Latest Jetstress Field Guide
I’ve always relied on JetStress to gain confidence in any new Exchange infrastructure I build. It gives you good loading feedback and is great for benchmarking disk I/O and IOPS.
http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Jetstress-Field-Guide-1602d64c
According to the Exchange Team, the highlights are:
Updated for version 14.01.225.017 of Jetstress
Added Exchange Server 2003 instructions
Added more troubleshooting information
Added guidance for running Jetstress on a production Exchange Server
Included guidance for testing Raid Arrays
Included information and guidance on Background Database Maintenance
General corrections and clarity improvements
If you’re building or are about to build an Exchange setup, it’ worth a good read. Use it.
Service Pack Caution
I take a lot of ribbing in the office about my over cautious attitude towards Microsoft service packs/roll ups etc. I think they are valuable enhancements to operating systems etc, they fix problems and enhance features, BUT they can also be dangerous.
There was once an LCS 2005 client patch, which then wouldn’t allow connections to the server, imagine the red face explaining that one to the boss, and the fix took a while to come out!
Very recently there was this:
The bad: http://blogs.technet.com/b/exchange/archive/2011/03/29/potential-for-database-corruption-as-a-result-of-installing-exchange-2007-sp3-ru3.aspx
The sorry: http://blogs.technet.com/b/exchange/archive/2011/03/30/exchange-2007-2010-rollup-3-status-update.aspx
The fix: http://blogs.technet.com/b/exchange/archive/2011/03/31/announcing-the-re-release-of-exchange-2007-service-pack-3-update-rollup-3-v2.aspx
I’m NOT having a pop at the Exchange Dev boys and girls, far from it, they deserve kudos for holding up their hands and sorting out the problem. All credit to them for their approach and honesty.
So….. why do I stay behind the service pack bleeding edge…. 
Exchange 2007 Upgrade to SP2- Procedure
It’s not often I’ll just post a link to someone elses article, well, not for the sake of it. However this is one worth reading, it’s clear and concise and if you have a cluster on your hands it makes it all worthwhile.
http://www.telnetport25.com/component/content/article/1-exchange-2007-gen/312-installing-service-pack-2-for-exchange-2007-on-your-cas-ht-mailbox-and-clustered-instances.html
Take a read, it’s a great site.
Exchange 2007 Store won’t mount: So more logging?!
This morning I had a log drive fill up on me. That’s my fault, it’s a DR system and should be cyclic logging, but.. wasn’t.
So not much I can do but try and stick it in cyclic logging and fire it up. I’ve got 2 stores on this server, so I put 1 of them in cyclic, the other I just mounted for the time being (I’d made space)
The non cyclic store mounts, great. The other store once requested to mount appears to do nothing… all i notice is ‘tasking running’ in the footer bar. Hmm, so I look in event viewer… entries about the other store mounting, but nothing else. ODD.
I ask it to mount again, the footer bar increments to ’2 tasks running…’ then I get a pop up window with an error:
Exchange is unable to mount the database that you specified. Specified database: <SERVER-NAME>\Storage Group\MailboxDatabase; Error code: MapiExceptionBusy: Unable to mount database. (hr=0x8004010b, ec=-2147221237)
I start googling and everyone says “start the System Attendant”. I’ve already got 1 store mounted, if the SA was down I couldn’t have mounted that…. No help there.
Again, event viewer… nothing. This is daft. I sit there for a while then I decided to actually check the number of files to see if it’s playing logs in, first properties on the folder, 201,875 files, give it a minute or 2 195,074 files. Wicked! a clue at last, it’s replaying the logs. Thanks Microsoft, thanks for the event that says StoreXYZ is replaying logs…really would that have been so hard!
I did all this to myself, but just a little entry in event viewer would have left me informed and clued up, instead I get bog all in events and an error that has little relevance. I’d have been happier if it has said ‘bog off I’m doing as asked’. Glad it was DR and not live, saved me a verbal hair drying
Luke Darby
Technology Infrastructure | Media | Communication | Broadcasting
United Kingdom
