Microsoft Exchange 2010

Studies have revealed how each worker of your organization could lose around 90 minutes each day managing their emails. This is where Email Archiving could help you stop productive losses. Starting from legal compliance to data protection and storage optimization, Email Archiving has become the requisite of any flourishing business organization today. Let us list down the top seven business practices that actually make such Email Archiving a hit for your company:

1. Correlate your needs to the software you plan to purchase: It is true that most companies rush to have Email Archiving installed in only to meet the regulatory compliance. Most of the times, this leads to wrong choice of software since the optimization of Email Archiving depends upon the account productivity and storage issues. It is therefore quite important for the company managers to ideally understand the real intention behind using Email Archiving and estimating all the needs before taking the next stride ahead.

2. Pep up all regulatory requirements: Annual revision of the data retention policy is quite essential to comply with the latest regulatory framework as set down by law from time to time.

3. Email retention policy updating: It is quite an important task for any company to keep on reviewing their retention policy from time to time. This will help the company to put light on various aspects of the retention policy like:

• Responsibilities associated with email retention policy
• The scope of the company’s email retention policy
• Philosophy of the company in this regard
• Timeframe laid down for different types of records
• Easy-to-follow retention schedules

4. Simplify retention policies: This will help to achieve a two-fold benefit from your policy. Firstly, the policy will be actually quite beneficial since complicated retention policies are hardly effective at all. Keeping a benchmark for retention policies helps to simplify the entire procedures associated with Email Archiving. The second benefit of this is that it will help to adopt automated Email Archiving processes within the organization.

5. Make retention policies uniform: Allowing each and every employee to decide the basis of archiving emails could end up in disastrous results. This is why there is a need to regulate the entire procedure so that employees are not left to work as per their intuitions when it comes to Email Archiving.

6. Dissuade employees from creating personal archives: This is quite vital to ensure that there is no confusion in the Email Archiving procedures. Most employees choose to create their personal archives for added-on protection or future referral. However, this might interfere with the functioning of the entire archiving system and hence employees must be made to understand the defects of creating such personal archives.

7. Automating the retention procedure: In order to remove the element of human error, automating the entire Email Archiving would be the best idea. Not only will this help to ensure uniform archiving but will also remove the burden off the employees, allowing an improvement in their productivity levels.

Sticking to the guidelines above for good data retention policy will help to optimize email archiving for the entire organization.

Microsoft Exchange 2010 is a new version of software introduced recently. Many of the customers of Microsoft are very happy with the quality and efficient working of Microsoft products.This is why, Microsoft has been working has been working continuously on development of new products. Microsoft Exchange is an effective and reliable product for the benefit of customers. Further it is cost-effective and a very flexible communication tool that helps you to achieve high performance levels. Customers are more satisfied with its mobility and high efficiency.  It will definitely lower the cost of business in terms of messages and will also increase the productivity of business communication.  This is means Microsoft Exchange is a very powerful messaging platform and a cost-effective tool in business messaging.

It is true that the business conditions and environment will always be changing and it is important that perfect and reliable products and tools are available with you which will improve and increase the functioning of business.  The new features of database availability group and mail box move it will be very easy for the companies to work with Microsoft Exchange Server 2010.

Some of the other advantages are great storage hardware options which suit the latest business technology and it also supports traditional storage area networks with low cost maintenance. Direct Attached Storage ensures larger mailbox which can be accessed by employees at any point of time easily.  There are also additional features web-based Exchange Control panel and administrative rights to help in increasing desk call volume.

Large establishments which have huge volume of business on web on a daily basis, have to deal with number of emails and also must work on their web sites. For all such large establishments, Microsoft Exchange helps them to take benefit from this product so that it delivers more speedy and quality work apart from cutting costs heavily from its end.

This is very much required for businesses which are web based and there are thousands of web businesses launching their web site on the Internet and for all, Microsoft Exchange is required in order to offer more benefits in their business functioning.

Therefore, going by the above discussion, it can be stated that, Microsoft Exchange 2010 can render good service to the customers and it will also give number of benefits to the customers. Customers can always feel a good change in their working environment and in the overall performance of their business earnings and profits.

