Microsoft Exchange 5.5 Story....

[Tazinator]

Had to share this one with everyone. This was something I ran into recently.

While serving in a Technical Advisory capacity, I was asked a question on Microsoft Exchange 5.5.

I had a group of Network Administrators on a different network come and ask for my opinion on moving an Exchange server (1 of 2 in the same site) to another location. The concern brought up by other network people and the admins was the fear of people not being able to access thier mailboxes on the server while it was in transit to its new location. Then suddenly, some of the Network Admins for this network spoke up, (bear with me, these are actually real admins who are supposed to be knowledgeable and trainined in this kind of stuff), they stated that that wasnt a concern because Exchange 5.5 replicated copies of Mailboxes on every server in a site. To break it down, what they said was when you make a mailbox for a user, a copy is made on every server in the Exchange site. So their thinking was that if they pulled the server on which the mailboxes were created on, the users would still be able to access thier mail because a backup copy is on the other server. (Once again, these are the supposed experts users look to in keeping things running and fixing problems.) When I tried to explain to these people that this isnt the case, they tried to tell me I was wrong because once Exchange Directory Replication was taking place, it replicated everything to the other servers in the site in case one should go offline accidentally. After a few hours of showing them the "Parent Server" setting in a users mailbox and how to move mailboxes from one server to the other, I was finally able to point them down the right path.

Sad times are these when the "Experts" dont have a clue about whats going on.

[Zerored]

Heh...handle it Taz...handle it...

[Tazinator]

The best part was when they tried to tell me we needed site connectors between the servers which were in the same site.

I also didnt get into how they started confusing sites and organizations with NT domains. Good god. Just goes to show a Monkey could get his MCSE these days...

[wilnix]

Tell them they need to take themselves out of the domain admins group and forget the administrator passwd...then call them "USERS".

Actually, just leave them alone. They'll figure it out.

(EVENTUALLY)

Wilnix