Microsoft has many tools and resources to support Exchange Server – they recently released, two new programs, an update, and an official acknowledgment for another: 

UPDATED! version of Exchange Server Best Practices Analyzer v2.6 (ExBPA) – programmatically collects settings and values from data repositories such as Active Directory, registry, metabase and performance monitor. Once collected, a set of comprehensive ‘best practice’ rules are applied to the topology.

Administrators running this tool will get a detailed report listing the recommendations that can be made to the environment to achieve greater performance, scalability and uptime.

UPDATED! Web Update Pack contains the latest ExBPA.Config.xml and ExBPA.chm files (Support: Blog Document & Updated Information)
 

TWO NEW programs that build on the framework of ExBPA: 

Exchange Server Disaster Recovery Analyzer v1.0 (ExDRA) examines an Exchange Server deployment when an Exchange Server database fails to mount. Based on the problem found, the tool automatically generates step-by-step instructions to bring the database online.

 

UPDATED! Exchange Server Performance Troubleshooting Analyzer (ExPTA) examines the performance of an Exchange Server messaging system, and addresses issues such as slow switching between folders in Outlook and the Requesting data dialog box. The ExPTA determines the most likely cause of the bottleneck, and then creates step-by-step instructions to address the performance problem. 

“OFFICIAL” release of Exchange Server Public Folder DAV-based Administration Tool (PFDAVAdmin) performs various management tasks related to public folders and mailboxes. The program checks the permissions status of each public folder and mailbox folder and correct problems if found. The ability to bulk export/import the permissions and replica lists make this program an invaluable tool to achieve greater productivity in managing public folders. The program can also report contents information of each public folder and mailbox folder such as the number of items in each folder, size of folder and most recent modification date of any item in the folder.

 

UPDATED! Profile Analyzer tool to collect estimated statistical information from a single mailbox store or across an Exchange Server organization. The collected data can be used for such tasks as analyzing the performance and health of a server that has mailboxes, improving capacity planning models, and improving testing methodologies and tools.

NEW! Microsoft Exchange Server SMTPDiag Tool is a troubleshooting tool designed to work directly on a Windows server with IIS/SMTP service enabled or with Exchange Server installed. It utilizes the same APIs as Windows and Exchange in order to diagnose configuration and connection issues involving SMTP and DNS.

ADDITIONAL EXCHANGE SERVER SUPPORT INFO & TOOLS 

• NEW! DSACLS Snippets (dsacls.exe), is a command-line tool that can be used to query and change permissions and security attributes of Active Directory objects.
  
  
• NEW! Exchange Server ActiveSync Certificate-Based Authentication Tool provides several utilities to assist an Exchange administrator in configuring and validating client certificate authentication for Exchange Server ActiveSync.
  
  
• NEW! Exchange Server 2003 Performance, Tuning & Tweaking Resources
  
  
• Exchange Server Management Pack Configuration Wizard provides a graphical user interface to configure Exchange 2000 and 2003 Management Pack, including test mailboxes, message tracking, and monitoring services.
  
  
• UPDATED! The Exchange Server ActiveSync Web Administration tool is designed for administrators who want to manage the process of remotely erasing lost, stolen, or otherwise compromised mobile devices.
  
  
• Exchange Intelligent Message Filter provides server-side message filtering, heuristics-based message analysis, and support for per-message SPAM confidence level ratings.
  
  
• Exchange Server Management Pack for MOM 2005 includes rules and scripts to track performance, availability, and reliability of Exchange components, such as Internet-related services, Extensible Storage Engine, System Attendant, Microsoft Exchange Information Store service, and SMTP. (explanation guide & NEW! Management Guide are also available).
  
  
• Exchange Server User Monitor enables system administrators to view and evaluate individual users' usage and experience with Exchange Server, by gathering real-time data to better understand current client usage patterns, and to plan for future work. Administrators can view several items, including IP addresses used by clients, versions and modes of Outlook, and resources such as CPU usage, server-side processor latency, and total latency for network and processing with Outlook 2003 version MAPI.
  
  
• UPDATED! Jetstress verifies the performance and stability of a disk subsystem prior to putting an Exchange server into production, by simulating Exchange disk (performance) Input/Output (I/O) loads. Specifically, Jetstress simulates the Exchange database and log file loads produced by a specific number of users. You use Performance Monitor, Event Viewer, and ESEUTIL in conjunction with Jetstress to verify that your disk subsystem meets or exceeds the performance criteria you establish. 
  
