travis' brain dump

Probably one of the most hashed out battles of all time concerning backups and data retention. Brick-Level Backups or individual mailbox backups, while being an eye catching feature, are evil on oh-so-many levels. At first glance they look like mana from heaven, but in all actuality it’s not. While popular backup software tends to tout this feature and promote it as an easy method for backing up and restoring individual mailboxes as opposed to the more bulky and rather cumbersome Information Store backup it’s all something that should be ignored. PERIOD!There are instances where some people truly understand the issues at hand when it comes down to brick-level backups and do actually make some use of them. Hats off to them for living with the problems. Seriously folks, if it was just an issue of this thing being a beast, I could live with it.

The biggest problem with brick-level backups is that it doesn’t do nearly what it says it does. On paper an in presentation it looks great. Backup your users individual folders and you’re good to go for easy restores should one of them do some damage and delete the wrong thing. In the current position I’m working at (and what has spawned this blog/rant) they are running into the same problems just about everyone runs into: Corrupt Items or Access Denied (usually on those corrupt items). The solution for most people (seeing as how this solution comes from the makers of this backup software) seems to be removing the warning messages about the backup of said corrupted messages. While that gets rid of the messages, it also removes the warning system for potentially valid error messages and could cause your backup to be as useless as a screen door on a submarine. Also the false notion that a brick-level backup is sufficient for disaster recovery is a common problem. Most of the points against brick-level backups out there are directly related to this. A disaster is just that… total loss of data, not Joe Bob’s missing mail from his girlfriend who wants to meet him for lunch or an accidently deleted meeting request. There are functions in place for that provided by Microsoft. USE THEM!

While the argument stands that you have to do an entire IS restore when you backup on the the IS, I think it’s important to take a look at the problems you’re going to face and have to fix when dealing with Exchange Administration.

1. Joe/Jane User accidently deleted an important email from the CEO
2. Joe/Jane User jacked up some mail items and corrupted the crap out of them so bad they can’t access that item again
3. The Admin smoked some crack this morning and deleted a mailbox

Well, problem #1 on the list there is pretty easily handled by a little nifty item called ‘Deletion Settings’ located in the Limits panel under the mailbox store properties on your Exchange server. You can set how long the server will actually hold on to the items that have been “Permanently Deleted” from your Deleted Items folder. (scary huh?) This actually allows users to go back and restore individual deleted items on their own without having to ring your desk and make you do a complete restore operation. (which by the way is a complete waste of time for just one single mail item)

The flipside to that is problem #2… This is kinda a mix since Deleted Items Retention  doesn’t really help. This one will require an IS restore. Painful, but unless this is a critical mail that contains some meaning of life stuff it’s something that can be more than likely retrieved by sending off a mail to the originator, making a phone call and requesting a resend or otherwise finding an alternate method of getting that information back. If it’s an email from God then more than likely your Admin will make the effort. If he/she is an athiest you’re probably screwed.

Leaving only problem #3 here… If his happens you’ve got much bigger problems than a missing mailbox. Check to make sure you’re not missing company assets to bankroll his/her drug problem. Seriously though… If an admin makes a mistake this big… they can afford the time to do an IS restore … they will need the company time to use the internet to look for a new line of work. 🙂

Here’s some of the key points and problems with using a brick-level backup.

1. MICROSOFT SAYS NO! If you’ve even taken half a second to read any of the documentation or you’re certified in Exchange you know as well as anyone that the documentation strictly says to backup the database files online using IS and DS or offline in a flatfile backup. Notes around concerning brick-level are well… less than happy. 🙂 I’d say #1 is the first and foremost reason to not do it, listen to the people who wrote the software… they might actually know what’s best!
2. The interface. Brick-level backups use MAPI to connect to the mailboxes. Hello? Isn’t this the CLIENT interface for handling sending mail, retrieving mail and so on for an individual mailbox… what qualifies this to be an active method for moving LARGE amounts of data at any given point in time?  Let’s not forget that by using this method you’re increasing the size of your backup since duplicate items are stored as one item in the IS but when pulled off using MAPI on a per user basis creates individual items for each duplicate under each user identity. This I believe is also the biggest contributors to the whole corrupted item problem in some way. Let’s not forget the fact I love Veritas’s explaination about how to fix this. ‘ Just delete the user mailbox and rebuild it ‘ — umm… If the items that were corrupted won’t backup, what happens to those when you delete the mailbox and restore? KISS MY ADMIN REAR END!
3. Transaction logs are nixed out of the question when you rely directly on brick level backups. Did you know when you backup your transaction logs along with your IS you can often restore everything down to the minute you had the problems?  (also a good reason to keep your transaction logs on a different drive, lol) If you restore the IS and replay your transaction logs you can 99% of the time get everything you were missing from after the backup restored to your IS. Can’t do that with brick level! 
4. Time on the back up is saved when using IS backups. I don’t know about anyone else, but that blasted brick-level backup takes 4-5 times longer than the IS backup takes. Thursday backups here are a pain since they are a complete and non-incremental backup. They run well into Friday and that’s not cool.

