OCS 2007 R2: Standard Edition Pool?
Lately I had a few customers who have been asking about saving some money when it comes to deploying OCS 2007 R2. I got asked on more than one occasion why more than OCS 2007 R2 Standard Edition cannot be used in the same Front End pool. Here’s why: the OCS 2007 R2 Supportability Guide states that the only supported configuration for Standard Edition is one where the default implementation installs a SQL Express 2005 database on the Standard Edition server.
Supported Back-End Server Database
Office Communications Server 2007 R2 is bundled with Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition with SP2 (32-bit).
This means that the user configuration for OCS is installed locally on each server. This information is not shared between servers. If you install two Standard Edition Servers in a Front End pool, the hardware load balancer (HLB) (which is required for OCS pools that contain more than one Front End server) will not know which Front End server the user is homed on. If a user logs on and is directed to (from the HLB) the Front End server that is not the user’s home, they will not be able to logon. This is not clearly documented in any of the OCS 2007 R2 guides but it is inferred.
Exchange 2010 RTM: Exchange Pre-Deployment Analyzer
This is a pretty simple but effective tool. It looks and feel exactly like the ExBPA. You don’t necessarily want to risk checking the prerequisites for Exchange 2010 by running the setup program in a production environment, especially since it will extend the schema if you install the Exchange 2010 tools. The ExPDA can be downloaded here.
The ExPDA performes the following checks:
Exchange 2010 RTM: Exchange Management Tools (ExBPA) – Caution
DO NOT INSTALL THE TOOLS IF YOU DO NOT HAVE EXCHANGE 2010 INSTALLED IN THE ENVIRONMENT (Read the entire post, it could save you a lot of trouble)
I needed to find a method to run the ExBPA to check for Exchange 2010 Readiness in a lab environment where Exchange 2003 was installed. The ExBPA for Exchange 2003 has an option to perform an Exchange 2007 Readiness check but not an Exchange 2010 Readiness Check. (As of today – 02/21/2010). As a last resort I decided to install the Exchange 2010 Management Tools which includes the Exchange 2010 ExBPA. My lab only has an XP client which is not a supported platform for the management tools. Check the list of supported operating systems here. The tools can only be installed on a 64-bit platform.
NOTE: I attempted to install the Management Tools on a Windows 2003 Ent. Ed. Server x64 and I got an error stating the program could not locate the wer.dll file.
Instead of upgrading my XP client to Windows 7, I decided to install the Exchange Management Tools on the server where I intended to install Exchange 2010 (Windows 2008 SP2).
Exchange 2010 RTM: Exchange Deployment Assistant
Prior to installing Exchange 2010 in the lab, I decided to explore the tools available to assess the environment and test for Exchange 2010 readiness. I encountered the Exchange Deployment Assistant on the Exchange Server Team’s web site and decided to have a look at it.
NOTE: This tool should be run on a workstation with Internet access and NOT a server.
Requirements: This website requires Microsoft Silverlight and Adobe Acrobat Reader if the user wants to download the checklist.
To launch the tool, go to: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/exdeploy2010/default.aspx#Home.
Exchange 2007: Preparing the server
Recently I prepared a server to install Exchange 2007 on Windows 2008 R2. Instead of manually installing all the prerequisites, I downloaded the XML files created by the Exchange Server Team and applied them to the machine. This saved me a considerable amount of time and the cool thing is that there’s one for each Exchange role. Another sweet feature of the XML templates is that it would check if the Windows Role or Feature is already installed and it would automatically skip the Role or Feature if it is already present. There are 6 XML templates to prepare an Exchange server.
These XML files are applied by using ServerManagerCMD -InstallPath <Path>\Exchange-Base.xml
PowerShell: Bulk User Creation
In order to create users in a lab, I used the following process. The lab currently consists of one Windows 2003 SP2 DC. The AD domain is morecoffeeany1.com.
NOTE: I used the x64 version of Windows 2003.
Prerequisites: Windows 2003 +, Powershell 1.0, Quest Powershell Extensions & .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 (required by the Quest PoSH Extensions)
Create an Input File
Format the file as follows:
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Recent
- Exchange 2010 Cross Forest Migration: The case of the missing User Account Attributes
- Exchange 2010 Cross-Forest (Cross-org) Client Migration Planning
- Vonage – Firewall
- Exchange 2010 SP1 (Beta)
- Exchange 2010 RTM: ActiveSync and the Personal Archive
- Exchange 2010 DAG Implementation
- Upgrade Exchange 2003 Default Address Policy & Address Lists to Exchange 2010
- External HA failover in multiple Internet facing Exchange 2010 sites
- Configuring IE Enhanced Security Configuration on Windows 2008 R2
- Building NLB Exchange 2010 RTM CAS / HT Servers (Hyper-V) – Part 3
- Building NLB Exchange 2010 RTM CAS / HT Servers (Hyper-V) – Part 2
- Building NLB Exchange 2010 RTM CAS / HT Servers (Hyper-V) – Part 1
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Links
- Belgium Exchange Pro's
- D Golman's Blog – Exchange Escalation Engineer
- Joe Richard's AD Site
- Eric Walter's Exchange Blog
- Harold Wong's Blog
- Exchange Server Team (You Had Me At EHLO)
- Steve Thompson – ConfigManager MVP
- My LinkedIn Profile
- Chris and Robin's Technology Blog
- Jeff Guilet's Expta Blog
- Hugh Marlor's AllUnified Blog
- Elan Shudnow's Blog
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