What will administrators look like in the future

Another day to reflect on the labor of system administrators. What will a system administrator job look like in the future. One guess is, more of a developer than a server administrator. A system administrator role in Information Technology (IT) has certainly changed over the years and will continue evolve. Back in the day, there

Self-service EWS throttling change

Up until recently, the process to get a relaxed throttling limit during an O365 onboarding migration, was to open a Microsoft Support case. This process is now available as a self-service option. During an O365/M365 data migration, there are several performance best practices to follow. But even after following the guidelines, sometimes the cloud service

Windows Server 2019 FFL/DFL

Q: Where is Windows Server 2019 FFL/DFL? A: There isn't one. Since there was no updates or changes to the Forest or Domain functional levels of AD, there is not a 2019 level, but only a 2016 level. This is the information about Windows FFL/DFL's: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/identity/ad-ds/active-directory-functional-levels This image also shows the various paths and options

FieldNote: Scanned firewall, found TCP ports open: 25, 80, 443

One time, I had a phone call from the ISP for the company I was working at and they said they did a firewall scan without notifying us. Ok, thanks for that, but next time, be honest and let us know when you are going to perform a penetration test and we’ll be happy to

Pin virtual guests to specific physical hosts

This is a common discussion, who should be in charge of High Availability (HA), the host virtualization operating system or the application? If you ask an electrician how to fix something, they’ll tell you to rewire it. If you ask a carpenter what is wrong, they will say rebuild it. If you ask a virtualization

Where is OMA?

Some of you may ask, what is OMA? Back in the day, Exchange 2003, mobile devices were starting to make their way into the corporate world. Outlook Mobile Access (OMA) was introduced to help provide a small, thin foot print to mobile devices. You have to also remember that back in 2003, cellular networks were not what they are

How to control O365 licensed products

I’ve had this conversation at least once a week for the past several months. Customers ask, how can they use PowerShell scripts to assign/control O365 licensing workloads assigned to end users? Don’t use a script, use Azure group-based licensing. The problem with a script is, you must assign all workloads, then remove the ones you

Can an Exchange DAG (2010 or higher) run on two different virtual platforms?

Yes, it would be supported. Any supported virtualization product on this list is supported: https://www.windowsservercatalog.com/svvp.aspx From an Exchange perspective, it wouldn’t care what it rides on. You can mix and match all day long, as long as the Exchange versions are consistent. In fact, the Exchange role requirements calculator doesn’t even care about virtualization, the

Exchange Server important dates

Just a reminder, Exchange Server versions have some important dates coming up: Exchange Server 2010 support will end on January 14, 2020 October 14, 2020 is the new date: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/enterprise/exchange-2010-end-of-support Exchange Server 2013 has now entered extended support and that will end April 11, 2023 Exchange Server 2016 extended support ends October 14, 2025 Exchange

To virtualize the PDCe or not to virtualize the PDCe…

The question isn’t can you, but should you virtualize the Primary Domain Controller emulator (PDCe) FMSO role holder. And of course, the answer is, ‘It depends’. Of course it does, why wouldn’t it be black or white? Because there are too many options to consider. Finding the PDCe: There are a few different ways to