Download of Microsoft Exchange 2010 is very simple and very easy. All that is required here is to visit the web site of Microsoft.com and search for Microsoft Exchange 2010 or directly open the web site of Microsoft Exchange 2010 and click on software trial. This ensures that a customer can work for few days and feel satisfied. When a customer is fully satisfied with the performance of Microsoft Exchange 2010, the product can be purchased from Microsoft web site by paying the price through Debit or Credit card. This is actually a very good facility.

Free trial helps a customer to get to know which is the product that is giving best benefit and how it can be maximized. There are actually three kind of downloads. The first is virtual experience which can be worked with interactively by taking a test drive. The second is a 120 day free trial by downloading the software on to your PC and you can work on it to assess your benefits from the software. The third facility is on line trial which means, an account is provided for 30 days you can work on the product until you are satisfied. This is very beneficial with the fact that, among all these three types of trials, a customer can always choose a best trail and can go ahead with purchase.

Microsoft ensures proper satisfaction and guaranteed customer service to its customers which is why, it has offered trial period for the customers to understand about the products. There are plenty of downloads sources on the Internet to easily download Microsoft products. But you must ensure that these are legally permitted download sources. Further it will be very good, if you can download Microsoft Exchange 2010 and other Microsoft products only from the official web site of Microsoft company as this will guarantee the working of the product and you can also contact the Company to help you with its working features.

If you are satisfied with the free trial version of Microsoft Exchange 2010, you can purchase the entire version of Microsoft Exchange from the Internet by paying the required price through credit or debit card. This is much easy and convenient for you to download and also to install it on your computer.

Further the service and guarantee of the product is readily available from the Microsoft company and it will bring many features and benefits to you.

Database is an integral part of any application. When working with Microsoft Exchange, it is something which can’t be parted with. The database contains all the mails, contacts, user data and a lot of other information. A lot of corruption problems can occur due to an Exchange Database such as log file issues, antivirus scanning, database shutdown etc. Hence to ensure a speedy recovery and smooth functioning of the database and thus the server, a system administrator has to use some Microsoft Exchange Server Recovery tools.

Here is a scenario illustrating the corruption of Microsoft Exchange Server Database. Remember if working as an Administrator of Exchange Server you have encountered the following situations:

• You are unable to start Information Store Service.
• Clients are unable to send/receive emails and even the server restart does not solve the problem.
• You have restored the database from a backup which was offline but the database is still not consistent.
• When you run database integrity check – Isinteg, the following error message displays on the screen:

“Error 4294966746: JET_errDatabaseInconsistent”

Cause of the error:

The information store has got corrupted. Either one or both of the private store and public store have got corrupted.

Solution to the error:

Before you begin solving the problem, it is recommended that you take entire backup of Information Store. This will help you to cope up with the situation if Information Store crashes. Now just follow the following simple steps:

• When you try to start the Information Store, some error messages application event logs occur, generated by Exchange Server. Analyze all those messages and logs.
• To check the Exchange Database’s integrity (Pub.edb and Priv.edb), run eseutil/mh command. If database is inconsistent, it shows ‘Dirty Shutdown’ state but this doesn’t ensure that database is corrupt. The state can also appear if all of the logs of transaction were not committed.
• Perform a soft database recovery and do a replay of all the transaction logs. To perform this task for the effected database, run eseutil/r command.
• If soft recovery doesn’t give the desired results, run hard database repair. Run eseutil/p and delete whole of the .log and .chk files.
• Now you have to check for the previously stated symptoms. They should not occur now. If you are able to work successfully with the database, then it is repaired. Next, you have to defragment and fix database issues, so run the following commands in sequence – eseutil /d and isinteg -pri -fix –test alltests
• But if the problem is unresolved and you are not able to work with the database, then you will have to switch to a 3rd party Exchange Server Recovery tool, so that you can diagnose the database and repair it properly and more effectively. A Microsoft Exchange’s recovery utility allows for an easy database repair while using safe and yet powerful procedures of scanning.

