Exchange Server

Latest Articles

Which Exchange certification should you pursue?

I often get asked which is the better Exchange certification to pursue for someone who wants to work as an Exchange administrator or consultant.  The natural inclination is to the latest version, and in many cases this would be fine because learning the latest version of a Microsoft product teachs you many things about previous […]

December 5, 2008

Event ID 9554 and Backup Exec 11d backup failures for Exchange Server 2007 Mailbox Servers

You may encounter an issue with Backup Exec 11d performing backups of Exchange Server 2007 Mailbox Servers using Granular Restore Technology (GRT) when the backup job is targeted at tape media. The backup job fails with the following error: Backup- \SERVER.domain.localMicrosoft Information StoreFirst Storage Group V-79-57344-33928 – Access Denied. Cannot backup directory Mailbox Database and […]

December 2, 2008

Inside look at the Microsoft Certified Master program for Exchange Server 2007

The Microsoft Exchange Team Blog has a great write up by Greg Taylor who is the program manager for the MCM: Exchange Server 2007 program. The Microsoft Certified Master program is the premium credential for IT professionals and consultants working with Microsoft products such as Windows Server 2008, Exchange Server 2007, SQL Server 2008, SharePoint […]

November 27, 2008

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

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

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

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…

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

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