Category: Exchange

New MP: Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 Management Pack

Exchange 2012 Management Pack was just released by Microsoft. It seems that this is completely new management pack so goodbye to the correlation engine Smile. I’ve never liked that this management pack was some kind of different from all other Microsoft Management Packs. I hope I can test it really soon. You can test it by yourself by downloading it from here. You will not be able to download the guide for this MP as it is located in TechNet Library so here are the links:

Exchange Connector 3.0 for SCSM is Here and it is Here to Stay

Exchange Connector 3.0 RTM is finally released and it is supported by MSFT. In order to deploy it you have to:

  • Install UR2 for SCSM 2012 SP1;
  • Remove Exchange Connector 3.0 RC if you have it installed.

You can find the full announcement here.

You can download the connector with a great guide for it here.

Additionally you can extend the connector with Service Manager SendEmail for Incidents

Microsoft Kind Of Brings New Features in SC 2012 SP1 UR2

Last year we were surprised when Service Pack 1 of System Center 2012 was revealed and we found out that it will bring a lot of new features. We were used to get new features on R2 and R3 release of a product. But seems Microsoft is entering a new redefined cycle for supporting their products (examples: SP1 for SC 2012, the CU updates in Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012). Now we are surprised again because System Center team announces kind of new feature in Update Rollup 2 for SC 2012 SP1 which is scheduled for early April. This new feature is called Exchange Connector for SCSM. Let me state out that the Exchange connector existed before this announcement but it was separate download without Microsoft support. Exchange Connector 3.0 Release Candidate with compatibility for SC 2012 was announced somewhere in April 2012 but RTM version was never released. With the release of SP1 many have doubt that RTM version will be released soon. So after a lot of queries against SCSM team for the Exchange Connector Travis Wright responded with official response on SCSM Team blog. The final version of Exchange Connector for SCSM will be included in Update Rollup 2 for SC 2012 SP1 and will be fully supported.

Change Calendar in Service Manager with Orchestrator and Exchange

Out of the box Service Manager doesn’t have a change calendar but Anders Bengtsson how quick and easy it is to create such with integration tool like Orchestrator and a service like Exchange. In order to build the solutions you can follow thee steps here.

Exchange Management Pack Version 14.03.0038.004 is available for download

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Third time’s the charm – 14.03.0038.004

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More over a month ago Microsoft released version 14.3.38.2 of Exchange 2010 MP but it was pulled by Exchange team soon after that because it was causing mailboxes to get quarantined. So this new version just fixes that issue but as the older version is not available no more here are the changes included in it:

  • Resolved ObjectNotFoundExceptions in correlation engine   The SP1 version of the Correlation Engine could encounter ObjectNotFoundExceptions on a regular basis. The number of exceptions of this type is significantly reduced in this update.
  • Reduced load on RMS/MS   A number of improvements were made to reduce the load of the Management Pack on the RMS/MS. The following specific changes were made:

    o Reduced the number of read operations the Correlation Engine makes to the SDK to get entity and monitor states

    o Improved cache handling in Correlation Engine when Management Pack updates are applied

    o Increased correlation interval time from 1.5 minutes to 5 minutes

  • Reduced load due to discovery  The discovery interval was increased from 4 hours to 24 hours and improved handling of Domain Controller objects to decrease churn
  • Improved Database Copy Health monitoring  Replaced KHI: Database dismounted or service degraded with One Healthy Copy monitor to decrease load on RMS
  • Improved Performance monitoring  Non reporting Perf Instances are now enabled by default and some write operations were removed to decrease unnecessary writes to the database
  • Support for Exchange 2010 SP2
    You can download Exchange 2010 MP from this

link.