Dougs Blog... (rarely) daily

Microsoft UK Consultancy Services

Support for Virtualising Exchange Server 2010 SP1 has changed..?

The support stance for virtualising Exchange Server 2010 SP1 has changed significantly over the last...

Author: Doug Gowans MSFT Date: 05/17/2011

Want to work for Microsoft UK?

Microsoft Services in the UK are actively recruiting.. “You have unique experiences, skills and...

Author: Doug Gowans MSFT Date: 02/07/2011

Office 365 and Exchange Online

A very quick summary of Office 365 blogs, wiki’s and articles… Exchange Online – the first place to...

Author: Doug Gowans MSFT Date: 01/17/2011

Strange Jetstress 2010 results..?

Are you running the latest version of Jetstress 2010 against data created using the beta?  If...

Author: Doug Gowans MSFT Date: 06/24/2010

Cmdlet Extension Agents

This is one of those blogs that it’s worth absorbing.. Using Cmdlet Extension Agents to cause...

Author: Doug Gowans MSFT Date: 06/23/2010

July ‘Microsoft Messaging and Mobility User Group’ meeting…

MMMUG are getting physical meetings going again. To kick off their first meeting after re-launch,...

Author: Doug Gowans MSFT Date: 06/22/2010

3 into 4 can go…

Once you’ve determined the number of Exchange Server 2010 mailbox database copies you’re going to...

Author: Doug Gowans MSFT Date: 06/18/2010

1 AD Site, 1 DAG = no DAC

So as the TechNet article (Understanding Datacenter Activation Coordination Mode) explains you can’t...

Author: Doug Gowans MSFT Date: 04/29/2010

Next year’s got to be better…

So it’s been a poor second half of the year as far as blogging goes….  First half wasn’t too...

Author: Doug Gowans MSFT Date: 12/18/2009

MCM Exchange Server 2007

At last funding and time permitted me to attend the Microsoft Certified Master program last month in...

Author: Doug Gowans MSFT Date: 11/30/2009

Exchange Server 2010 News & Reviews..

Exchange Server 2010 Reviews Microsoft Exchange 2010 Beta Looks Solid from Core to Cloud (and...

Author: Doug Gowans MSFT Date: 04/15/2009

What are all these changes to Active Directory?

This is a great blog if you are wondering about some unusual behaviour in Active Directory –...

Author: Doug Gowans MSFT Date: 03/24/2009

CCR or SCC?

Have had this discussion on many occasions and this 3Sharp whitepaper by Missy Koslosky would have...

Author: Doug Gowans MSFT Date: 03/18/2009

DPM in Paperback…

Just found this DPM book:  ‘Mastering System Center Data Protection Manager 2007’ by Devin L....

Author: Doug Gowans MSFT Date: 03/18/2009

Microsoft and Google in the Education Cloud

This is worth a quick read if you are interested in what’s happening with Exchange in the cloud at...

Author: Doug Gowans MSFT Date: 03/18/2009

Want more Virtualisation?

Go to VirtualizationFeed.com and get the latest on virtualisation in Microsoft and in the wider...

Author: Doug Gowans MSFT Date: 03/16/2009

To my fellow bloggers..

Quick list of the blog articles that have helped me and might help you…   10 Steps to Becoming...

Author: Doug Gowans MSFT Date: 03/13/2009

A bit of love from Network World…

Exchange alternatives: Pros and cons Testing shows Microsoft's Exchange still tops for features and...

Author: Doug Gowans MSFT Date: 03/11/2009

Deploying Exchange 2007 on VMWare?

VMWare Podcasts – VMWAre Infrastructure 3 Podcast: Disaster Recovery (DR) for Exchange using VMWare...

Author: Doug Gowans MSFT Date: 03/10/2009

Free Powershell eBook

‘Effective PowerShell: The Free eBook’ from Keith Hill available on Keith Hills’ blog here....

Author: Doug Gowans MSFT Date: 03/09/2009

Friday Dilbert

You gotta laugh…

Author: Doug Gowans MSFT Date: 03/06/2009

I used to do it this way…

Just found some useful stuff on a colleagues blog - Gerod Serafin; a field engineer in the US. It’s...

Author: Doug Gowans MSFT Date: 03/05/2009

Software plus Services Guide & Business Advisor Podcast

Not something I would normally blog about but will be interesting to any of our partners who operate...

Author: Doug Gowans MSFT Date: 03/04/2009

Offline defrag a replica database…

Let’s leave the “why would you?” to one side for the moment but is it actually possible or supported...

Author: Doug Gowans MSFT Date: 03/04/2009

Now we’ve got loads of items – what do we do about it?

