Soft Recovery and Hard Recovery in Exchange Server

Recovering a database simply involves restoring database files ad transaction logs from the tape to the disk, and then lettings ESE recover all the data from those files and bring the stores back online. This is hard recovery. We use eseutil /cc to initiate the hard recovery.

During the recovery, the database must be offline. But the information store services must be running.

Soft recovery is an automatic process where Exchange can recover data after an unexpected shutdown such as a computer crash or forced power down.

Dirty transactions in memory just before the crash need to be recovered. The recovery process will happen automatically when the database is remounted. Simply restart Exchange. This is what happens when the store is brought back online:

1.    Database is mounted and ESE sees that its state is set to not consistent

1.    ESE enters soft recovery mode

2.    ESE looks at the checkpoint and starts with the transaction file indicated by the checkpoint. (If the checkpoint is not available, then ESE simply starts with the oldest log file, which will take longer to complete).

3.    ESE reads each transaction from the log files right up to the end. For each transaction ESE will read pages from the database file, compare the dbTime value with the page in the log file, and if the transaction in the log file is newer it will execute the transaction.

4.    When ESE finishes replaying the transactions, it will perform a clean dismount of the database. This causes all transactions in memory to be flushed to the database file, and sets the file state to consistent.

5.    ESE then remounts the database. Because the state is consistent ESE enters normal mode and regular operations can continue.

6.    

We use eseutil /r to initiate the soft recovery.

Eseutil /cc	Performs a hard recovery after a database restore.
Eseutil /d	Performs an offline compaction of a database.
Eseutil /g	Verifies the integrity of a database.
Eseutil /k	Verifies the checksums of a database.
Eseutil /m	Generates formatted output of various database file types. e.g. /mh
Eseutil /p	Repairs a corrupted or damaged database.
Eseutil /r	Performs soft recovery to bring a single database into a consistent or clean shutdown state.
Eseutil /y	Copies a database, streaming file, or log file.

Reference Blogs

White Space in Exchange 2010

When items are removed from the Exchange database, the space that is freed up in the database is called white space. Exchange will use the available white space in its database for new database content before having to grow the size of the database.

With Exchange 2007 and older versions, one of the key elements that an Exchange administrator needed to keep an eye on, and caused confusion for newcomers to Exchange was the amount of white space in the database.

This is reported as free space in the event viewer via event ID 1221 during the night and is the result of content being removed from the database by the online maintenance process.

With Exchange 2010, the behavior of the database has changed.

Instead of performing an online maintenance during a fixed time window, it now does it constantly. This means that content that has passed the deleted item retention period, is removed from the database shortly afterwards, rather than waiting for the next online defrag window.

However because the process is running constantly, event ID 1221 isn’t written to the event log. Therefore an administrator may not have a clue as to how much of the database is white space, and how much is actual content.

This question can be easily answered, using EMS, as the amount of free space in the database is available via get-mailboxdatabase -Status:

Get-MailboxDatabase -Status | Select Servername, Name, AvailableNewMailboxSpace

This command will show you the name of the Server the database is mounted on, the name of the database (which is unique across the Exchange org with Exchange 2010) and the amount of space available in the database for new content.

The result will be something along the lines of this:

ServerName         Name Available            NewMailboxSpace

————–            ——————–            ————————

EXCH10       Mailbox Database        27.75 MB (29,097,984 bytes)

The command used get-mailboxdatabase -status can provide quite a bit of information about the databases in your Exchange org, use the |fl command to see the full list.

Always remember that when you perform stress testing/sizing for your Exchange 2010 environment, the IOPS created by this online maintenance should be kept in mind. Jetstress is a tool to play with.

In Earlier versions of Exchange, admins used to run the switch eseutil /d for offline defragmentation on exchange databases.

To know this better, we need to discuss about event id: 1221 and its relevance.

Event Type:        Information

Event Source:    MSExchangeIS Mailbox Store

Event Category:                General

Event ID:              1221

Date:     01/01/2005

Time:     00:04:16

User:     N/A

Computer:          SERVER

Description:        The database “First Storage Group\Mailbox Store (SERVER)” has 3.4 megabytes of free space after online defragmentation has terminated.

Exchange has performed a routine maintenance and any old data that is past the delete thresholds has been deleted from the database.

The space it has left behind has then been converted into “white space”. No difference in the size of the database.

This “white space” will be used by Exchange, before expanding the database any larger

Online defragmentation is an automated defragmentation process as a part of its scheduled maintenance which we specify on a mailbox store level in ESM where the actual database size remains the same wherein Offline defragmentation is the process we use to shrink the database size removing white spaces using the eseutil /d switch.

To determine the whitespace using eseutil command by using eseutil /ms

Refer 1 2

Personal Archive and Online Archive in Exchange 2010

Personal Archive:

In Microsoft Exchange Server 2010, personal archives provide users an alternative storage location in which to store historical messaging data. A personal archive is an additional mailbox (called an archive mailbox) enabled for a mailbox user. Outlook 2010, Outlook 2007, and Outlook Web App users have seamless access to their archive mailbox. By using either of these client applications, users can view an archive mailbox and move or copy messages between their primary mailbox and the archive. Personal archives present a consistent view of messaging data to users, and eliminate the user overhead required to manage .pst files. 

