Migrating from an on-premises Exchange 2016 server to Exchange Online can seem overwhelming, but doing it in ‘chunks’ makes it easier to plan and execute. Having done this a few times, I’ll show you how to overcome the tricky parts and avoid some ‘gotchas.’ Key Steps Prepare your environment Before beginning any migration, ensuring that…
Category: Server Stuff
Microsoft 365 Migration – The Beginning
There are lots of reasons to move to Microsoft 365. You can apply most of the same logic to Google’s Workspace (formerly G Suite) or Zoho Office, but we’ll focus on Microsoft’s Office 365 portion of the larger M365 product. There are many extras in the margins between Office 365 and Microsoft 365, and we’ll…
Manage your Stack with WAC and OpenManage
In a previous post, I briefly mentioned managing your Azure Stack HCI with Windows Admin Center (WAC). When you are using Dell hardware, it’s even better with OpenManage! Imagine being able to securely control your server stack from any browser? Even if you don’t allow access from outside the network, imagine how nice it would…
Azure Stack with Only Two Servers
Ok, so that title is a teeny bit of an overstatement. What we’re going to discuss today is not the Azure Stack you have heard so much about. No, today we’re talking about an Azure Stack HCI Cluster. Essentially, it’s a Storage Spaces Direct cluster with brand new shiny marketing and management. While you can…
Windows 2016 and DSC – Like Peanut Butter and Chocolate
We’ve all heard about DSC, right? Sure you have. Maybe you’ve been playing around a bit in labs or using for test environments. Why haven’t we all taken the plunge to Infrastructure as Code ( or more accurately Infrastructure from Code)? Because it’s hard, and we’re busy? Likely, it’s because we don’t have the opportunity to go…
TestLab v2 – The aborted build
If you missed the first two parts to this , start here and continue here…. <SNIP!> So the reason for the long delay in finishing this is due to some hardware problems with my test server. What was going to work fine for a 2012 server, doesn’t work for crap in 2016. The problem is in the…
Test Lab v2 – the Planning Stage
(For the introduction post : Rebuilding the Test Lab v2 ) Before getting into the actual planning let me describe the environment and restrictions. Hardware Dell 2950 w/ 2 Xeon 3GHz CPUs, 32 GB RAM, 12 TB JBOD Direct attached Software Windows 2012 R2 (full install), Hyper-V role, with Windows Deduplication running on the JBOD to keep file…
Rebuilding the Test Lab v2
Last year I wrote an article for Powershell.org extolling the benefits of a home lab and how it didn’t cost much to build a basic one. You can read it here. That lab has done me well, but things change and needs increase and opportunities arise. The needs changing obviously is ” I want to be…
Exchange and Archive PST Blues
This may draw the ire of some big environment silo Exchange Admins, but our environment gets very little “administration”. Oh there’s patches done regularly, users added and removed, but that’s about it. I keep an eye on Event Logs for errors and disk space to make sure we’re not running out and make sure the…