   
• SMTPDiag is a troubleshooting tool designed to work directly on a Windows server with IIS/SMTP service enabled or with Exchange Server installed. It utilizes the same APIs as Windows and Exchange in order to diagnose configuration and connection issues involving SMTP and DNS.
  
  
• WinRoute gives a visual representation of the Exchange routing topology and the status of the different routing components. Use to determine the link state routing information as known to the routing master. The WinRoute tool connects to the link state port, TCP port 691, on Exchange 2000 or 2003 server and extracts the link state information for an organization. The information is a series of GUIDs that WinRoute matches to objects in Active Directory, connectors and bridgehead servers, and presents in human-readable format. This tool should be the first step in troubleshooting routing in an Exchange 2000 and Exchange 2003 mail-handling environment.
  
  
• Information Store Viewer (MDBVu32) Browse storage, address book, and other Messaging Application Programming Interface (MAPI) providers by executing MAPI calls specified by a user, which consist of the private information store, the personal folder file (.Pst), the public store and the offline folder file (.Ost).
  
  
• Exchange Server Mailbox Merge Wizard (ExMerge) extract data from mailboxes on one server running Exchange and then merge that data into mailboxes on another server running Exchange with the help of this tool. The program copies data from the source server into Personal Folders (.PST files) and then merges the data, in the Personal Folders, into mailboxes on the destination server.
  
  
• Exchange Server MSSearch Administration Tool can be used to determine which Exchange Stores in the domain have Full-Text Indexes, provide status on indexes, and provide administration tasks all via the command line.
  
  
• Outlook Web Access (OWA) Web Administration Tool provides web-based UI for all administrator tunable OWA settings. It provides a list of all servers in the domain and allows administration of OWA settings on all Front-end and Back-end servers.
  
  
• Exchange Server Domain Rename Fixup (XDR-Fixup) Fixes Exchange attributes in Active Directory after using the domain rename tool.
  
  
• Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer 2.0 is an easy-to-use tool that helps small and medium businesses determine their security state in accordance with Microsoft security recommendations and offers specific remediation guidance. Improve your security management process by using MBSA to detect common security misconfigurations and missing security updates on your computer systems. Built on the Windows Update Agent and Microsoft Update infrastructure, MBSA ensures consistency with other Microsoft management products including Microsoft Update (MU), Windows Server Update Services (WSUS), Systems Management Server (SMS) and Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM).
  
  
• ExchDump is a command line utility that gathers Exchange configuration information from various sources used in troubleshooting support issues.
  
  
• Exchange Server Error Code Look-up determines error values from decimal and hexadecimal error codes.
  
  
• Exchange Server Error-1018 Detailed discussion of the conditions that result in error -1018; covering the detection mechanisms that Exchange uses to discover and recover from damage to its database files.
  
  
• UPDATED!  How to find solutions to Microsoft problems.
  
  
• NEW! Exchange Server 2003 Security Hardening Guide.
  
  
• NEW! How to: Exchange increased store limits.
  
  
• NEW! ActiveSync 4.1 Connection Troubleshooter This document recommends best practices to IT departments for configuring their local environments for Windows Mobile-based devices connecting to PCs running ActiveSync 4.1.
  
  
• NEW! Using Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Recovery Storage Groups feature in Exchange Server 2003, you can mount a second copy of an Exchange mailbox database on the same server as the original database, or on any other Exchange server in the same Exchange administrative group. You can do this while the original database is still running and serving clients. The recovery storage group can also be useful in disaster recovery scenarios.
  
  
• NEW! Server Consolidation Using Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 - As e-mail messaging continues to grow in both volume and business importance, organizations are looking for new options to manage future demand in a reliable and cost-effective way. One option is to build a messaging strategy based on advanced technologies available in Windows Server 2003 and Exchange Server 2003.
  
  
• NEW! Offline Address Book Best Practices Guide provides recommendations and best practices for deploying and managing offline address books with Exchange Server 2003 and Outlook 2003. Whether you are deploying a new Exchange Server 2003 messaging system or upgrading from a previous Exchange version, this guide gives you best practice recommendations, including recommendations on how to optimize offline address book usage in a variety of scenarios. (Support Guide)
  
  
• NEW! Working with Store Permissions in Exchange 2000 & 2003 Server explains the process by which Exchange 2000 Server and Exchange Server 2003 uses permissions to control access to objects in the Exchange store (public folder databases and mailbox databases).
  
  
• NEW! Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Interoperability and Migration Guide explains how to connect and migrate non-Exchange messaging systems to Exchange Server 2003. It describes how to design an interoperability and migration strategy, and includes procedures for connecting Exchange 2003 to non-Exchange messaging platforms. Covered components include Connector for Lotus Notes, Connector for Novell GroupWise, Calendar Connector, general SMTP and X.400 connectors, and the Exchange Migration Wizard. 