Microsoft Exchange Recovery Tool: It is a professional tool to repair corrupted Exchange databases. It extracts the mailboxes in .pst files. The tool is easy to use and advanced recovery features are provided in it. It can also be used to recover the mailboxes which are deleted and inaccessible STM data.

Microsoft’s partners are saying that users are not in a hurry to upgrade to Exchange 2010. Market researchers have also concluded that the adoption of Exchange 2010 will get delayed until late 2011.

Microsoft has claimed savings by the use of Exchange 2010 but customers are not likely to buy it. The email system, however, has earned appreciation from its testers still users are not queuing up to buy.

There are many reasons behind this lag. First of all, Microsoft’s claims about savings do not appear as appearing compelling to users. While certainly there is truth in the saving claims of Microsoft, but an organization needs to have the correct environment to take proper advantage claimed by it. It might be a good decision for an organization to buy Exchange 2010 if it wants to move to the cloud some of its mailboxes, or if the organization is in a good condition to change its voicemail system. Microsoft’s claim of storage saving is still debatable! The only non-debatable fact is that not many organizations have yet shown interest in buying the new email system.

Yet another reason is that it is too early a shift after Exchange 2007. Organizations have waited for a long time for Exchange 2007 and many changes have broke the ISV and internal processes (i.e. to remove the Recipient Update Service) and also because it was a difficult install process. Just after shifting to 2007, migrating to 2010 will be a lot of unplanned work for organizations.

Even users are not yet interested, but some feature innovation is extremely good in Exchange 2010. Hybrid cloud innovation makes a good sense and is useful for businesses of any size.

Metalogix has surveyed more that 800 administrators and found that around half of them are still using Exchange 2003, and on top of that only 20% of them planned to upgrade to 2010. The survey was conducted shortly after the release of 2010. Apart from the fact that Exchange 2010 was released before the survey, most of the administrators planned to migrate to 2007, therefore the conclusion by Metalogix that the adoption of Exchange 2010 will not increase for at least two years more.

Despite user skepticism, Microsoft is marketing its new exchange server as a cost cutting choice. According to the cost saving calculator of Microsoft, users can save hundreds of thousands of dollars every year if they switch from 2003 to 2010. Most of the calculation requires use of the new exchange as a unified communication server. Most of the savings are in the form of third-party fees for services like voicemail, archiving and mobility. If those services are found in house, then savings may not be found.

So we have had Exchange 2010 for a little over a month and so far hasn’t given us too many problems. Migration was an experience I don’t want to repeat in a hurry but the EDA or Exchange Deployment Assistant greased the wheels a bit.

Here are some of our findings so far. Bearing in mind we have only had the system live a few weeks and we’re bound to have plenty yet to discover. So far our time with the platform has been positive.

• OWA interoperability – Outlook Web Access now plays nicely with others. Not only does it offer almost everything Outlook 2010 is supposed to, you can now also use it with other browsers. Microsoft have opened it up so it works well in Opera, Firefox and even Safari. A very good development in a platform, especially for an organization who uses multiple operating systems.
• No client necessary – While we’re waiting for Office 2010 for Outlook, we found we don’t actually need it yet. We will to enjoy the other features, but for now we can use it happily without it. Even down to the sounds for calendar alerts.
• Availability – With the death of local replication, the new Database Availability Grouping is a godsend. Multiple versions of databases on multiple machines allows our availability to hit 99.99%. It took a while to get right, but when we did there were sighs of relief all round.
• Self Service - The bane of our lives is slowly easing. The new Exchange Control Panel means the users can manage their own groups, addresses, holiday messages, rules, virus protection and much more. They can use it through a web page and manage many of the tasks that used to take up the majority of our time.
• Exchange Test Tool – So simple yet so effective. This is a network or internet tool that allows us to test different facets of a rollout before making them live. From it we can test SMTP messaging, ActiveSync and Outlook Anywhere. Useful.
• Improved views – Not only do we now have the conversation view, which allows for message threading for longer conversations but we no longer have the annoying previous and next buttons. Now we have scroll bars, which makes the whole message navigation thing a breeze. If we have long running support cases, this view makes it easy to see who said what, and when. That way we don’t repeat what someone has just said, or ask the user to try something twice. Happier user, happier us.