I think the biggest point being made here is to use the tools provided by the makers of the software first and foremost before relying completely on third party software to do the work. Microsoft has thought this through and tried to do their best to find time and cost effective ways of handling the day to day problems while still supporting a disaster level solution. Use deletion settings in Exchange and show your users how to use the ‘ Recover Deleted Items ‘ option under Tools in Outlook. When someone leaves your company, don’t delete their mailbox immediately…. just stop the flow of mail to it and keep it sitting there waiting until you’re sure no one needs the items. If you practice diligence in planning for disasters and do things such as setting up a restore server, you can still go back and restore deleted items.

You know… it flat out amazes me the inability of some people to do their jobs or perhaps even more so their lack of effort to take initiative in their careers… Then they get upset when they get passed up for promotions and pay raises… *rolls eyes*

First off I hope this doesn’t come across a complete anger blog and honestly I’ve revised it a few times before publishing in order to try to take that anger aspect away. It’s really not my intent. I guess it’s more of an astonishing view of a recent observation of people who for one reason or another seem incapable of doing the very thing they are employed to do. Whether they are just completely stupid or otherwise ignorant, these people are always the ones who seem to take the whole ‘ well my phone isn’t ringing, so I don’t need to fix it ‘ attitude. These people work in a reactive mode rather than a proactive mode and spend their days looking for ways to slack off as opposed to looking for ways to make their job easier or be more productive. I’m sure we’ve all (sarcasm) enjoyed (/sarcasm) working with someone like this or perhaps worked for someone like this. I feel sorry for you if you’ve exeprienced either case. 

The reasons why network administrators have a job is to manage the network and make sure things run smoothly and work well for the company employees, end users and themselves… NOT SURFING THE INTERNET ALL DAY! For the record, I’m not saying that everyone who surfs the net during the day is a slacker, but some people just haven’t earned the privledge. They need to be fixing their broken networks before looking up their latest stock quotes or sports scores.

As if you can’t tell, there is a degree of personal irritation here, but again, it’s not an anger post. LOL I just simply don’t understand how some individuals stay employed when they cannot do their jobs and yet it’s so hard for people who can actually do these jobs to secure a new one when they are unemployed. It really upsets me that people like this are able to keep jobs for years and talented people get shafted. (yes, I am complaining)

Some background…

As most of you know, I was unemployed for a couple months after unfortunate events at the company I was working for left them with no funds in which to maintain a payroll. Sad story, but hey… it happens. After spending literally two months searching for work and interviewing here and there I picked up some temp work at a company locally. It wasn’t intended to be a permanent gig and paid a bit less than what I need/like, but hey, it’s better than unemployment any day. (don’t get me started on *THAT* rant…)

At the interview for this company, I was given a little warning about the condition of the network. A little warning is perhaps an understatement, hehe. Items such as replication and group policy came up during the technical questions. I figured they had some configuration issues with it, no biggie… I didn’t think that the AD structure was in complete shambles and wasn’t even being utilized properly.  Seriously… someone stated it best when they said, “It’s not even functioning as an AD, more like a glorified NT4 domain.” Shoulda said that one in the interview, lol. 🙂

Well, I landed the position and started the following week. That was August 6.  I got a chance to blog the day after I started and a few personal blogs here and there but for the most part it’s been non-stop here. (not the complete reason the world hasn’t heard from me, hehe but all the same this has been a big part of it)

Just for starters because I don’t want to write a novel, when I first sat down with the network documentation here the first thing that floored me was the listing of error event ID’s in the event logs that you could ignore. WHAT?!? I kid you not, there was a list of event ID’s that were labeled ‘ It’s okay to ignore these ‘… LOL Ok, I’ll be the first to admit that I’ll ignore a Terminal Services error on a server when it’s not an actual Terminal Server and it’s complaining about a printer attachment but blatently ignoring your corrupted/delinked sysvols and your Exchange system attendant crashing every five minutes? Give me a break!  Are those smoke breaks including the use of a bong? I won’t even go into the myriad of other errors out there but they do include such things as complaints of duplicate entries for computer names across domains, network load balancing services installed on servers that don’t need it nor use it, WINS errors from a database that has obviously been neglected since it was first turned on, partial upgrades on systems which leave certain installed features downlevel and thus cause errors, etc.. etc.. the list goes on folks.