So you’ve identified that high item counts is causing issues with Outlook performance.. but what do...

Author: Doug Gowans MSFT Date: 03/02/2009

You’ve just installed your 901st Exchange Server..

..and ExBPA warns you to consider consolidating servers..?  “There are more than 900 Exchange...

Author: Doug Gowans MSFT Date: 02/27/2009

Technet Session – OCS R2

OCS R2 session on Technet from a couple of colleagues: “In this 60 minute session Brett Johnson and...

Author: Doug Gowans MSFT Date: 02/27/2009

Why so much fluff?

When you use the Exchange 2007 Mailbox Storage Calculator on the face of it you seem to get a lot of...

Author: Doug Gowans MSFT Date: 02/27/2009

IronMountain CloudRecovery webcast…

Following on from the recent announcement on CloudRecovery for DPM from IronMountain (Backup your...

Author: Doug Gowans MSFT Date: 02/25/2009

PST’s not supported on the LAN…?

This is a new one on me - ‘Personal folder files are unsupported over a LAN or over a WAN link’....

Author: Doug Gowans MSFT Date: 02/24/2009

3 Data Centres and a File Share Witness

What’s the guidance if you’ve got 3 data centres, you're stretching Exchange 2007 mailbox CCR nodes...

Author: Doug Gowans MSFT Date: 02/23/2009

Corrupted OOF?

This is an interested blog from a Microsoft escalation engineer – Eric Norberg posted on his Technet...

Author: Doug Gowans MSFT Date: 02/20/2009

Part 3 of Henrik Walthers BPOS blog…

Entitled ‘Introduction to Exchange Online- Uncovering BPOS (Part 3)’ has just been posted. …to...

Author: Doug Gowans MSFT Date: 02/19/2009

Item Counts, Search Folders and Restrictions

Not a new subject but have been doing some research again and found a couple of useful links which I...

Author: Doug Gowans MSFT Date: 02/18/2009

24 hour operation, several thousand mailboxes, high concurrency, heavy profiles – how do you tune Online Maintenance?

For companies who have to support a lot of ‘heavy usage’ clients connecting to their Exchange 2007...

Author: Doug Gowans MSFT Date: 02/17/2009

Blackberry without BES?

Blackberries are great but BES (Blackberry Enterprise Server) can be an Exchange administrators...

Author: Doug Gowans MSFT Date: 02/16/2009

MSUKUCC lives…

The Microsoft UK UC Blog is now alive and kicking after a slow start…  The blog will have...

Author: Doug Gowans MSFT Date: 02/13/2009

Initializing Storage Groups…

This is a nice blog from Tim McMichael (a Microsoft Escalation Engineer)…  If you want to know...

Author: Doug Gowans MSFT Date: 02/12/2009

Archive v Big Mailboxes

Ok so this may not be a straight choice for most and an archive solution can complement Exchange for...

Author: Doug Gowans MSFT Date: 02/10/2009

Crossover cables and CCR…

So can you just use a crossover cable for private cluster communications between CCR (& SCC)...

Author: Doug Gowans MSFT Date: 02/10/2009

Are Public Folders supported in E14?

Well yes they are… “Microsoft will continue to support Public Folders in the next major release of...

Author: Doug Gowans MSFT Date: 02/09/2009

Technet UK on Twitter

Excerpt from the latest Technet Newsletter… “Finally, I'd like to announce the launch of our...

Author: Doug Gowans MSFT Date: 02/06/2009

OCS Master and ‘The Master Blog’

I’m a bit late to the party but in case you haven’t seen this already there’s some information on...

Author: Doug Gowans MSFT Date: 02/06/2009

BPOS

Really nice couple of articles on msexhange.org about BPOS (Business Productivity Online Standard...

Author: Doug Gowans MSFT Date: 02/05/2009

Quick Transport Rule

Quick transport rule to remove the recipient field of an SMTP message header from messages going out...

Author: Doug Gowans MSFT Date: 02/04/2009

MMMUG Event at UC Expo

As in previous years UK User Groups are coming together to put on a two day event on March 11th and...

Author: Doug Gowans MSFT Date: 02/02/2009

Getting your Exchange 2007 project approved – Part 6 (A few last ideas…)

OK so I just wanted to add a few more ideas that are worth exploring.. Data Centre Consolidation The...

Author: Doug Gowans MSFT Date: 01/30/2009

Windows Backup, Windows 2008 and Exchange 2007…

What are the options for backing up Exchange 2007 SP1 on Windows 2008? Microsoft’s VSS based...

Author: Doug Gowans MSFT Date: 01/29/2009

Next>