Cost of Exchange Consultant to help attempt to recover your database = $124,000
Cost for Kroll OnTrack to write custom software to recover your damaged database = $120,000
Reliable and verified Exchange aware backups: Nice
Implementing high availability using best practices: Priceless
It was just announced by our friends at Microsoft, that Exchange 2010 has reached RTM and will be launched at TechEd Berlin in early November.
Must…find…the bits…..
I took the 70-238 exam today and passed to round out the MCITP certification for Exchange 2007. It wasn’t easy as there were several questions that made me stop and go..WTF is this doing on an Exchange exam?
I’m taking a break for a little while on certifications I think. I do have to think about renewing my Cisco Wireless certs here next year sometime.
I just scheduled the 70-238 (PRO: Deploying Messaging Solutions using Exchange Server 2007) today for next Thursday. After I pass that exam (though I’m a little worried about this one), I will earn my second MCITP certification.
I’d take a break after that, but I probably should renew my Cisco wireless cert (CCNA: Wireless?) and think about SQL and SBS 2008.
2 exams down and one more to go until I achieve the MCITP: Enterprise Messaging certification. I finally ventured down to Appleton to take the MCTS: Exchange 2007 exam and passed with 1000. Not sure how I pulled that off, but I have been studying pretty hard for that one.
Feeling either confident or cocky (not sure which one), I decided to save a trip and sit the first of the MCITP exams for Exchange as well. Well, remind me not to do that before at least cracking open a book to at least go over what was on the exam. I passed, but barely. So next Wednesday I’ll sit the last exam and I’ll get to add another credential to my portfolio.
SQL 2008 next (and this one isn’t voluntary…I’m not a fan of SQL)
I took the dive into 64bit computing today by installing Vista Ultimate x64 onto my work laptop. It was then I remembered that the Cisco VPN client wasn’t supported on a 64bit OS. After some digging and Googling, I found the NCP Secure Entry Client. After a weird install process (I was installing VMWare Workstation at the same time which isn’t recommended, but I was in a hurry), it worked! I was able to import the pcf files used by the Cisco VPN Client and connect to a customer’s network! Sweet!
It’s not free though, you’ll have to cough up $144, but it looks to be well worth it if you want to run 64bit Windows.
On an unrelated note, wish me luck on the 70-236 Exchange 2007 exam on Friday. I think I’ll just go ahead and sit the rest of the Exchange exams next week to complete the MCITP: Enterprise Messaging certification too. 
Man, could I go places with that headline…
According to my employer, I’m a Cisco engineer. That’s fine, I’m cool with that, and I’m always up for learning new things. But my first techno love was the Microsoft side of things. (I wonder if I should turn comments off now) For some reason, I’ve taken a big interest in the new Microsoft technologies like Exchange 2007, Office Communicator Server 2007, and System Center. Being a Cisco weenie now, I have fallen behind in the Microsoft world and I think I’ve forgotten a lot of the idiosyncrasies about Active Directory and Exchange. Time to fire up the test servers again and re-learn.
At least with MS products, I can re-learn this stuff in my home lab while with Cisco it gets more difficult to get my hands on specific equipment (like a Wireless LAN Controller). I dunno why but learning new MS technologies has always been easy for me. Cisco just plain confuses me sometimes. Maybe it’s because new Cisco products are usually purchased and repackaged while MS does a lot of their own stuff.
I love what I see with Server 2008 “Longhorn”. I love the new Server Manager module based install. I didn’t install Core just yet (I wanted to see it all in it’s glory), but I’ll be playing with it some more when I get time. I think the module based install will serve small business customers well. I deal with overbloated Windows servers it seems like on a daily basis now. It’d be great to just install what’s needed and that’s it.
I do have one question…what is the real reason Exchange 2007 is only supported in a production environment on a 64bit OS? I understand the reasoning for more processing power to handle the additional databases that Exchange 2007 supports, but if you only use one or two stores, (say for a small business), why not offer a 32 bit version? Maybe SBS 2008 has this?
Someone please enlighten me…