Exchange 2010 Interview Questions

Explain the Topology changes in Exchange servers?

In Exchange server 2003, we have one two server roles that is front end and back-end server architecture

In Exchange server 2007, Exchange architecture changes and we have 5 key server roles that depend on the functions it does. They are Edge Transport Server Role, Hub transport Server Role, Client Access Server Role, Mailbox Server Role and Unified Messaging Server Role.

In Exchange Server 2010, there is no change in the topology, there is only changes in the key architecture component in the Server role level
For example

Client Access Server, changes are
· Storage access path
· Introduction of RPC Client Access Service
· Client RPC connection changes

Transport Server, changes are
· Resiliency issues are removed
· Shadow redundancy
· Exchange Storage Engine changes
· Increase in DB cache size and check point depth
· Edge sync
· Support for safe sender and blocked sender
· Information leakage protection and control

Mailbox Server Role, changes are
· Store schema changes
· DB I/O size improvements
· New message records management features
· High Availability changes
· Introduction of Database Availability Group
· DAS supportable to reduce cost
· Large mailbox support up to 10 GB
· Support for Public Folders

1. What are the new features introduced in Exchange Server 2010 on overview perspective?
1. Protection and compliance
2. Anywhere Access
3. Flexible and reliable

2. What’s new in Protection and compliance?
· Email Archiving
· Protect Communication
· Advanced Security

3. What’s new in anywhere Access?
1. Manage Inbox Overload
2. Enhanced Voice Mail
3. Collaborate efficiently

4. What’s new in Flexibility and reliability?
· Continuous Availability
· Simplified Administration
· Flexible deployment of Exchange Server 2010

5. Explain the E-Mail Archiving feature in Compliance?
We can set email retention mail policy from end user level
Message expiration
We can search for individual or Multi user mailboxes from compliance officer perspective

6. Exchange the protection features in Exchange Server 2010?
Hub Transport Server provides
1. Automatically protect Messages with the centralized Rights Management Service
2. Automatic Content Based Protection
3. Transport rule action to apply template to E-Mail or Voice Mail
4. Support for scanning of attachment
5. Internet confidential and DO NOT Forward E-Mail Polices
6. Information Protection Cross PC, Web and Mobile devices

7. What are the Advanced Security features in Exchange Server 2010?
Exchange server 2010 comes up with the advance security feature of stopping malicious software and spam from enter into the message environment
1. We can have Forefront Security to have this advance security, which has
2. Multiple scan engines throughout the corporate infrastructure
3. Easy to use management console provides central configuration and operation

8. What’s New in Anywhere Access?
Manage inbox overload using enhanced conversation view and filtering the messages
Mail Tips – if no permission to send mail, popup will show mail tips to reduce NDRS
Can access Voice Mailbox with features like
1. Audio play back
2. Text preview
3. Quick option to add the user to contacts and phone number
Auto attend – we can manage auto attend, define personalized voice menu

9. What are the supportable clients for Exchange Server 2010?
Desktop – office 2007 and entourage MAC
WEB – OWA, OFFICE outlook web access, IE, Firefox and safari
Mobile – office outlook mobile, windows mobile, and Exchange active sync for third party’s

10. What are the outlook features now introduced to mobile devices?
1. Auto complete cache – used email address in OWA in cache will be shared mobile
2. Conversation view – if any change in messages on outlook that will be applied to Mobile
3. Contact to see the availability of the users
4. Voice Mail Preview – see voice mail
5. Send and receive text message in OWA and mobile
6. Admin can control which mobile devices can connect
7. Downloadable mobile devices

11. What is universal Inbox In OWA?
Its provides a solution to have one E-Mail inbox for E—Mail, Text messages and Voice messages
Can have multiple E-Mail accounts in one OWA window

12. What is federation?
Federation is new feature in Exchange server 2010 to share the company users calendars to the partners. A trust relationship to be made to have this feature

13. What is continuous availability feature in Exchange Server 2010?
In Exchange Server 2007, we have server to server failover scenarios, and we need to use failover clustering to configure the HA options which is very difficult to manage
In Exchange Server 2010, HA modified to Database level which provides quick recoverability in disk and database failures. We can have multiple database copies up to 16 mailbox copies in a database availability group. Admin have replicate mailbox copies up to 16 replicated copies. Capabilities of having CCR and SCR into single platform

