Monday, October 23, 2017

Microsoft Exchange Server Interview Questions & Answers Part 1


Roles in Exchange 2010 & 2013?
To answer that let’s discuss the main architectural differences between Exchange 2010 and Exchange 2013. In Exchange 2010, there were five available Server Roles: Client Access, Hub Transport, Mailbox, Unified Messaging, and Edge Transport. In Exchange 2013, these Roles have been consolidated into just two main Roles: Client Access and Mailbox Server Roles.
Client Access Server Role: This Role now handles all client connectivity protocols including HTTPS/IMAP/POP3 as well as SMTP and UM Call Routing. In Exchange 2013 all clients communicate via RPC over HTTPS, no RPC traffic from client to server is required. RPC is now handled solely within the Mailbox Server Role.
Mailbox Server Role: In Exchange 2010, the Mailbox server role hosted both mailbox and public folder databases and also provided email message storage. Now, in Exchange Server 2013, the Mailbox server role also includes the Client Access protocols, Transport service, mailbox databases, and Unified Messaging components. One of the drivers behind this new architecture is that more Roles can be combined within a single server requiring less server Roles that are deployed while having greater hardware utilization. Additionally when the two Roles are combined they can communicate internally using RPC thus eliminating the need to support the RPC protocol outside of a single Server Role.
Can we use Edge server role in Exchange 2013,explain?
The Edge Transport server role has been re-introduced in Exchange Service Pack 1. Edge Transport provides improved anti-spam protection for the Exchange organization. The Edge Transport server uses the Active Directory Lightweight Directory Service (AD LDS) to store configuration and recipient information locally. Port TCP 50636 from the internal network to the Edge Transport server for EdgeSync
The most complicated issue related to Exchange that you faced?

Explain DAG?
A database availability group (DAG) is the base component of the Mailbox server high availability and site resilience framework built into Microsoft Exchange Server 2013. A DAG is a group of up to 16 Mailbox servers that hosts a set of databases and provides automatic database-level recovery from failures that affect individual servers or databases.
A DAG is a boundary for mailbox database replication, database and server switchovers and failovers, and an internal component called Active Manager. Active Manager, which runs on every Mailbox server, manages switchovers and failovers within DAGs.
What is the importance of CAS role in Exchange?
The primary responsibility of Exchange 2013 CAS in Exchange 2013 coexistence environment is “direct” Exchange legacy clients (Exchange 2007/2010) to their destination.
What is in place e discovery and hold?
The Exchange In-Place Hold & eDiscovery is a very powerful tool that can help us to accomplish three main tasks.
Search for information (mail items) in single or multiple mailboxes.
Put specific information on “hold” (enable to save the information for an unlimited time period).
Recover deleted mail items.
Multi-Mailbox Search is known as In-Place eDiscovery.
In the new Exchange, you can use In-Place Hold to place searched content on hold. In-Place Hold is integrated with In-Place eDiscovery, allowing you to simultaneously search and hold content using the same easy-to-use interface. Integrating hold with eDiscovery allows you to be very specific as to what you hold using a query. Reducing the volume of data you preserve lowers the cost of reviewing the data later.
The EAC’s Compliance Management tab is where you can manage compliance features in the new Exchange
How many mailbox database can we create in Exchange 2013 standard SP1?
5 databases in STD and 50 Dbs in Enterprise
What are the pre-requisites to install Exchange 2013 in 2012 server OS?
The Active Directory forest functional level must be at least Server 2003.
The Active Directory site must contain at least one Global Catalog server and a writable domain controller.
Exchange Server must be member of Domain Controller.
Perform Windows Update and reboot the Mail Server.
Install .NET Framework 4.5 and Windows Management Framework 4.0 in Mail Server.
Install the remote server administration toolkit (Install-WindowsFeature RSAT-ADDS)
Run the following command in Windows PowerShell to install other required components.
 Install-WindowsFeature AS-HTTP-Activation, Desktop-Experience, NET-Framework-45-Features, RPC-over-HTTP-proxy, RSAT-Clustering, RSAT-Clustering-CmdInterface, RSAT-Clustering-Mgmt, RSAT-Clustering-PowerShell, Web-Mgmt-Console, WAS-Process-Model, Web-Asp-Net45, Web-Basic-Auth, Web-Client-Auth, Web-Digest-Auth, Web-Dir-Browsing, Web-Dyn-Compression, Web-Http-Errors, Web-Http-Logging, Web-Http-Redirect, Web-Http-Tracing, Web-ISAPI-Ext, Web-ISAPI-Filter, Web-Lgcy-Mgmt-Console, Web-Metabase, Web-Mgmt-Console, Web-Mgmt-Service, Web-Net-Ext45, Web-Request-Monitor, Web-Server, Web-Stat-Compression, Web-Static-Content, Web-Windows-Auth, Web-WMI, Windows-Identity-Foundation
Download and install Microsoft Unified Communications Managed API 4.0, Core Runtime 64-bit in Mail Server. 
How to reseed a broken database copy?
Open the Exchange Admin Center and navigate to Servers -> Databases. Select the database that has the failed copy. On the database copy that is shown as failed click the Update link. ou can click Browse and specify a source server if necessary, otherwise click Save to reseed from the server that hosts the active database copy.

