GAL is blank after the mailboxes are moved to exchange 2010 from Exchange 2007

We are in the process of migrating from Exchange 2007 to Exchange 2010. We have segregated AD because we host exchange for multiple companies. We use ACLs and msExchQueryBaseDN attribute for the segregation. Each company has a separate GAL, Address list and OAB. After the mailboxes were moved, the GAL appeared to be blank although the names could be resolved by outlook. After a lot of struggle to fix it, we found out why.

Exchange 2010 SP2 uses Address book policies to segregate the GAL access instead of the msExchQueryBaseDN attribute. So first of all we create an address book policy for each client. You can do so in the Exchange MMC> organization management > mailboxes > address book policies tab > new address book policy. Create it as shown in the image below. This is required if we do not want the users to have access to all the GALs.

Apply the policies to all the users under COMPANY1. You have to change it for individual user if you want to do in exchange MMC. You can do it by right clicking properties of the user mailbox> mailbox settings tab> select address book policies and click properties> select address book policy. Possibly can be scripted as well.

Step 2: check the permissions on the address lists for the client.

Open adsiedit > configuration > CN = configuration, DC=domain,DC=com > CN=services > CN=Microsoft Exchange > CN= i-worx > CN=Address lists container

1.       expand CN= all address lists. Right click the address list for COMPANY1. All the users in COMPANY1 should have the following permissions

a.       READ

b.      Open address list

(see image below)

2.       Under CN=Address lists container, now expand CN= All global address lists, Right click the GAL for the COMPANY1.The CLIENTCODE users group should have the following permissions

a.       READ

b.      Open address list

(see image below)

LAST STEP

Clear the msExchQueryBaseDN attribute for all users for company1.

What is Cloud Hosting?

‘Cloud’ is the new buzz word in the world of business. Many businesses are moving towards cloud hosting and cloud hosting has become extremely popular in the past few years. The main concept behind cloud hosting is that the resources required for the infrastructure are spread across many servers probably across the world and are rendered on a per need basis. Cloud hosting comes with the benefits of reducing the downtime in case of hardware failures.

In cloud hosting, because the resources can be allocated on a per need basis, scalability becomes a huge advantage over dedicated systems. Also, this also means that load can be managed easily as load can be split on to other servers. Cloud hosting comes with the stress-free management without having to worry about the underlying hardware hosting your environment. Businesses have been moving towards cloud hosting to get rid of the overhead involved in management and maintenance of the dedicated environments. A typical example of cloud hosting is IaaS (Infrastructure as a service) offered by Amazon. Companies and businesses can have their environments hosted on the Amazon servers which are located all over the world. Amazon has been doing IaaS for a few years.

Each server in the cloud helps in carrying out a particular function. In case, one of the servers fail, it is temporarily taken out of the resources pool and another server kicks in to take over the functions of the failed server. Same is true if a site where these servers are located. If the site goes down because of a disaster, another site takes over the functions. The site recovery feature of course depends on the hosting provider and the money paid for the services.

This will also happen in case of an overload condition. The quality of hardware and the quality of service provided (meaning features like disaster recovery, zero downtime) depends on the hosting provider. In case of enterprise level cloud hosting, the hosting providers are generally utilizing high end hardware with Vmware which is considered to be the Rolls Royce version of virtualization and deliver extremely reliable cloud hosting services.

Cloud hosting has come a long way and has completely surpasses dedicated server environment and why not – you have multiple servers at your disposal whenever you need instead of a single server in a dedicated environment. In cloud hosting environment, because of the scalability and reliability, the businesses have the benefit of coping up with emergency situations as opposed to dedicated environments. The reduction in downtime and manageability are also some of the main reasons ahy businesses choose cloud hosting. With the cloud hosting services improving day by day, the cost of these services has come down in the last 4-5 years. Most businesses today want a hassle-free working environment where they can have peace of mind and focus on the business instead of dealing with the everyday dilemma of dedicated environments. The day is not far away when cloud hosting will be the choice of all businesses – big or small.

