Author: Paul Cunningham

Latest Articles

System Center Essentials “Root Management Server Unavailable” errors

System Center Essentials “Root Management Server Unavailable” errors

A System Center Essentials 2007 server may raise the following alert:   Alert: Root Management Server Unavailable. Source: sce01.domain.internal Path: sce01.domain.internal Last modified by: System Last modified time: 4/11/2008 1:21:26 PM Alert description: The root management server (Healthservice) has stopped heartbeating soon after 4/11/2008 1:18:48 PM. This adversely affects all availability calculation for the entire […]

November 5, 2008
Exchange 2007 logs not truncating after successful backup

Exchange 2007 logs not truncating after successful backup

You may encounter an issue where Exchange Server 2007 storage group transaction logs are not truncated after a successful backup.  In our case Backup Exec 11d was the backup application being used.  Backup Exec would report successful backups however the transaction logs were not truncating, leading to disk space problems. The Application event log on […]

November 4, 2008
How to find work as an IT contractor 6 Comments

How to find work as an IT contractor

Finding your first contract can be a daunting task.  Unless you are well qualified or have an excellent network of contacts that can tell you about available work you are probably going to have to deal with recruiters. Recruiters, are they all scumbags? Contrary to popular belief most recruiters are not scumbags.  This perception is […]

October 30, 2008
Getting set up to become an IT contractor

Getting set up to become an IT contractor

First let me say that I am not an accountant, nor am I giving anyone advice here to go in a particular direction setting themselves up for contracting.  In fact, the best advice I can give you is to speak to your own accountant to discuss how best to set yourself up for contracting.  I […]

October 28, 2008
So you want to be an IT contractor? Read on… 3 Comments

So you want to be an IT contractor? Read on…

At some stage during the career of most IT pros the opportunity comes along to spend some time as a contractor.  The lure of high rates, fixed hours, frequent new challenges, and the idea of “working for yourself” are what draws most people towards contracting.  Each of those carries with it some truths and some […]

October 27, 2008
Have you heard?

Have you heard?

Microsoft only supports the 64-bit version of Exchange Server 2007 for production environments.  The 32-bit version is only for test, development, or training environments.  Definitely something you would want to know before launching into an Exchange Server 2007 deployment.

October 21, 2008
Exchange Server 2007 SP1 Update Rollup 4 released

Exchange Server 2007 SP1 Update Rollup 4 released

Microsoft have announced the release of Update Rollup 4 for Exchange Server 2007 SP1.  You can download the update here. The update file has “v2” in it due to the accidental release of an earlier build of this rollup back in September.  This rollup will install over v1 if you happened to install that one. […]

October 8, 2008
Problem accessing Active Directory for Exchange 2007 OWA users

Problem accessing Active Directory for Exchange 2007 OWA users

Recently I posted about one cause of Outlook Web Access errors that users may experience after their mailbox is migrated from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2007.  Users are presented with a browser error containing the message: Exception type: Microsoft.Exchange.Data.Storage.StoragePermanentException Exception message: There was a problem accessing Active Directory. In addition to that common cause I […]

September 26, 2008
End of life for CA InoculateIT AV Engine in Microsoft Forefront products

End of life for CA InoculateIT AV Engine in Microsoft Forefront products

From the Forefront Server Security blog: Engine and definition updates for the Computer Associates (CA) InoculateIT engine will end on September 29th, 2008. On January 16th, 2007, the Computer Associates (CA) InoculateIT engine was combined with the Computer Associates VET engine. Since the engines were merged, Microsoft has continued to provide engine updates for the […]

September 24, 2008