Entries categorized under “Microsoft Exchange”

The announcement in early July that Teneros, a provider of application continuity appliances for Microsoft Exchange 2003 and 2007, selected Hewlett-Packard's (NYSE: HPQ) ProLiant DL380 G5 servers as the hardware on which to base their appliance platform is pretty straightforward on the surface. Microsoft Exchange is one of the most, if not the most, mission critical applications in many companies so it only makes sense for Teneros to use servers from HP in conjunction with their email continuity appliance to support Exchange. In these environments, Teneros wants the highest level of assurance that the hardware and software are compatible with one another and will not experience any unexpected interoperability hiccups after its email continuity appliance is deployed in the field. (read more)

Whether we are talking about email, IM, Text, VOIP or any other communication stream, recent cases have challenged the presumption of corporate privacy, privilege and ownership. Proper policy and training seem to be the answer for domestic corporations who use a SaaS email provider or other US based Text/SMS provider. When dealing with world-wide infrastructure, a corporation must engage specialized counsel and actively monitor cases and publications like those of The Sedona Conference Working Group 6: International Electronic Information Management, Discovery and Disclosure. Although the rules seem to be changing, companies can make informed risk vs. cost decisions to minimize their potential exposure if they are cognizant of the issues and do not just pretend that they do not exist. (read more)

As corporations slowly face the consequences of unmanaged information assets, they have started to form ESI retention policies, acquire email archives and other enterprise technologies needed to track and dispose of newly created communications. It is much simpler to enable policy, process and technology to handle the go forward content than to deal with years or decades of accumulated unstructured content. Most public corporations have existing preservation requirements to deal with on top of possible long term retention regulations. (read more)

Every year at every trade show, it always seems some vendor comes up with some gimmick or give-away that captures every one's fancy. A couple of years ago, flashing blue pens were all the rage - as I recall it was 3PAR who started that craze. Click a button, it flashed blue; click it again, it flashed faster; click it a third time and it thinly provisioned blue ink (I'm kidding about the thinly provisioned part). At another conference, another vendor made it a point to give away the most offensive orange colored T-shirts that I have ever seen to everyone at the conference in the hopes that everyone would remember their company. Well, I remember the T-shirt but obviously their strategy backfired because both the company and the T-shirt shared the same fate. (read more)

In many respects, this year's Microsoft Tech-Ed represented an interesting year without the impending march of a new version of Windows or key applications. Since there were no major product announcements from Microsoft this year regarding its major product lines like Exchange, SharePoint, SQL Server or Windows, users in attendance had other motivations for attending. Some were looking to deepen their knowledge base about existing products from Microsoft and its partners like CommVault, while other individuals were looking for the inside scoop as to what new features Microsoft might include in forthcoming releases of its products. (read more)

One of the hardest things in a HR investigation is to disprove false accusations of sexual harassment, inappropriate content, fixed bids and many other scenarios. It is very easy to fake printed out email and IM conversations that would not stand up to close scrutiny if still in electronic form. The only way to prove that someone did not send a message is to have all the messages within that time frame and the ability to retrieve them. Think about how hard it is to set the context for an off-color email without having the complete historical conversations between a supervisor and a former employee. (read more)

Randy: We learned that CommVault hit a strategic area for Microsoft back in 1998 - heterogeneous data management. Simply put, Microsoft didn't like UNIX managing its data. Making matters exponentially easier was the fact that I worked for years with a key decision maker and visionary at Microsoft in charge of all Windows products, Jim Allchin. We sat down, discussed where CommVault could go, what Microsoft could benefit from and, a few months later, Microsoft became a significant equity investor in CommVault. (read more)

Autonomy/Zantaz, Microsoft/Fortiva and Google/Postini are three SaaS based archiving solutions you should evaluate if you are considering hosted email archiving and eDiscovery for Microsoft Exchange. Since Microsoft/Fortiva does not support Lotus Notes Domino, you should limit your research to Autonomy and Google if you also require Lotus Notes Domino support. Autonomy's Zantaz was founded on the premise of SaaS archiving for Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes Domino, whereas Google/Postini started offering it in 2006. Google acquired Postini in 2007 and added significant support and data center services to support their growing Enterprise customer base. (read more)

