I recently (hopefully recently, my last post took two years to get published so I'm not sure when this one will go out, LOL) posted one of my typical light-hearted looks into life at Microsoft (it wa...
Updated Jul 01, 2019
Version 2.0
Blog Post
I am an IT consultant that has been upgrading Exchange 200X customers to Exchange 2007 customers for some time. So the feed back below is what I am hearing from mulitple sources.
- Obivously the seperation of Exchange and ADUC is counter intuitive for customers and they aren't happy about having to switch between two consoles to fully manage their users. While there may have been techinical limitations that forced you to split back out into two consoles, we at the very least woudl like to hear it is a design goal to re-unite them when Windows 2008 ADUC supports powershell (asuming it ever does).
- The lack of server and mailbox store policies makes if VERY hard for large enviornments to set and enforce consistent management of the systems. Currently yes we can run a powersheel script to set the mailbox size limits and maintenance periods, but that leaves the door open for make a change and take the system "out of spec". The policies kept people from making accidental mistakes.
I personally see this a step backwards in regards to automating new database and server deployments (drag and drop onto a policy was awesome).
- The loss of the ability to see what mailboxes, their sizes, recent access methods (including client versions), and the LATENCY was a huge pain for 2 seperate customers who leaned on that quote often.
- The message tracking system has take a step backwards. I just tracked a message from one server to another, and I couldn't make heads or tails of the CSV style lines of text being output on teh screen (after being forced to run a wizard?). In 2003 I could simply say "see customer, right there the email was handed off", now I can simply say the system processed the message somehow.
- Being able to see the Recovery Storage Group object, and make post creation directory changes was a hugh PITA for one customer who had a large number of databases and seemed to be constantly doing restores, and not being able to visually manipulate the RSG, and eing forced to take a wizard's word for it really slowed them down.
There are other comments customers have been made, but the overall resounding frustration is that there was a lot of functionality in the 2003 console that is missing in the 2007 SP1 console. They understand that Powershell can help them get some of the data they were looking for (like mailbox information for users in a specific database), but as one admin put it recenlty "Why did Microsoft decide I needed to become a Powershell user to be able to do the things I could do just fine in the 2003 GUI?
And I would offer if doing some of these tasks is just an easy powershell script, then please by all means add the functionality to the GUI for your less savy end user admins as you already have the backend.
Dan Sheehan
MCSE 2003 + Messaging
- Obivously the seperation of Exchange and ADUC is counter intuitive for customers and they aren't happy about having to switch between two consoles to fully manage their users. While there may have been techinical limitations that forced you to split back out into two consoles, we at the very least woudl like to hear it is a design goal to re-unite them when Windows 2008 ADUC supports powershell (asuming it ever does).
- The lack of server and mailbox store policies makes if VERY hard for large enviornments to set and enforce consistent management of the systems. Currently yes we can run a powersheel script to set the mailbox size limits and maintenance periods, but that leaves the door open for make a change and take the system "out of spec". The policies kept people from making accidental mistakes.
I personally see this a step backwards in regards to automating new database and server deployments (drag and drop onto a policy was awesome).
- The loss of the ability to see what mailboxes, their sizes, recent access methods (including client versions), and the LATENCY was a huge pain for 2 seperate customers who leaned on that quote often.
- The message tracking system has take a step backwards. I just tracked a message from one server to another, and I couldn't make heads or tails of the CSV style lines of text being output on teh screen (after being forced to run a wizard?). In 2003 I could simply say "see customer, right there the email was handed off", now I can simply say the system processed the message somehow.
- Being able to see the Recovery Storage Group object, and make post creation directory changes was a hugh PITA for one customer who had a large number of databases and seemed to be constantly doing restores, and not being able to visually manipulate the RSG, and eing forced to take a wizard's word for it really slowed them down.
There are other comments customers have been made, but the overall resounding frustration is that there was a lot of functionality in the 2003 console that is missing in the 2007 SP1 console. They understand that Powershell can help them get some of the data they were looking for (like mailbox information for users in a specific database), but as one admin put it recenlty "Why did Microsoft decide I needed to become a Powershell user to be able to do the things I could do just fine in the 2003 GUI?
And I would offer if doing some of these tasks is just an easy powershell script, then please by all means add the functionality to the GUI for your less savy end user admins as you already have the backend.
Dan Sheehan
MCSE 2003 + Messaging