In Exchange 2010 Service Pack 1 (SP1), you can provision a user's personal archive on the same mailbox database as the user's primary mailbox, another mailbox database on the same Mailbox server, or a mailbox database on another Mailbox server in either the same or another Active Directory site. This provides flexibility to use tiered storage architecture and to store archive mailboxes on a different storage subsystem, such as near-line storage. In cross-premises Exchange 2010 deployments, you can also provision a cloud-based archive for mailboxes located on your on-premises Mailbox servers.

Online Archive:

Microsoft Exchange Online Archiving is a cloud-based, enterprise-class archiving solution for your Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 1 (SP1) or later on-premises organization. With Exchange Online Archiving, your organization can host your users’ primary mailboxes on your on-premises servers and store their historical e-mail data in cloud-based archive mailboxes. This solution can assist your organization with archiving, compliance, regulatory, and e-discovery challenges, while simplifying your on-premises infrastructure. EOA provides you the following advantages:

Help meet long-term retention requirements Cloud-based archives allow you to store large quantities of messaging data off-site in secure and controlled datacenters. Exchange Online Archiving helps your organization meet regulatory compliance or business requirements for long-term retention of e-mail. Using archive policies, messages are moved from on-premises mailboxes to the cloud-based archives. The same retention policies applied to on-premises mailboxes can be enforced on cloud-based archives.

Help meet eDiscovery and litigation hold requirements With cloud-based archives for your on-premises mailbox users, you can perform seamless discovery searches across both the on-premises primary mailbox and the cloud-based archive. When users are placed on litigation hold in your on-premises organization, their cloud-based archive is also placed on hold.

Lower storage costs Moving historical e-mail data to a cloud-based archive allows you to reduce your organization’s storage requirements. You can provision users’ primary mailboxes with appropriate mailbox quotas, which keeps mailbox sizes in control and your storage costs low.

Provide Anywhere Access Cloud-based archive mailboxes are similar to an on-premises archive mailbox. Using Outlook 2010, Outlook 2007 or Outlook Web App, users are able to access older messages and content in the archive transparently, without requiring any additional configuration on their computers.

Note: Outlook users can access an archive mailbox in online mode. Archive mailboxes aren’t cached to the user's computer when using Outlook in Cached Exchange Mode

Planned GFE NOC Maintenance on July 27

Good Technology will be undertaking planned Maintenance to its GFE NOC
(Network Operations Center) on Saturday July 27, 2013 from 10 PM PT to
11:30 PM PT. Below, Below are the corresponding GMT time for Good
global Customers.


START TIME:
Saturday July 27, 2013 – 10:00 PM PT
Sunday July 28, 2013 – 5:00 AM GMT

END TIME:
Saturday July 27, 2013 – 11:30 PM PT
Sunday July 28, 2013 – 6:30 AM GMT

SYSTEM AFFECTED:
All services of Good for Enterprise (GFE).

This maintenance does not impact Good Dynamics services.

CUSTOMER IMPACT:
Message flow to devices will be interrupted for approximately 15 minutes,
then resume normal operations without further user action.

How to get the EAS report

PS C:\Windows\system32> get-casmailbox -resultsize unlimited | where{$_.hasactivesyncdevicepartnership -eq "TRUE"} | foreach-object{Get-ActiveSyncDeviceStatistics -Mailbox $_.name} | Select Identity, FirstSyncTime, LastSyncAttemptTime, LastSuccessSync, DeviceType, DeviceID, DeviceUserAgent, DeviceModel, DeviceOS, DeviceAccessState, DeviceAccessStateReason,
DevicePolicyApplied, DevicePolicyApplicationStatus, DeviceActiveSyncVersion | Export-Csv C:\temp\asdevices.csv

The program can't start because WMVCore.DLL is missing from your computer

From system logs, if you find below event id 26 multiple times

Application popup: BBConvert.exe - System Error : The program can't start because WMVCore.DLL is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem. 

To fix the issue, you need to re-install the package

For Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, the package recommended by Microsoft is the same except for a different version number:

dism.exe /online /norestart /add-package /packagepath:"%windir%\servicing\Packages\Microsoft-Windows-Media-Format-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~6.1.7601.17514.mum" /ignorecheck

Refer KB27341 & KB19555

Multimedia Tutorials for BES 10 v10.1

BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 Architecture : https://www.blackberry.com/lms/item/747b881b-432a-c96a-9370-a8c2a2abe0b1

Getting Started With Your BlackBerry Device on BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 Version 10.1 : https://www.blackberry.com/lms/item/6f019f7e-eaff-f02a-5f09-ff8c981a6b32

Installing BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 : https://www.blackberry.com/lms/item/9a8e7d3c-bae1-61d7-cb7e-b80091a79237

Managing Secure Work Space for iOS and Android : https://www.blackberry.com/lms/item/3ca8b3d7-1f41-3823-adcf-266beca55250