Fortiva identifies security and flexible search as two key elements in the product line. Security is a critical component in any Software as a Servie (SaaS) offering. When all the data is stored off site with another company, encryption is your last bastion of hope against would be thieves, privacy violations, etc. (read more)

Fortiva would have been a better option for Dell (NYSE:DELL), had Fortiva been local to the Austin area. According to Praising Gaw, VP of Marketing at Fortiva, they maintain a good business relationship with Microsoft as the sole provider for Microsoft Business Productivity Infrastructure Online Services for Enterprises. Since Dell also values a good relationship with Microsoft, why didn't Dell Computer Corporation nurture the Fortiva relationship? One obvious answer is there weren't any vested interests in Fortiva, by Dell Computer Corporation or the Dell family. (read more)

Considering competitive forces from Google, Autonomy and a fleeting partnership with Iron Mountain, it was in Michael Dell's best interest to save his investment and reel in MessageOne. Moreover, with all the storage activity going on at Dell, the acquisition could propel the MessageOne services to equal footing in the enterprise with Google, making the $12 annual fee for MessageOne a bargain for Dell related technologies. (read more)

LegalTech has been an explosion of services and technologies.  There are three floors of software, hardware and service vendors.  There are so many vendors you wouldn't think the market could support them all in the next 12 - 24 months. ... (read more)

File based CDP is much broader, in that it doesn't take into consideration application data. It simply copies file data from one system to the other. However, all files have what we security professionals like to call a "security descriptor." In Microsoft Windows a security descriptor has four key pieces: (1) The discretionary access control list (DACL); (2) the System Access Control List (SACL); (3) the Group creator, and (4) the Owner creator. (read more)

In analyzing InMage DR-Scout and the backup, archiving and recovery industry in general, I'm always digging a little deeper for success stories, technology improvements and corporate histories. In early January, Rajeev Alturi and I spoke by phone on a quiet Saturday afternoon. Rajeev and I discussed the nuances of Microsoft's VSS and how InMage leverages the technology, regardless of operating system, chipset and application system versions. (read more)

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Sun (NASDAQ:JAVA). If Microsoft and Sun were collaborating on a charity picnic this time last year, it would have been a shock. Now these companies are coming together to provide a combined software and hardware solution and... (read more)

I always credit Microsoft with putting together a great developer network and supporting partners. MSDN is one of the many Microsoft successes that should concern Autonomy. Autonomy must evaluate Microsoft's developer network focus as they continue to charge clients for upgrades, training, etc with respect to Zantaz/AltaVista and Autonomy IDOL. Microsoft's broader services and development focus is verified by Jeff Raikes quote in InfoWorld "I can simply say that part of what we will look at ... will be to marry the strengths we have with our software-plus-services model with what FAST is doing." (read more)

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) made a bid for Fast Search and Transfer (OSE:FAST) this morning, the announcement can be found on FASTs Stock Exchange Announcements website.Where all of this gets a bit confusing is during 2003, when Overture acquired FAST's web search... (read more)

Given the mission critical nature of Exchange, I have focused lately on writing about Microsoft Exchange high-availability and data recovery for consistent databases. What an administrator really needs is the ability to provide disaster recovery and data recovery, in a single application and administrative console. Scalability which is critical in high-availability is achievable with host-offloaded CDP solutions such as InMage's DR-Scout. (read more)

Since LLR is only configurable in Microsoft Cluster environments, it leads one to believe Microsoft Clustering is the best and only option to ensure consistent high-availability for Microsoft Exchange 2007. However, that is not so in all cases. During my research on LLR I talked to Utah State University about their cluster, backup and recovery infrastructure. During my discussion with Daniel Muller, IT System Administration Operations at Utah State University, I learned that Utah State University took a unique approach to Exchange data recovery and availability. (read more)

First a little bit about me. I've been working with Microsoft Exchange since Exchange 4.0 in 1996. I've spent a number of years architecting, administrating and teaching others the various facets of the product. Moreover, I spent considerable time with... (read more)