This leaves me to the entire frustration of ‘ what the heck did this person do all day? ‘ — In the documentation it states a list of ‘ daily tasks ‘ that are the ‘ bulk ‘ of this persons routine workload (i assume) which only took about 2 hours to complete each day. Since we’ve fixed 99% of the issues since I’ve gotten here, I think it’s honestly something that can be done in *UNDER* an hour now.

So what’s been my solution to all of this? Fix it naturally. Call it my OCD streak but I tell ya, I was seriously losing some sleep over this. It had me worried that at some point this network was going to collapse in on itself and they eyes would be turned towards me, not a pleasant thought. With that said and with the help of one of my associates here to who I have to toss a ton of credit to, we have successfully brought this Active Directory and it’s member systems up to a level by which I can proudly say is on the road to actually having a shot at becoming a real network. It’s been a privledge man as it’s nice to see someone else was feeling the way I was about the whole thing and was ready to help me get it all up and running. I honestly don’t know if I could have gone as gungho as I did without the help you provided.

The proud achievement? ZERO errors in the Directory Services, DNS, System, Application and File Replication logs. No more complaints about missing plugins in Exchange, failed replications, lost GPO items, confused computers and wouldn’t you know it? You can understand the OU structure in the Directory and the backups are working correctly too!

I still don’t get it however. I really don’t. It’s taken this associate and myself approximately 3 weeks to fix damage that has been out there for MONTHS if not YEARS! Why wasn’t it fixed before and why don’t people take pride in their work, I will never know. Perhaps it’s just lack of knowledge but that’s no excuse. If you don’t know how to do something and it’s part of your job, tap resources. Books, colleagues, the Microsoft TechNet and FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD, GOOGLE IS YOUR FRIEND!!!!

My next series of tasks will be consolidating asset management, software licensing, change mangement and internal support issues into one nice system for use instead of 50 thousand freakin excel sheets. Who does that!? DATABASES ARE YOUR FRIEND TOO! Hopefully I will get to see the birth of this system and the destruction of the use of 100 documents spread out over who knows what network shares to provide information for what should be included in maybe 25 documents, a few visio diagrams and a login to a centralized system. *shakes head* For that sake of saying it, if I can’t be here to continue to manage this network I hope the other individual doesn’t screw it all up in the matter of months once I’m gone.

*rant over*

well, i finally got my hands on a valid image for updating my tmob dash to the latest windows mobile 6 rom.

… wow …

it’s pretty similar to windows mobile 5, however the interface seems a little more user friendly and not so harsh. it’s difficult to explain, but the myFaves interface is way different, really cool looking now. the nicest aspect of it is that it seems to run a bit faster than WM5 did, so i’m pleasantly surprised about that for the moment.  i’ve even scored a copy of office word, excel and power point mobile with this upgrade. can’t beat that! the best news out of all of this… i didn’t “brick” my phone, lol.

i did however nuke my contacts… just glad i’ve got my phonebook backed up at home or i’d be so done for. LOL

tmob customers should be able to get the update for WM6 on the 4th of May (this Friday) from tmobile. now if i can just get the upgrade for the MDA to work I’d have two working WM6 phones. 😉

anyway, time to jet.

Ok, for all you xbox 360 owners out there that use it as a media extender this one is for you. 🙂

http://www.runtime360.com/projects/transcode-360/ <- go there

In my quest for viewing DivX encoded movies on my xbox through media center I had run into much frustration. The blasted ‘ cannot play file format ‘ messages that would appear when trying to watch things I’ve encoded in DivX were really irritating me. So, what does one do? Well, you could always re-encode or convert the file to another format…  Since I prefer DivX and Microsoft simply doesnt support it on their device, Transcode was a great help.

** btw, there is a really good tool for doing conversions -> http://www.videora.com/en-us/Converter/Xbox360/index.html 

All you do is download it and install it on your media center. It will install a plugin for you into MC that you can select when preparing to play a movie. Simply hit the info button, select ‘ Transcode ‘ and the DivX file plays. Pretty awesome huh? Only catch I’ve found on Vista is I have to have an instance of Transcode loaded up on any logged in profile running in administrator mode. Not really a big issue since my MC system is also the primary tower/desktop downstairs…

It’s still got some quirks and bugs to it, but considering how easy it is to use and the fact its free, I’m not complaining one bit. So many other methods and routines are just a plain pain in the butt. So if you’re struggling with the whole DivX issue. Go give this a shot.