Unlisted message error on BB handset while sending meeting request

When sending a meeting request from the Blackberry handset which is running on BES 5.0 SP4 MR4 whose mailbox is on Exchange server 2010, getting red X and on the Blackberry Handset for which the message status shows: Unlisted message error

To fix the issue i have followed the below steps

Open Command Prompt
Browse to the tools folder where you have TraitTool

Traittool -server <Server Name> -list

You should be seeing 4 entries as mentioned below:

EWSEnable: True
EWSSCPURL: https://outlookanywhere.domain.com/Autodiscover/Autodiscover.xml
EWSCASURL:https://outlookanywhere.domain.com/EWS/Exchange.asmx
ExchangeDisableConfirmEmailDelivery:0

From the above command, i have confirmed EWS is enabled on the server. 

I have assigned the blackberry account to the static agent 214 and while testing the calendaring functionality by creating a new meeting request, it went without red X. Calendar functionality is working fine on agent 214 without any issue.

Now i went to still deeper level i.e agent level

Traittool -server <Server Name> -agent 1 -list
EWSEnable:true
Traittool -server <Server Name> -agent 2 -list
Traittool -server <Server Name> -agent 3 -list
Traittool -server <Server Name> -agent 4 -list
Traittool -server <Server Name> -agent 5 -list
Traittool -server <Server Name> -agent 212 -list
Traittool -server <Server Name> -agent 214 -list
EWSEnable:true

When i have assigned the blackberry account to static agent 212, the calendar functionality is not working fine i am receiving red X with the message status: unlisted message error. From the above information i got to know as the EWS is not enabled for the agent 212, the calendaring functionality is not working.

To fix the issue at the static agent level, i ran the below command and restarted the BB Controller service.

TraitTool -server <Server Name> -agent 212 -Trait EwsEnable -set true
ewsenable: Added 'true' Server: <Server Name>(2), Agent: 212(212)

Now i have tested the calendar functionality by sending the meeting request now it reached the recipients without any issues i.e red X 

Finally i have fixed the issue :)

Reference KB29946

How to seamlessly extend the windows server trial to 240 days

The Microsoft evaluation releases of their products are incredibly valuable and useful tools as they allow you to have an unlimited number of test, demo and development environments to work with at no cost. The only catch is evaluation releases are time limited, so the more time you can squeeze out of them, the more useful they can be.

Here we are going to show you how to extend the usage time of the Windows Server 2008 R2 evaluation release to its maximum.

How it Works
Once activated the Windows Server 2008 R2 evaluation (or trial) lasts for 180 days, after which you must either enter a valid license key or the server will shut itself down after one hour of use.

With most every Microsoft product which requires activation, there is a grace period of several days in which the product can be used (unrestricted) before activation is required. In the case of Windows Server 2008 R2 evaluation, this grace period is 10 days which can be reset (or re-armed) 5 times before activation is required. When fully utilized, gives an extra 60 days of usage time.

To put your mind at ease, this practice is completely legal and actually promoted by Microsoft. We are simply approaching this with an automated “set it and forget” it process.

Refer the Blog for complete details

Exchange Server Performance

Understanding Exchange Performance
Understanding Processor Configurations and Exchange Performance
Understanding Memory Configurations and Exchange Performance
Understanding Server Role Ratios and Exchange Performance
Understanding Multiple Server Role Configurations in Capacity Planning
Understanding Client Access and Hub Transport Combined Role Configurations in Capacity Planning
Calculate Megahertz Per User and IOPS Per User

What are "Device.xml" and "Vendor.xml" files in the Blackberry Enterprise Server

In BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0 to 5.0 SP4, the BlackBerry Administration Service automatically downloads the Device.xml and Vendor.xml files from https://www.blackberry.com/Desktop/Download/XML/Device.xml and https://www.blackberry.com/Desktop/Download/XML/Vendor.xml at hourly intervals and updates the files that are present on the BlackBerry Enterprise Server. The files are then used for wireless software installation and wireless software updates.

If the computer hosting BlackBerry Administration Service 5.0 to 5.0 SP2 is unable to access the Internet, either because of firewalls or a proxy server, the BlackBerry Administration Service is unable to download the correct data and the existing XML files might become outdated, as result, BlackBerry Administration Service may be unable to send application to the BlackBerry devices.

BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0 SP3 and SP4 have the ability to proxy BlackBerry Administration Service requests properly. Please see KB25252 on information to configure proxy settings to allow appropriate updating of Vendor.xml and Device.xml files for BlackBerry Administration Service 5.0 SP3 or higher.

Note: The URLs for Device.xml and Vendor.xml are case sensitive and if the case is changed, the files will not be accessible.

The exact format for both URLs is as follows:

Device.xml: https://www.blackberry.com/Desktop/Download/XML/Device.xml
Vendor.xml: https://www.blackberry.com/Desktop/Download/XML/Vendor.xml 

If BlackBerry Administration Service doesn't have access to Internet, or if it is unable to download the XML files through proxy or firewall, contact BlackBerry Technical Support.

Reference Articles: KB22777 KB13589