Exchange & Outlook UPDATE, Exchange Edition, February 3, 2005

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High Availability and DR for Your Exchange Server

http://www.neverfailgroup.com/welcome.asp?promo=ExchangeOutloook2-3-05

Exchange Availability: The Five Fatal Flaws of Traditional Replication Systems

http://www.messageone.com/s56

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1. Commentary

- Automate Tasks with Scriptomatic

2. Peer to Peer

- Featured Thread: Rebuilding an Exchange Server
- Outlook Tip: Adding the Time to an Outlook Message Printout

3. New and Improved

- Automate Exchange Backup

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Sponsor: Neverfail

High Availability and DR for Your Exchange Server

Downtime is expensive, disruptive--and unacceptable. Neverfail's easy to use high availability software solutions enable companies of all sizes to keep their users continuously connected to working applications, regardless of the cause of the failure. Neverfail's "cluster-class" solution ensures server reliability, application availability and data protection--at a fraction of the cost and complexity of traditional alternatives. Learn how to keep your users connected to your Exchange Server, no matter whether a failure occurs in the operating system, a hardware component, a software application, or somewhere within the network. To view a demo or access a free whitepaper:
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Editor's note: Share Your Exchange Discoveries and Get $100

Share your Exchange Server and Outlook discoveries, comments, or problems and solutions for use in the Exchange & Outlook Administrator print newsletter's Reader to Reader column. Email your contributions (500 words or less) to [email protected]. We edit submissions for style, grammar, and length. If we print your submission, you'll get $100.

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==== 1. Commentary: Automate Tasks with Scriptomatic ====

by Paul Robichaux, Exchange Editor, [email protected]

When I was in college, I had the good fortune to take several computer science classes from one of Georgia Tech's legends, a man named gus Baird (his real name was Augustus, and he insisted that the g in gus be lower case). gus was a terrific instructor. Among the basic principles he taught was a simple one: Hard-working programmers solve problems, but good programmers solve their problems once by writing tools to automate repetitive tasks. The release of the new version of Scriptomatic from the Microsoft Scripting Guys (see http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter ) reminded me of gus's maxim. Scriptomatic automates the process of writing several different kinds of WMI scripts, which has two benefits. For new scripters, it drastically lowers the difficulty of using WMI; for experienced scripters, it provides a simple way to crank out new scripts from a known set of basic scripts.
After you download the Scriptomatic 2.0 from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=09dfc342-648b-4119-b7eb-783b0f7d1178&displaylang=en and install it, you'll find that you've suddenly gained the ability to create about multiple types of scripts. The original Scriptomatic could produce only VBScript code, but the new version can write scripts in the popular Perl and Python scripting languages, as well as in JavaScript. Better yet, you can easily target a single script at multiple computers, giving you an easy way to write one script that automatically gathers data from all your Exchange servers. Best of all, you can choose the output format for the script's data. The default dumps data on the command line, but you can also output plain text, HTML, Microsoft Office Excel, or XML format data to a file.
How easy is Scriptomatic to use? Check out the script I created (see below), which displays all the properties of the DSAccess objects exposed by Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) on my two Exchange servers. Here's how I did it:
1. I launched Scriptomatic from BATMAN.
2. I clicked on the WMI Namespace pull-down menu and selected root\MicrosoftExchangeV2. (The list of namespaces and classes are dynamically generated according to the providers installed on the machine on which you're running Scriptomatic.)
3. From the WMI Class pull-down menu, I selected Exchange_DSAccessDC.
4. In the Target Computers field, I entered SUPERMAN as a computer name.
5. I clicked Update Script, then Run. Total: six clicks and eight keystrokes.

The script itself is easy to read. Admittedly, it doesn't do anything except echo the properties of the selected object, but if you don't already know the names and types of the properties in a particular class, using the script is an easy way to find out. With a little tweaking, you could easily turn this script into a tool that could report back on the current DSAccess configuration for all the servers in an domain, Exchange organization, or organizational unit (OU).
We won't see the scripting improvements promised for Exchange 12 for a while yet. In the meantime, you'll probably be surprised at how much data you can gather (and how many settings and behaviors you can change) using WMI. Scriptomatic and the related resources at the Scripting Center are a great way to get started with Exchange scripting.

