online archive
7.) You can change the name of the online archive by navigating to the specific user, Properties, Mailbox Features, Archive
8.) Login again to the Outlook Web App and you’ll see the new name of the archive mailbox

When you have a Exchange 2010 (or 2007) environment and you have multiple Address Lists in your Exchange environment, there are maybe some users who don’t have to see all the available Address Lists.

You can fix this issueu to put some permissions on this Address Lists. Let’s have a look on that.

1.) Open the Exchange Management Console
2.) Create a new Address List
3.) Give up the filter settings (in this example it is based on the Active Directory field “Department“)
4.) Open ADSI Edit, adsiedit.msc
5.) Open Configuration,CN=Configuration,DC=E2K10.local,CN=Services,CN=E2K10,CN=Address Lists Container,CN=All Address Lists,<your Address Lists>
6.) Open the Properties, and click the Security tab, Advanced
7.) Disable “Include inheritable permissions from this object’s parent”
8.) Click Copy
9.) Remove the Authenticated Users
10.) Make a new Security Group in your Active Directory called for example “AL_ICT_Department”
11.) Place all the users of the ICT department in this Security Group
12.) Open the security settings again and at the group AL_ICT_Department
13.) Give this group the following permissions Read, Open Address List
14.) Login with a user that is member of the AL_ICT_Department. Make sure you see the Address List
15.) Login with a user that is not a member of the AL_ICT_Department. You didn’t see the Address List now.

Microsoft has published the Exchange 2010 exams.

When you pass Exam 70-662 TS: Microsoft Exchange Server 2010, Configuring, you complete the requirements for the following certification(s):

• Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS): MIcrososft Exchange Server 2010, Configuration

Exam 70-662 TS: Microsoft Exchange Server 2010, Configuring: counts as credit toward the following certification(s):

• Microsoft Certified IT Professional (MCITP): Enterprise Messaging Administrator 2010

When you’re going to install Microsoft Exchange 2010, you first have to install some prerequisites. But what prerequisites do you need exactly?? When you unpack the installation source of Exchange 2010, you’ll see a folder called Scripts. Whitin these folder, there are some different XML files.

     – Exchange-all.xml
     – Exchange-base.xml
     – Exchange-cadb.xml
     – Exchange-cas.xml
     – Exchange-eca.xml
     – Exchange-edge.xml
     – Exchange-hub.xml
     – Exchange-mbx.xml
     – Exchange-typical.xml
     – Exchange-um.xml

In this example we are going to prepare a Microsoft Windows 2008 SP2 server for installing the Exchange 2010 Hub Transport Role, using the XML file Exchange-hub.xml.

1.) Open the command prompt (CMD)
2.) Browse to your installation source directory
3.) Type in ServerManagerCmd -ip Exchange-Hub.xml
4.) All prerequisites will be installed now
5.) After this is finished, you can start the installation of Exchange 2010

A great new feature is the Organizational Health. This gives you an overview of all the information available about your Exchange environment. Such as

• Total Databases
• Total Database copies
• Total Exchange 2003 / 2007 / 2010 servers
• How many Exchange server with a specific role installed
• Total user mailboxes, distribution groups, contacts, legacy mailboxes

When you open the Exchange Management Consosle, go to Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Exchange On-Premises. 

When you’re trying to move a mailbox to another mailbox database, you’ll discover that the command Move-Mailbox is no longer available. What next….

In Exchange 2010 Release Candidate (RC), there’s a new command available to move a mailbox to another mailbox database, New-Moverequest.

In this example I’m going to move all the mailboxes, including the default arbitration mailboxes to a new mailbox database, otherwise you can not delete the default mailbox database created by Exchange!

1.) With the following command you can get a list of all the Move Requests. Get-Moverequest | fl
2.) Run the command Get-Mailbox -Database “database name” -Arbitration | ft -wrap -auto for a list of all the hidden arbitration mailboxes in the default mailbox database
3.) To move the arbitration mailbox to the new mailbox database, run the following command New-MoveRequest -Identity “SystemMailbox{e0dc1c29-89c3-4034-b678-e6c29d823ed9}” -TargetDatabase MD01
4.) After moving all the arbitraion mailboxes to the new mailbox database, run the following command Get-Moverequest | fl
5.) Before we can remove the default mailbox database, you’ve to remove all the move requests associated with the source mailbox database
6.) To get a list off all the associated move requests, run the following command Get-MoveRequest -SourceDatabase “Mailbox Database 1205181900″
7.) To remove the move requests, run the command Remove-Moverequest -<Recipient ID>
Note: For a list off all the Recipient ID’s you can run Get-Mailbox -Database “database name” -Arbitration | ft -wrap -auto
8.) After removing all the remove requests, you’re able to succesfully remove the default mailbox database