Category Archives: General Stuff

Last week, my column was on the forthcoming Exchange Edge Services product. Microsoft hasn’t said much about it publicly yet, but it’s pretty clear that they have two goals: provide a hardened subset of Exchange functionality for use on the edge, and displace Sendmail/postfix/qmail in shops that have Exchange at the core but not at the edge. Whether they succeed or not will have a lot to do with how they position Edge’s capabilities. Personally, I’m really excited about the prospect of being able to build my own services using managed .NET code– that approach offers a lot of potential over the current event sink model.

Microsoft’s released the Exchange 2003 Security Hardening Guide, which is basically the Exchange 2003 remix of the well-received Exchange 2000 Security Operations Guide. Like its predecessor, it’s meant to be used in conjunction with the Windows 2000 or Windows Server 2003 hardening guides. The Exchange guides provide a set of security templates that can be applied to automatically harden Exchange 2003 servers; it also provides prescriptive guidance on protecting against viruses, spam, and DoS attacks. Of course, it’s no substitute for a good book on security 🙂

[meta-note: there’s no real security tie-in, but I’ve decided to post links to the weekly column I write for Windows & .NET Magazine. That at least guarantees fresh content here every Monday!]

This week’s column focuses on Microsoft’s Software Assurance (SA) licensing, how it works, and why Microsoft is (currently) making the Exchange Intelligent Message Filter available only to SA subscribers.

Late last week, Microsoft made an announcement that has many Exchange Server administrators fuming. The new Exchange Intelligent Message Filter, expected to ship later this year, will be available only to customers enrolled in Microsoft’s Software Assurance (SA) program. On the face of it, this decision might seem shortsighted on Microsoft’s part; after all, wouldn’t the company want to sell its products to anyone who wants to buy them? However, from a long-term strategic point, the decision makes good sense for customers and for Microsoft.

Sigfried Weber (Exchange MVP, developer par excellence, and gracious host) finally has his own blog. For his most recent trick, he’s made SharePoint emit properly formed RSS. Drop by his site and say hello!

In honor of the March 17 release date for Secure Messaging with Exchange Server 2003, I’ve done a little housecleaning. The Exchange 2000 version is still available, so I’ve tried to update the links in the right column so that they correctly point to the appropriate book. I’ll be posting sample chapters as soon as I can get MS Press to send them to me; ditto the TOC and index.

This is really an “I’m tired of moving” sale. When I signed to do Secure Messaging with Exchange 2000, I asked MS Press for 50 author copies– 10 is normal. I figured that I’d have lots of copies to send out for review, give to customers, etc. However, I just cleaned up my office and found two boxes of books– and any day now, UPS is going to bring me my author copies of the Exchange 2003 version. That means that the E2K versions must gooooo!
So, here’s the deal: $20 buys you your own brand-new, signed copy; that’s $15 less than Amazon. For $25, I won’t sign it 🙂 Email paul AT robichaux DOT net if you’re interested. Remember, these make great gifts for Valentine’s Day.

Thanks to my friends at Lotus, I’ve discovered a fun diversion to while away the afternoon. Anyone can play! Here’s how:

1. Go to this page
2. Sign up for a trial Domino Web Access account
3. Try to send a message to an external SMTP user
4. Get an error message
5. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Update: This works properly now, and Domino Web Access is actually pretty impressive as a web client. I’d really like to see a neutral evaluation of DWA against OWA from the standpoint of an average user’s ability to discover and use its features.

Microsoft’s Exchange user documentation team has done it again. they just released a 101-page document convering the details of how recovery storage groups work, what you can do with them, and how to use them to speed up disaster recovery. It’s available here. The abstract:

Using the recovery storage group feature in Exchange Server 2003, you can mount a second copy of an Exchange mailbox database on the same server as the original database, or on any other Exchange server in the same Exchange administrative group. You can do this while the original database is still running and serving clients. The recovery storage group can also be useful in disaster recovery scenarios. This book provides information on how to determine if a recovery storage group is useful in your deployment, how to set up a recovery storage group, and how to troubleshoot common problems.

Even though this doesn’t have anything overt to do with security, it has a lot to do with availability, and that’s actually a component of security: security is about preserving your access to your data, and if you can’t get that data because of a failure, it doesn’t matter how secure it is.

Major milestone alert: the Exchange 2003 book is in pages. What that means is that the editors and page layout folks at MS Press have turned the original lightly-formatted Word files (and accompanying screen shots and napkin-drawn line art) into camera-ready pages. Barring any major mishaps, that means that the book’s insides are ready to print. The cover’s already been designed (see it on Amazon), so that means that with a little luck the book’s ready to be printed!
And speaking of pages: I’ve set up Yet Another Blog, this one focused on the Exchange Cookbook I’m writing with Missy Koslosky and Devin Ganger. Check it out.

Alain Lissoir, who probably knows more about Exchange scripting than anyone I know, has a blog of sorts. It’s mostly a list of his publications, but it’s still very useful if you want to know how to script Exchange or Windows using WMI, CDOEX, or CDOEXM.

The book is done! (Cue sound of cheering… all coming from my family!) I’m still waiting on the chapter on legal issues to be completed, but since I’m not writing it, I don’t count it against my total. Bio, dedication, acknowledgements, and all chapters are in MS Press’ hands.
In related news, Amazon finally has a page so you can preorder the book (hint, hint). When time permits, I’ll update the sidebar links here to point to both the E2K and E2K3 books.