On Error Resume Next
Const wbemFlagReturnImmediately = &h10 Const wbemFlagForwardOnly = &h20
arrComputers = Array("BATMAN","superman") For Each strComputer In arrComputers
WScript.Echo WScript.Echo "

================================

"
WScript.Echo "Computer: " & strComputer WScript.Echo "

================================

"
Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:\\" & strComputer & "\root\MicrosoftExchangeV2")
Set colItems = objWMIService.ExecQuery("SELECT * FROM Exchange_DSAccessDC", "WQL", _
wbemFlagReturnImmediately + wbemFlagForwardOnly)
For Each objItem In colItems
WScript.Echo "Caption: " & objItem.Caption
WScript.Echo "ConfigurationType: " & objItem.ConfigurationType
WScript.Echo "Description: " & objItem.Description
WScript.Echo "InstallDate: " & WMIDateStringToDate(objItem.InstallDate)
WScript.Echo "IsFast: " & objItem.IsFast
WScript.Echo "IsInSync: " & objItem.IsInSync WScript.Echo "IsUp: " & objItem.IsUp
WScript.Echo "LDAPPort: " & objItem.LDAPPort
WScript.Echo "Name: " & objItem.Name WScript.Echo "Status: " & objItem.Status
WScript.Echo "Type: " & objItem.Type
WScript.Echo
Next
Next
Function WMIDateStringToDate(dtmDate)
WScript.Echo dtm: WMIDateStringToDate = CDate(Mid(dtmDate, 5, 2) & "/" & _
Mid(dtmDate, 7, 2) & "/" & Left(dtmDate, 4) __
& " " & Mid (dtmDate, 9, 2) & ":" & Mid(dtmDate, 11, 2) & ":" & Mid(dtmDate,13, 2))
End Function

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==========

==== Events and Resources ====

(A complete Web and live events directory brought to you by Windows IT Pro: http://www.windowsitpro.com/events )

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Fax Servers: Integrate. Automate. Communicate

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Is Your Messaging Infrastructure Ready for Tomorrow's Risks?

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http://www.windowsitpro.com/seminars/securemessaging/index.cfm?code=0202emailannc

==== 2. Peer to Peer ====

Featured Thread: Rebuilding an Exchange Server

Our forum readers are having a conversation about restoring the database, log files, and other files to a rebuilt Exchange server. To join the discussion, visit
http://winnetmag.com/forums/messageview.cfm?catid=40&threadid=129595

Outlook Tip: Adding the Time to an Outlook Message Printout

by Sue Mosher, [email protected]

Q: How can I add the time to the footer that appears on a printed HTML-format message?

Find the answer (and links to more great tips) at

http://www.windowsitpro.com/microsoftexchangeoutlook/article/articleid/42884/42884.html

==== Announcements ====

(from Windows IT Pro and its partners)

Try a Sample Issue of Exchange & Outlook Administrator!

If you haven't seen Exchange & Outlook Administrator, you're missing out on key information to help you migrate, optimize, administer, backup, recover, and secure Exchange and Outlook. Plus, paid subscribers receive exclusive online library access to every article we've ever published. Order now! http://www.exchangeadmin.com/rd.cfm?code=fsep2352up

Nominate Yourself or a Friend for the MCP Hall of Fame

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==== 3. New and Improved ====

by Angie Brew, [email protected]

Automate Exchange Backup

Sonasoft released Sonasafe Point-Click Recovery, a data-protection management console for Exchange Server that simplifies and automates the backup and recovery process and eliminates human error. SonaSafe Point-Click Recovery backs up data on Exchange servers, as well as corresponding domain controller (DC) and Active Directory (AD) files, without stopping services or suspending email access to users. When recovery is required, the product automatically selects the appropriate files and restores the server to its original state. The product features a built-in task scheduler that lets administrators schedule backup and recovery tasks. Point-Click Recovery supports Exchange Server 2003 and Exchange 2000 Server. For pricing, contact Sonasoft at 408-927-6200.
http://www.sonasoft.com

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=========

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