We won’t get to fully utilize the system until Outlook 2010 arrives, but what we have seen so far is positive. The Outlook Web Access is a good alternative for message management, and offers much more than the old version. The fact that we don’t have to use it with Internet Explorer is a definite bonus.

So we have heard that in some circumstances upgrading to Exchange 2010 isn’t such a good idea. The expense, the basic archiving functions, the server overhead for indexing functions and the allegedly clumsy way of email retrieval. There are positive points to the new system though, and we shall highlight a few of them here.

While Microsoft doesn’t hide the fact that it’s going to cost more than the last version, it does cite the benefits. Upgrading is going to be a significant burden on IT departments that are already squeezed tight, but a study released by Forrester alleges the cost of ownership can be recouped within six months for the average rollout. This can be done by making savings in other areas.

There are a few assumptions made, but in an ideal world, they do make sense. The first is that an organization can save money by not having to purchase SAN solutions. Improvements in Exchange I/O handling means it now plays nicely with slower storage. So the extra capacity you’ll need to use the archiving doesn’t have to be at a premium price.

There is the first assumption. To be able to use the new function, you’re going to need more storage. The spin here is not mentioning the need for the storage, but the fact you can spend less money on it that you might have had to. Neat trick huh?

One definite benefit of Exchange 2010 is its ability to take voicemail. The assumption here is that once you use it to take voicemails, you won’t need other systems to do it for you. Therefore, saving money on a separate system. Another great theory, and if you can find me a medium to large organization that uses only one system, has no legacy systems or who uses nothing but Blackberries then they will be the ones who will save money.

The inclusion of the archiving element to Exchange 2010 has already been mentioned in the storage area of the benefits, but can also be highlighted again in its own right. The ability to archive its own mail is an added benefit, and one of the reasons the platform is more expensive. The cost saving implication is that you don’t have to use third party vendors for email archiving.

The assumption here is that you have enough IT staff to index emails, retrieve them from storage, can extract them and make them usable. Also that you don’t mind having your Exchange servers running the significant processing overhead of full-text indexing to allow this to happen.

For those organizations who are committed to use Microsoft products and have the spare budget, Exchange 2010 will be a good investment. It can do more, offers more and is easier to manage and use than Exchange 2007. The ability to have voicemails translated to text is a good feature, as is the archive function. From the beta, Exchange 2010 looks to be a polished and capable platform for future email messaging. If you have the budget to cope with the upgrade.

The impending launch of Microsoft Exchange 2010 got quite a few SaaS vendors worried when they first heard about it. The new built-in archiving features of the platform were one of the main reasons they were in business.

I don’t think it is the end of SaaS email archiving services, not by a long shot. Firstly the email archiving is basic, and requires the clients to use Outlook 2010, which isn’t out yet except in beta as part of the Office 2010 suite.

Secondly using Exchange 2010 involves a significant investment in hardware, software and support. Something which many organizations just can’t afford right now. Considering many vendors offer the equivalent benefits already for a much lower cost, take up of Exchange and Outlook 2010 is expected to be limited for a year or so. Or at least until the economies of the world pick up.

The Exchange archival model also depends on the storage capabilities of the company. Unless many companies drastically improve their storage solutions, mailboxes will be limited, or restricted and the archive facility will lay idle. While hard drives are relatively inexpensive, they are still an added expense.

Many organization don’t allow full-text indexing on their Exchange servers. We all know this puts quite an overhead on the Exchange server, and will only work efficiently on low scale or low use platforms. Larger scale organizations simply can’t afford the slowdown in performance full indexing involves. The multi-mailbox search in Exchange 2010 depends on full-text indexing to work, therefore is largely useless.

Email archiving is based on three requirements. Storage, discovery and compliance. Exchange 2010 only addresses two of these concerns and those only on a basic level. The storage needs a hardware solution to make it work. Exchange has done much to improve how it handles storage by allowing multiple copies of databases, mailboxes and data. E-discovery is only addressed on a basic level, and as we see indexing involves compromises. Also emails can only be copied to another mailbox, not extracted from the system and provided immediately.

