E2K10 SP2: Thanks for the new custom attributes!

One of the nice new things that Microsoft introduced in Exchange 2010 Service Pack 2 did not make much news. There are 30 new extension attributes (aka custom attributes). These are msExchExtensionAttribute16 -  msExchExtensionAttribute45.

Note, these are NOT editable from the Exchange Management Console nor the Set-Mailbox cmdlet,  But, they are flagged for Global Catalog replication, they are assigned a mapiID and they can be added to the details templates!

Exchange 2010 SP2 upgrade issue with Discovery Mailbox

I just upgraded my lab servers to Exchange 2010 SP2.  I was somewhat pleased that all I needed to do prior to the upgrade was just run a Microsoft Update and make sure that the recommended and critical updates were applied.  Sometimes, with new Exchange releases, you have to chased down obscure and not-yet-released fixes for things.

I did have one issue as the mailbox role was being upgraded.  Setup crashed repeatedly and included the dump from a script that had failed.

Couldn’t resolve the user or group “volcanosurfboards.com/Microsoft Exchange Security Groups/Discovery Management.”

It is also listed in the eventlog at Event id: 1002: Exchange Server component Mailbox Role failed:

Event ID 1002

Providor Name:MSExchangeSeup

“Couldn’t resolve the user or group /Microsoft Exchange Security Groups/ Discovery Management” If the user or group is a foreign forest principal, you must have either a two-way trust or an outgoing trust.

The trust relationship between the primary domain and the trusted domain failed”

 I chased my tail on this quite a bit assuming it was an Active Directory problem when in fact it was a problem with the Discovery mailbox.  The only solution is to delete the discovery mailbox and recreate it.  My test domain (volcanosurfboards.com) is in the steps below.  Substitute your own domain.

1)   Disable-Mailbox “DiscoverySearchMailbox {D919BA05-46A6-415f-80AD-7E09334BB852}” 

2) Enable-Mailbox “DiscoverySearchMailbox {D919BA05-46A6-415f-80AD-7E09334BB852}” -Arbitration

3) Add-MailboxPermission -Identity:"volcanosurfboards.com/Users/DiscoverySearchMailbox {D919BA05-46A6-415f-80AD-7E09334BB852}” -User:”Discovery Management” -AccessRights:”FullAccess” 

 Note that the user account that is used for the Discovery Search mailbox must be disabled.

The IT Curmudgeon

After a particularly frustrating week at work...

1. There are rarely good technological solutions for bad behavior. (this one comes from Ed Crowley)
2. Any meeting that gets off track more than twice will not achieve its intended goal.
3. Projects that are not well scoped will come in late and over budget.
4. "On time and under budget" are misnomers in IT.
5. An IT department's effectiveness is inversely proportional to the number of layers of management.
6. IT organizations that are afraid / intimidated by their users will inevitably serve those users poorly.
7. Scope creep is the enemy of IT.
8. Good information security practices are important; rigorous information security practices stifle productivity and creativity. 
9. Regularly scheduled meetings diminish in productivity after each meeting occurrence. Beware the recurring meeting!
10. Consultants and vendors almost always act in their own best interest.
11. Complexity and change are the enemies of high availability.
12. Everything has a maintenance / sustainment cost.
13. Fear the IT Manager that tries to get too much in the technical weeds.
14. No good can come from your CIO meeting with your consultant’s “senior practice manager.”
15. No organization ever knows the true cost of their IT infrastructure, services, and operations.
16. Avoid major IT projects using internal staff.  Internal staff gets sidetracked with existing duties. 
17. Beware the IT manager that wants Administrator rights.
18. A Configuration Management team that treats engineering and operations teams like their enemy are encouraging people to find ways to bypass them.
19. People have to see “what’s in it for them” with regards to collaborative tools otherwise they won’t use them.
20. Bureaucrats always expect you to know about their bureaucracy.

Bureaucracy and bureaucrats

"The most annoying thing about bureaucrats is that they expect everyone to understand their little piece of the bureaucracy."- Jim McBee