Where are My AD Objects?

Hi folks,

Just another quick post about the scenario when you attempt to create or manipulate a recipient object in multi-domain forest scenario.

Sometimes when you try to run a command you may be prompted with the message like:

This is because by default your Exchange Management Shell is talking to the domain where you have launched it (in the domain where Exchange server or workstation with Exchange tools belongs).

You can easily overcome this by running:

Set-ADServerSettings -ViewEntireForest:$true

I hope this little tip will be helpful today for some of you.

Enjoy

Quick Way to Check if Your AD is Ready For the Next Exchange Upgrade

Hi folks,

Just a quick post where I'd love you to share with you how to quickly check whether your AD is ready for the Exchange server upgrade. As you already know with the new servicing model for Exchange 2013 each CU and SP is a separate build which requires a schema update and a new version of Exchange Server that will come at the end of this year.

As you know Exchange uses AD hardly and it stores and reads information from all the AD partitions. I will not be explaining here what the AD partitions are. You can always read about it here. So when you upgrade your Exchange all the partitions are upgraded to support newer Exchange build.

When you are in separate teams with AD management teams it means that the AD team prepares the AD for you and I will now share with you 3 commands how to quickly check if update was successful for each of them.

To check schema you will need to run:

dsquery * cn=ms-Exch-Schema-Version-Pt,cn=schema,cn=configuration,dc=contoso,dc=com -scope base -attr rangeUpper

To check AD forest update you will need to run:

dsquery * "cn=EXCHORGNAME,cn=Microsoft exchange,cn=services,cn=configuration,dc=contoso,dc=com" -scope base -attr objectVersion"

And finally in each domain where you will deploy Exchange servers or have Exchange recipients you will need to run:

dsquery * "CN=Microsoft Exchange System Objects,DC=contoso,DC=com" -scope base -attr objectVersion"

If the version of each object corresponds to the version of Exchange build you're installing then the AD update has been successful and you can install new Exchange server into your organization. In order to find the version numbers as well as procedure of schema update you can refer this TechNet article.

Enjoy.