Compliance isn’t even touched by the new platform, so many organizations, especially those regulated by the SEC will still need a third party solution.

Exchange a made great strides in increasing management, usability, scalability and seems to be trying to drive down the cost of ownership. There are compromises though, the initial installation will cost a lot, both in time, resources and money. A new infrastructure will most likely be needed, involving the hardware, software and network. Then training for the support staff, as the new platform has many new features, and ways of doing things.

So SaaS email archiving vendors don’t have too much to worry about just yet. It’s going to be a year or three before Exchange 2010 is rolled out across the globe.

In this world, it require some time for various things to get settled. What ever it is whether we talk about the new products or some software, people need to accustom themselves with this new change. And people will appreciate it only if it passes their criterion. By criterion, we mean to say that the effectiveness of the software and products is worth investing. You might find it amazing, but 5 years back, people were unaware of Face book, Twitter and other social book marking site. And now no one can resist without these exciting sites. So in accordance to this laid strategy, most of you might have a question in mind that will Microsoft exchange 2010 cope up with the present competitive era. Well yes, the results which have come so far are truly amazing. But can not jump to the result rapidly. We should wait and watch and then decide about it. No doubt Microsoft has understood the changing trend and in accordance to that they have launched this new software. Microsoft have learnt from their past weakness and tried to cover them in this software. And to some extent they have got success as well. Let’s see what the serious changes which Microsoft has brought out are.

Microsoft in their software has laid a great emphasis on the practical life of the people. They have tried to provide the people what they wanted. This Microsoft exchange is also a good example of that. You all can use it in your house, offices or in other platforms. Basically Microsoft exchange 2010 is a communication tool, but you all can do it in style using it. Communication is not limited to the mail receiving and sending but you all can start live voice conversation with your client when ever you wanted. The reliability of Microsoft exchange 2010 is also quite awesome. You all just cannot find a better alternative of this software. There is nothing which you will complaint of. Every thing has been laid down in the desired format and style, so you will surely appreciate it. More over, the complex task which you find in the previous version of exchange has been paid proper attention and to some extent they have been simplified as well. This software will make you more independent in your approach. You do not need to depend upon the Microsoft exchange support in order to rectify various tasks. Now you will decide when to take help and when to not. Microsoft exchange 2010 is immense software with innumerable thing for you to explore. This is just the beginning of it.

It is always a better option to be safe than sorry. And in this tough economic era, people really don’t want to take any risks. That’s why many of you look for the trial version of Microsoft exchange 2010, in order to get themselves accustomed to all the features and concepts which this software includes. So you all can install the software, it is available at present. The installation process is simple and quite similar to the others software. You don’t need to do any thing new to get the task completed.

The basic requirement of this software is Windows Server 2008. Without the support of this Windows server, you may find some problem in the installation process of Microsoft exchange 2010. A good alternative to it is its Enterprise version. The basic reason behind it is that many of the Exchange 2010 features works only on these Windows system. So, there is not much option available to you in this respect.

Ok so after you successfully installed the software, now is the time to for you to install several pre requisites related to it. Such components including Web server, Web database, Web Net framework and so on. There is a whole lot of list for that. It will be better to install all the requisites for the proper functioning. However, a lot of components have been reduced in the Microsoft exchange 2010. You might have heard about Fail over clustering, you do not need to install it. Like this many other complex things have also been eliminated.

All these tasks will be performed by you only. You just need to select the options which you want in the Microsoft exchange 2010 and then all will be done. There is a feature in which you can dynamically install the mail lists along with the installation of the software’s requisites. So, this will save your lots of precious time. You need to click on various things before the actual install button appears. So, just have a little patience. If you will do all the thing with a cool mind, then your mind will not feel the tiredness. But once you get over with the installation process, it is time for you to start some serious work. Though it might take some time, but think of the benefits which you are going to experience afterwards.  It is really tempting to think about it.