I had always been of the mindset that when provisioning new VMs it is best to start out with less vCPUs and add more as they are required (unless you specifically know that you will be using and needing more for such things as sql server or exchange). I had even recently felt some vindication of this provisioning best practice in reading a book recently (Critical VMware Mistakes You Should Avoid)
Continue readingI have been doing more and more site assessments for Active Directory, Exchange, Lync, and VMware. As such, I’ve been slowly refining the toolset that I use to gather data and troubleshoot existing environment issues. Here is a list of site assessment tools I’m finding that I regularly return to for rapid analysis or information gathering at a site. All of these tools are free.
Continue readingI ran into an interesting Exchange 2010/2007 co-existence issue today. After a new Exchange 2010 (all-in-one) server was introduced into the environment traffic would only flow from the 2010 server to the 2007 hub/cas server and not the other way around. The mail queues stated the last error to be
Continue readingOk, so I woke up and was wide awake at 4am this morning. I took it as a sign to lose my mind for a while and get to hacking another script. The result is a client access setting report script which includes all internal and external paths along with their authentication settings. It needs some prettying up and a bit of love but it does exactly what I’ve wanted in Exchange 2010, gives me an overall view of all client access settings (specifically related to IIS). Enjoy.
Continue readingI found myself subjected to the commuting lifestyle again for a recent Lync 2010 deployment I’ve been working on. I realized that after several months without commuting that I had forgotten just how funny it is to experience the commuter’s lifestyle. So I’m continuing my Chicago Commuting Dictionary so that others may be able to understand this weird weird world should they find themselves within it…
Continue reading