Top ten tasks for new Exchange administrators

Huzzah, huzzah, my list of the top ten tasks for new Exchange admins has been published on the Exchange web site: https://www.microsoft.com/exchange/techinfo/administration/beginner.asp.

It was fun to write, because I only came up with the idea in the first week of October. I like seeing small pieces of content go live so quickly (perhaps one of the reasons I'm really enjoying blogging, eh?). I cobbled together a list of about 30 tasks, narrowed it down to 10 and wrote up the steps. Then I took suggestions on a couple of different tasks, deleted some of my original, and wrote up the steps for the suggestions. After a round of tech/editorial reviews, the web page is live.

I hope to get around to documenting the rest of the tasks on the list, but for now there are some other projects that I need to spend time on instead. Oh and of course, there's the twist this week: I'm being reorged again : -). Fortunately I'll still be doing much of the same things, but I'll be moving to a new team and reporting to a different person. Reorgs, like moving buildings, is a staple of the Microsoft diet. Sometimes I think that it's the executives' way of keeping us on our toes, to make sure we can turn on a dime.

By the way - my thanks go out to the Exchange MVPs, David, Mike Lee & Paul Bowden for helping me with ideas for tasks as well as tech review.

Comments

• Anonymous
  January 01, 2003
  The comment has been removed
• Anonymous
  October 22, 2003
  interesting to see that you don't recommend backing up system state with mailboxes. Any reason why? (we back up the lot each night otherwise systemstate would never get done!)
• Anonymous
  October 22, 2003
  oh, I meant to add thats a good resource - although most of it I know by now, its a good start for getting started online. Often you install software and then get a "ok - what now?" feeling.
• Anonymous
  October 23, 2003
  #1: Without the ability to point the MX record at the server, you are limited to a 'pull' mechanism such as the ones described on this page: http://www.slipstick.com/exs/popconnect.htm. If you're using Small Business Server, it includes a POP connector.#2: I believe that works in Exchange 2000, but it will no longer work in Exchange 2003 on Windows 2003 due to a change in the way backups are handled. See http://support.microsoft.com/?id=820852 for more information. You can back them both up, just not at the same time - use separate operations.
• Anonymous
  October 23, 2003
  thanks - we use e2k at the moment - you gave me a fright last night reading this and thinking arghhhhhh!
• Anonymous
  October 23, 2003
  Sorry about that :-)