Solved - Cannot upgrade Xenapp 6.0 to Xenapp 6.5

I was super excited about the new Xenpp 6.5 with so many improvements focused on user experience and more. We have about 40 Xenpp 6.0 servers with over 500 users. So testing this was crucial as once you uninstall Xenapp 6.0 and install Xenapp 6.5, the only way of going back is restoring from the backup. I tried the upgrade utility provided by Citrix to no avail (http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX130614/). Xenapp 6.0 appeared to uninstall just fine but installation of Xenapp 6.5 failed. As many of you might already know there is no direct upgrade path from Xenpp 6.0 to Xenapp 6.5. The utility is merely a script that uninstalls all the components of Xenapp 6.0 and installs 6.5 and joins to the new Xenapp 6.5 farm. 

If i installed Xenapp 6.5 on a brand new server, it worked fine. But when i installed it on a server with Xenapp 6.0, using utility or manually uninstalling and installing it, it failed. After spending hours on research, i still couldnot make it work. There were many other people having the same problem, different solutions worked for different people. However, for me it was no luck. I finally managed to figured out that the problem was something to do with the Xenapp 6.0 not uninstalling properly, although all the components uninstalled successfully. 
Out of those 15 times i tried, this is how it worked for me

1. unjoin the Xenapp 6 server from the farm and uninstall Xenapp 6.0
2. Then uninstall all the citrix components.

 it might ask you to reboot after some of the uninstallations. I just rebooted it once after all the components were uninstalled. 
3. after the reboot, delete all the folders under C:\Program files (x86)\citrix\ except C:\Program files (x86)\citrix\Xentools (only if the VM is a Xen VM - you will have the Xen tools installed). You might get an access denied error for the folder C:\Program files (x86)\citrix\farmGPO. Take the ownership of the folder and then delete.
4. Next, open regedit, and delete all the keys under HKLM\software\citrix

5. reboot
6. Now install Xenapp 6.5 and the installation will succeed

Hope this helps :)

Netapp - How to move a data from a non-qtree folder to a qtree for CIFS

Following is the scenario

Lets say you have a CIFS share for a folder that is not a qtree, so you cannot impose a Quota on it. To impose a quota, you will have to move the share to a qtree. You can either create a qtree under another volume or the same volume. The following article explains both ways to achieve this.

How to resolve this?

The source folder /vol/volume1/folder1 on filer1 is shared as \\filer1\folder1$. First remove the existing share.
Rename the source folder to folder1.old (you may leave the folder with the existing name if you do not want to create a qtree with the same name or if the qtree will reside under another volume).

Now create a qtree called 'folder1' under volume 'volume1'. (or a different volume 'volume2')
NOTE: Please be careful with the case of the qtree name and the command as it is case sensitive.

To copy all the data from the source folder to the destination qtree we can use the 'ndmpcopy'. This command also copies the ACLs for the data.

The Syntax for the command is
ndmpcopy Source_location Destination_location

Use the following commands to copy the data with the ACLs to the newly created qtree

1. if the source folder has been renamed
ndmpcopy /vol/volume1/folder1.old /vol/volume1/folder1

where volume1 is the name of the volume under which the source folder and the new qtree resides.

2. If the source folder resides on a different volume than the new qtree

ndmpcopy /vol/volume1/folder1 /vol/volume2/folder1

where volume1 is the volume under which the source folder resides and volume2 is the volume under which the new qtree has been created

After the ndmpcopy is complete, share the newly created qtree. Ndmpcopy may take time to complete depending on the size of the data to be copied.

Citrix Xenapp 6.0 gives an error when users logon to the citrix web interface "An error occured when making the requested connection"

This error can occur because of a number of reasons concerning the Xenapp 6.0 server. Besides the obvious reason - the server does not have internet connectivity or is shut down, the tricky cause can be the load value for the server. This can be checked using the following command on the culprit Xenapp 6.0 server

QFARM /LOAD

This command will give you the list of the servers in the farm and their load value. If the load value of the server is 20000, it will refuse any further connections and give the above error. One more symptom is that you might not see the server in the list at all. This can be corrected by doing the following

1. Open Command prompt as administrator

2. Run the command "net stop imaservice" to stop the imaservice

3. Run the command "net start imaservice" to start the imaservice

NOTE: this can also be done through services.msc console but i have experienced that the imaservice tends to hang when restarted through services console. 

Once the service is restarted. The server will start accepting connections again.