TRIAL SOFTWARE

• Exchange Server 2003 Trial Software – Try the messaging and collaboration server that lets you send and receive e-mail and other forms of interactive communication.  This download requires Windows 2000 Server or Windows Server 2003.
  
  
• TechNet Virtual Labs: Exchange & Security – Learn how to take advantage of key features of Exchange Server 2003. This lab provides exploration of the Microsoft Active Directory and Exchange management packs and walk-through server configurations. In addition, you'll explore antispam and SMTP security features, migration from Exchange Server 5.5, disaster recovery and more

SIMULATION TOOLS  

• Exchange Server Stress and Performance (ESP) 2003 simulates large numbers of client sessions by concurrently accessing one or more protocol servers using this highly scalable tool, Exchange Server Stress and Performance 2003. 
  
  Note: The ESP tool does not have the capability of creating users. Therefore, if you want to create a test that involves simulating actual individual users, and not simply client sessions, it is recommended that you use ESP in conjunction with other tools that create users (Load Simulator 2003).
  
  
• Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Load Simulator (LoadSim) is a benchmarking tool to simulate the performance load of MAPI clients. LoadSim allows you to test how a server running Exchange 2003 responds to e-mail loads. To simulate the delivery of these messaging requests, you run LoadSim tests on client computers. 
  
  Note: LoadSim should be used only in laboratories that have no connection to the production environment. This tool should not be used in any way in a production environment or an environment that is mission critical or contains important information of any kind anywhere in the network.

UPDATED EXCHANGE SERVER SOFTWARE  

• Exchange Intelligent Message Filter provides advanced server-side message filtering designed to combat the influx of unsolicited commercial e-mail, also known as spam or junk e-mail. Before installing Intelligent Message Filter, you must read the Microsoft Exchange Intelligent Message Filter Deployment Guide.
  
  
• Filter Update for Exchange Intelligent Message Filter provides the latest SmartScreen filter update for Intelligent Message Filter.
  
  
• Exchange Server 2003 SDK Documentation and Samples & ReadMe (December 2005) assist developers building applications for Exchange Server. This release of the SDK provides information and sample code to help you develop collaborative enterprise applications with Exchange. Included in this release are updates to the SDK documentation, tasks for implementing managed store event sinks, procedures for building managed event sink DLLs, and a task for getting free/busy status over HTTP. (Exchange 2000 SDK Docs & ReadMe)
  
  
• Exchange Server 2003 Service Pack 2

UPDATED FOR LOTUS NOTES

• The Exchange Server 2003 Migration Wizard for Lotus Notes supports the migration of Lotus Domino R5 and R6 mailboxes and associated Domino directory information to Exchange Server 2003 and Windows Server 2003 Active Directory. This tool replaces the Migration Wizard that ships with Exchange Server 2003 (including SP2), and includes improved retention of contents and Unicode characters during the migration from Domino to Exchange Server 2003.
  
  
• The Exchange Server 2003 Connector for Lotus Notes supports messaging and calendaring interoperability between Lotus Domino R5/R6 and Exchange Server 2003 and Windows Server 2003 Active Directory. This tool replaces the Connector that ships with Exchange Server 2003 (including SP2), and includes several updates to support better message fidelity when routing email between Exchange and Domino, support of iNotes and Domino Web Access clients, enhanced Unicode support and reliability.
  
  
• UPDATED! Microsoft Application Analyzer 2006 for Lotus Domino is a tool that evaluates a customer’s Lotus Notes/Domino Application Environment. It will report number and types of Lotus Notes/Domino applications, and help customers to categorize and prioritize applications based upon usage, complexity, template types and workflow. Based upon the reports from this tool, customers can prepare a coexistence with and migration strategy to a Microsoft Collaboration solution. (Support Document: White Paper)
  
  
• The Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Calendar Connector for Lotus Notes supports the sharing of calendar free/busy schedules between Lotus Domino R5 and R6 and Exchange Server 2003. This tool replaces the Calendar Connector that ships with Exchange Server 2003 (including SP2), and is designed to be used with the Exchange Server 2003 Connector.
  
  

• NEW!  KB912804 - How to migrate your Lotus Notes contacts to Outlook 2003.
  
  

NEW! Resources for Moving to the Microsoft Collaboration Platform for organizations that are evaluating a move from another collaborative platform, such as Lotus Notes, to a Microsoft Collaboration Platform.



• NEW! Support Blog: Tools for Moving to a Microsoft Collaboration Platform.
  

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