What is Active Manager?
Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 includes a component called Active Manager that manages the high availability platform that includes the database availability group (DAG) and mailbox database copies. Active Manager runs inside the Microsoft Exchange Replication service (MSExchangeRepl.exe) on all Mailbox servers. On Mailbox servers that aren't members of a DAG, there is a single Active Manager role: Standalone Active Manager. On servers that are members of a DAG, there are two Active Manager Roles: Primary Active Manager (PAM) and Standby Active Manager (SAM). PAM is the Active Manager role in a DAG that decides which copies will be active and passive. PAM is responsible for getting topology change notifications and reacting to server failures. The DAG member that holds the PAM role is always the member that currently owns the cluster quorum resource (default cluster group). If the server that owns the cluster quorum resource fails, the PAM role automatically moves to a surviving server that takes ownership of the cluster quorum resource. In addition, if you need to take the server that hosts the cluster quorum resource offline for maintenance or an upgrade, you must first move the PAM to another server in the DAG. The PAM controls all movement of the active designations between a database's copies. (Only one copy can be active at any specified time, and that copy may be mounted or dismounted.) The PAM also performs the functions of the SAM role on the local system (detecting local database and local Information Store failures).
The SAM provides information on which server hosts the active copy of a mailbox database to other components of Exchange that are running an Active Manager client component (for example, Client Access or Transport services). The SAM detects failures of local databases and the local Information Store. It reacts to failures by asking the PAM to initiate a failover (if the database is replicated). A SAM doesn't determine the target of failover, nor does it update a database's location state in the PAM. It will access the active database copy location state to answer queries for the active copy of the database that it receives.

What is GAL & OAB explain briefly?

A) GAL (Global Address List) is updated from the Global Catalog (which is a subset of the main Active Directory Domain) and Exchange servers use the GC to look up and resolve users and groups. In a multi-Domain Controller environment, this is updated every 5 mins or so.

B) An OAB (Offline Address Book) is a cached/offline copy of the GAL which is automatically updated every 24 hours and tends to be used when using Outlook in Exchange Cached mode. Users will not see new users straight away.


How to manually update a Global Address List in Exchange 2013?

Update-GlobalAddressList -Identity "Global Address List"

How can a user update their Offline Address book immediately?
There are three ways:
  1. Try a manual Re-Sync
  2. Close Outlook and delete the *.OAB files manually From here:C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\Offline Address Books\*\*.*
  3. Delete and Recreate their Outlook Profile
Microsoft Exchange Server Interview Questions & Answers Part 2

No comments:

Post a Comment