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New hybrid Organization Config Transfer-feature (OCT) announced

Yesterday, Microsoft announced the Organization Config Transfer feature (OCT) in the Hybrid Configuration Wizard. The feature is expected to start showing up starting late June... Read More
How to leverage (multiple) migration endpoints to speed up migrations to Exchange Online

Last week, at Microsoft's Tech Summit in Amsterdam, I gave a talk about running Exchange Hybrid connections over the long term. In that session, I... Read More
Microsoft releases new “Tenant Restriction” capability

A few days ago, Microsoft announced the General Availability of the "Tenant Restriction" capability. Although I have not been able to play with it so... Read More
“Conference season” is about to start!

Every year in September, right after the summer holidays, there is an unofficial start of a new "work season". For some this unofficial start moment comes... Read More
Exchange Virtual Directory HTML Report

Update 12/09/2016: script updated to version 1.8: Included support for Exchange 2016 CU2+ Made some minor changes to the code + output now shows a message... Read More
A closer look at the “Minimal Hybrid Configuration” option

Just a few weeks ago, Microsoft announced a new feature in its line-up of hybrid Exchange capabilities: the Minimal Hybrid Configuration option. With the introduction... Read More
Exchange Hybrid Deployments and cross-premises Full Access permissions

Nothing but excellent news in the hybrid Exchange realm these days! Microsoft recently updated the support statement for cross-premises permissions in a hybrid deployment. As of... Read More
Selective authentication for (sub-)domains in Office 365

Office 365 provides various authentication options, such as cloud-IDs, Password Hash Synchronization or federated identities. Leaving out the specifics on how each of these options... Read More
Azure AD Synchronization HTML Report

In 2013, Exchange Server MVP Mike Crowley wrote a script which would interactively report on the Office 365 Directory Synchronization tool. In 2014, Mike and I... Read More
Hybrid Configration Wizard fails with error ‘Mail Flow Default Receive Connector cannot be found on server…’

Recently, I got asked to assist with a Hybrid Configuration Wizard which was failing with the following error message: Updating hybrid configuration failed with error... Read More

19/06/201819/06/2018

New hybrid Organization Config Transfer-feature (OCT) announced

Yesterday, Microsoft announced the Organization Config Transfer feature (OCT) in the Hybrid Configuration Wizard. The feature is expected to start showing up starting late June 2018. In an ongoing effort to improve the Wizard, I believe this is a step in the right direction. Ever since the HCW was first conceived, running the HCW resulted... Read More

05/04/201819/06/2018

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How to leverage (multiple) migration endpoints to speed up migrations to Exchange Online

Last week, at Microsoft's Tech Summit in Amsterdam, I gave a talk about running Exchange Hybrid connections over the long term. In that session, I talked about securing a hybrid deployment and – somewhat related... Read More

16/03/201819/06/2018

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Messages more marked as spoofed (and moved to Junk e-mail) in Office 365? You’re not alone!

Update 21/03/2018: Microsoft have dialed back on how quickly messages are marked as spoofed and, thus, moved to the Junk E-Mail folder. However, the guidance is to still properly implement SPF/DKIM/DMARC to be future proof.... Read More

28/09/201719/06/2018

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Summary of announcements for Hybrid Exchange @ Ignite

Today, Microsoft has made some quite big (and important!) announcements around the work they are doing to improve the experience for Hybrid Exchange customers. These announcements were all "dropped" during session BRK3155 (How to thrive... Read More

02/02/201719/06/2018

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Microsoft releases new “Tenant Restriction” capability

A few days ago, Microsoft announced the General Availability of the "Tenant Restriction" capability. Although I have not been able to play with it so far, I wanted to take a few moments to reflect... Read More

23/09/201619/06/2018

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“Conference season” is about to start!

Every year in September, right after the summer holidays, there is an unofficial start of a new "work season". For some this unofficial start moment comes a bit earlier, for others a bit later. Some even... Read More

12/09/201619/06/2018

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Exchange Virtual Directory HTML Report

Update 12/09/2016: script updated to version 1.8: Included support for Exchange 2016 CU2+ Made some minor changes to the code + output now shows a message if successful/unable to write the html file. Previous updates in... Read More

04/08/201619/06/2018

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Speeding up retrieval of Send-As permissions

Many Exchange administrators are familiar with the Get-ADPermission cmdlet. In the contrary to the Get-MailboxPermission cmdlet, the Get-ADPermission cmdlet retrieves Active Directory permissions for an object, instead of permission in Exchange itself. For instance, the... Read More

18/07/201619/06/2018

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A closer look at the “Minimal Hybrid Configuration” option

Just a few weeks ago, Microsoft announced a new feature in its line-up of hybrid Exchange capabilities: the Minimal Hybrid Configuration option. With the introduction of this new capability, Microsoft seems to have responded to... Read More

07/04/201619/06/2018

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New challenges ahead!

“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work one day in your life. ~ Confucius” Work is an important part of our everyday life. Given that, on average, one probably has... Read More

22/02/201619/06/2018

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Exchange Hybrid Deployments and cross-premises Full Access permissions

Nothing but excellent news in the hybrid Exchange realm these days! Microsoft recently updated the support statement for cross-premises permissions in a hybrid deployment. As of now, Full Access delegate permissions are supported cross-premises. I know... Read More

25/01/201619/06/2018

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Force Azure AD Connect to connect to specific Domain Controllers only

Consider the following scenario: you are about to implement directory synchronization for Office 365. You have multiple Active Directory sites across several, geographically dispersed, locations all over the world. Unsurprisingly, some of these locations have... Read More

06/01/201619/06/2018

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Looking forward to 2016…

...also means looking back at 2015. :-) First of all, let me start by wishing all of you a happy (belated) New Year. I hope that 2016 is off to a good start! As you... Read More

08/10/201519/06/2018

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Paul Robichaux joins ENow as CTO!

Hi all, Today is a great day! I know it's been a while since I last posted here, but that's just because I've been super busy with lots of things. Besides speaking at IT/Dev Connections... Read More

03/09/201519/06/2018

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Exchange User Permission Enumeration Script

A few years ago, I wrote a PowerShell script which would enumerate the permissions a user had been given in an Exchange environment. Because of some connectivity issues over on pro-exchange.be, earlier, I decided to post... Read More

14/08/201519/06/2018

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Speaking at IT/DEV Connections & UK UC Day

It's been a while since I last wrote an article... Although there's no excuses, I have been pretty busy lately... First of all, I've been 'heads down' preparing version 2 of the "Office 365 for Exchange... Read More

20/07/201519/06/2018

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[updated: July 20, 2015] Script: putting Exchange Server 2013 into Maintenance Mode

Latest Update: v1.8 (07/20/2015): fixed a copy/paste error in the script and cleaned up the code to be a little more efficient (removed redundant IF-statement. Published the script to the TechNet Script Gallery for easier... Read More

25/06/201519/06/2018

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Azure AD Connect is now GA

Yesterday, Microsoft announced they released Azure AD Connect and Azure AD Connect Health to the public. Azure AD Connect can be seen as the successor to DirSync/AADSync, with an added edge. It does not only... Read More

28/05/201508/11/2016

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Selective authentication for (sub-)domains in Office 365

Office 365 provides various authentication options, such as cloud-IDs, Password Hash Synchronization or federated identities. Leaving out the specifics on how each of these options work, all of them are configured per domain. Whenever trying to access services in Office 365, the user is required to authenticate using its User Principal Name. For sake of simplicity, the general advise it to configure the UPN to match the email address which makes it less confusing for them.