Managing Active Directory Site limits

Connectors are really good objects to control limits for external recipients, however, when an organization wants to limit internal users, there is a better way to do that. It is through Active Directory Site links.

Let’s say that we have 3 main sites (Porto Alegre, Buenos Aires and Montevideo) say that the link to Argentina is really bad and messages with more than 1MB will stop the ERP because we don’t have QoS in place In this scenario we could use limits at Site Level and the following cmdlets will help us out:

Get-ADSite: It lists all Active Directory sites

Get-ADSiteLink: this cmdlet lists all IP Inter-Site Transport entries

Set-ADSiteLink: this cmdlet sets the MaxMessageSize attribute

Understanding Client Throttling Policies

Exchange Server 2010 uses client throttling policies to manage the performance of your Exchange organization. To do this, Exchange tracks the resources that each user consumes, and enforces connection bandwidth limits, as necessary

Exchange Server 2010 SP1, all client throttling policies are turned on by default. If you are experiencing problems that may be caused by these policies, you can turn off client throttling. To turn off client throttling, you can set all policy parameters to $Null

Exchange 2007 introduced a feature called RPC Client Throttling to allow administrators to manage end-user performance by preventing client applications, such as Outlook for example, from sending too many Remote Procedure Call [RPC] requests per second to Exchange, causing the server to suffer in terms of performance. When Exchange determines that a client is having a negative effect on the server, it will send a "back-off" request to the client telling it to delay sending any additional requests for a specified time (maximum of 2000 milliseconds) in order to reduce the performance effect on the server.

In Exchange 2010, Client Throttling has been much improved, monitoring and controlling much more than just RPC requests. Its purpose is still to ensure that users are not intentionally or unintentionally straining Exchange and that users share resources proportionally.

There is also Message Throttling in Exchange that restricts the number of messages and the number of connections that can be processed by an Exchange Transport server. In this article we will be talking only about Client Throttling.

What is Monitored?

what does Exchange 2010 now monitor that Exchange 2007 didn’t? As I mentioned before, with Exchange 2010 it's not just RPC requests that are monitored, but 9 different components:

* Anonymous access

* Cross-Premises Access (CPA)

* Exchange ActiveSync (EAS)

* Exchange Web Services (EWS)

* IMAP

* POP

* Outlook Web App (OWA)

* RPC Client Access (RCA)

* PowerShell

Below command shows a Default Throttling Policy created in Exchange 2010 SP1

     Get-ThrottlingPolicy      

Throttling Policies are simply AD objects saved under:

CN=Global Settings, CN=Exchange Org, CN=Microsoft Exchange, CN=Services, CN=Configuration, DC=Domain, DC=COM

POP3 and IMAP4

By default, POP3 and IMAP4 are disabled in Microsoft Exchange Server 2010. To support clients that still rely on these protocols, you must first start the POP3 and IMAP4 services on the Exchange 2010 Client Access server. You must also configure SMTP for your POP3 and IMAP4 clients to send e-mail

Differences Between POP3 and IMAP4

POP3 is a frequently used e-mail Internet protocol. By default, when POP3 e-mail applications download e-mail messages to a client computer, the downloaded messages are removed from the server. When a copy of your user's e-mail isn't kept on the e-mail server, the user can't access the same e-mail messages from multiple computers. However, some POP3 e-mail applications can be configured to keep copies of the messages on the server so that the same e-mail messages can be accessed from another computer. POP3 client applications can only be used to download messages from the e-mail server to a single folder (usually the Inbox) on the client computer. The POP3 protocol can't synchronize multiple folders on the e-mail server with multiple folders on the client computer. POP3 also doesn't support public folder access

E-mail client applications that use IMAP4 are more flexible and generally offer more features than e-mail client applications that use POP3. By default, when IMAP4 e-mail applications download e-mail messages to a client computer, a copy of downloaded messages remains on the e-mail server. Because a copy of the user’s e-mail message is kept on the e-mail server, the user can access the same e-mail message from multiple computers. With IMAP4 e-mail, the user can access and create multiple e-mail folders on the e-mail server. Users can then access any of their messages on the server from computers in multiple locations

Outlook Anywhere

Outlook Anywhere feature, formerly known as RPC over HTTP, lets clients that use Microsoft Office Outlook 2010, Outlook 2007, or Outlook 2003 connect to their Exchange servers from outside the corporate network or over the Internet using the RPC over HTTP Windows networking component

Outlook Anywhere and Exchange 2010 Windows RPC over HTTP Proxy component, which Outlook Anywhere clients use to connect, wraps remote procedure calls (RPCs) with an HTTP layer. This allows traffic to traverse network firewalls without requiring RPC ports to be opened. In Exchange 2010, as in Exchange 2007, it's easy to deploy and manage this feature. To deploy Outlook Anywhere in your Exchange 2010 messaging environment, you need to enable Outlook Anywhere on at least one Client Access server

Note: - Outlook Anywhere should be enabled only on Client Access servers that are exposed to the Internet. Do not enable Outlook Anywhere on internal Client Access servers

Coexistence For mailboxes on Exchange 2010 Mailbox servers, clients must connect through Exchange 2010 Client Access servers. Outlook Anywhere can be used in environments where Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and Exchange Server 2003 servers are still being used. If you have users with mailboxes on Exchange 2003 servers, and these users are using Outlook 2007 or Outlook 2003 to connect, you must configure these clients manually

Remote Device Wipe Works

Exchange ActiveSync policies, you can add a password requirement to your mobile phones.

In addition to resetting the mobile phone to factory default condition, a remote device wipe also deletes any data on any storage card that's inserted in the mobile phone.

Local device wipe & Remote device wipe

Local device wipe is the mechanism by which a mobile phone wipes itself without the request coming from the server. If your organization has implemented Exchange ActiveSync policies that specify a maximum number of password attempts and that maximum is exceeded, the mobile phone performs a local device wipe. The result of a local device wipe is the same as that of a remote device wipe. The device is returned to its factory default condition. When a mobile phone performs a local device wipe, no confirmation is sent to the Exchange server. 

Direct Push Topology Works

Direct Push keeps a mobile phone current over a cellular network connection. It provides notification to the mobile phone when new content is ready to be synchronized to the mobile phone.  

Note:-For Direct Push to work through your firewall, you must open TCP port 443. This port is required for Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and must be opened between the Internet and the Client Access server

Exchange Server 2013 Preview

Hi Friends,

Exchange Server 2013 Preview is available form Microsoft, find the below URL to read and test the Preview

Download the Exchange Server 2013 Preview

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/exchange/default.aspx

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/evalcenter/hh973395

Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 Preview Help File

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30338

Technet Library-Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 Preview

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj150540(v=exchg.150)