sbs

Using a POP connector when migrating to from POP to Exchange

When focussing on the SMB (Small-Medium Business) market I find that alot of companies don’t yet have their own Exchange servers and are still using POP mail. With the age of virtual servers upon us it is easier then ever to sell them on Exchange when you are already selling them a physical server and Windows enterprise license.

Best practice I have found when doing the migration is to use a POP connector on your Exchange server. This allows for a gradual migration and eliminates any lost email during the time when you are changing over the MX records.

Microsoft includes a free POP connector with Windows Server 2003 SBS and yet for some unknown reason doesn’t include one with the real version of Exchange. Still, using SBS is in fact it’s own punishment so it’s not a huge loss.

I recommend the Exchange Connector product by Quantum Software Solutions. It’s really straight forward to use and very customizable. You get a 30 day free trial, which is all you need if you are only using it for migration purposes, though I think it is well worth paying for if you think you are going to use it on a ongoing basis.

Here is the link

 http://www.quantumsoftware.com.au/

Broken hub causing Windows 2003 SBS server to freeze

So I am called in to fix a problem with a server being offline. I get onsite to find that the server is frozen and the last message was a delayed write failure. Give it a reboot and it blue screens. Boot into safe mode, works fine, I can get into windows, only suspicious event log errors are the delayed write failures. Boot into Safe Mode with Networking causes it to freeze again. Boot into normal mode with network cable unplugged and everything comes up ok. Plug in the network cable and try pinging, pings are intermitant, some work, some not, response is in the 1000’s of milliseconds. Try from another machine, same issue. Server freezes again. It’s about this time I realize the server is likely just a red herring (a crappy designed red herring) and start troubleshooting the network issue. Sometimes pings work fine, sometimes slow, sometimes not at all. Reboot all the main switches, same issue. So I start asking questions around. Turns out all the issues started around the time that someone dropped the small d-link hub by there desk. Bingo. Turn that off problems cease. Server comes back on, no more freezing. Now this was an interesting problem but it illustrates a rant. What the hell is wrong with server 2003? All the XP machines were fine, none of them froze up. I am not sure if it’s a server 2003 issue or an SBS issue (I wouldn’t be shocked, since SBS sucks) but regardless this is just bad.