14. Continuous availability in user level?
If a mailbox move is happening, the users will be stay online and there wont be be any discontinuity in sending or receiving mails

15. Explain the administration option in Exchange Server 2010?
Exchange Server 2010 provides simplified administration by providing options like
1. Compliance office can easily search for mailboxes
2. HR can easily update the user information
3. Help desk can easily manage mailbox quotas
4. User can easily track the status of the message easily
5. User can easily create own Distribution group
6. User can modify the contact information

16. What are the storage options supported in Exchange Server 2010?
Exchange Server 2010 can support the DAS and Also JBOD disks its because of the HA option depends only on the Database level

1. Why Archive?
1. Growing E-Mail Volume – everyone wants to have more E-mail because of this the storage, Backup disk should be increases
2. Performance and storage issue – increase in Storage costs
3. Mailbox quota – users are forced to manage quota
4. PSTs – quota management often results in growing PSTs – outlook Auto Archive
5. Discovery and Compliance issues – PSTs difficult to discovery centrally, regulatory retention schedules contribute to further volume/storage issues

2. How Archiving improved in Exchange Server 2010?
Archiving improved by providing larger mailbox architecture, simple migration of PSTs back to server, discovery options, retention policies and legal hold.
Large mailbox Architecture – maintains performance and provides option for DAS-SATA storage to reduce costs
Archiving enables simple migration of PSTs back to server. If the archiving option sin enabled for a user, a new Mailbox will be created to the user name archive in which the user can set retention policies to move the mails to archive mailbox or the admin can set retention policies for the user mailbox.
Archiving simplifies discovery, retention and legal hold

3. What are the archiving options introduced in Exchange Server 2010?
1. Personal Archive – secondary Mailbox Node, they are the PST files of primary Mailbox
2. Retention Policies – folder/item level and archive/delete policies
3. Multi-Mailbox search – Role based GUI, admin can assign this permission to legal team
4. Legal Hold – monitor or control a user from delete a mail by legal hold and searchable with Multi Mailbox Search
5. Journaling – Journal de-duplication (unwanted journaling on distributed mails). One copy of journal per database and
6. Journal decryption – HT role will do the decryption and send the decrypted copy for journaling

4. What is personal archive in Exchange Server 2010 archiving?
It is a Secondary mailbox that is configured by the administrator, this appears along with user’s primary mailbox in outlook or OWA, and the PST files can be dragged and dropped to personal archive Mailbox. Mails in Primary mailbox can be moved automatically using Retention policies. Archive quota can be set separately from primary mailbox

5. What are retention policies? And what we can do with retention policies in Exchange Server 2010?
Retention policy is an option to move/ delete certain mails by applying rules. We can set retention policies at Item or Folder level. Policies can be applied directly within e-mail. We can set expiration date stamped directly on e-mail. Policies can be applied to all email within a folder. We can configure delete policy to delete the mail after certain period and Archive policies to move certain mails with the certain period to archive mailbox

6. What are the Retention Policies in Exchange Server 2010?
1. Move Policy – automatically moves messages to the messages to the archive Mailbox with the options of 6 months, 1 year, 2 years, 5 years and never – 2 years is default. Move mailbox policies helps keep mailbox under quota. This works like outlook Auto Archive without creating PSTs
2. Delete Policy – automatically deletes messages. Delete policies are global. Removes unwanted items
3. Move + Delete policy – automatically moves messages to archive after X months and deletes from archive after Y Months. We can set policy priority: Explicit policies over default policies; longer policies apply over shorted policies

7. What is Multi Mailbox Search?
This option delegated access to search to HR, compliance, legal manager. Administrator has to provide access permission on to use this feature, this will provide an option to search all mail items ( email, IM contacts, calendar) across primary mailbox, archives. The filtering option in Multi Mailbox search includes sender, receiver, expire policy, message size, send/receive date, cc/bcc, regular expressions, IRM protected Items

8. What are E-Discovery features?
Following are the E-Discovery features introduced in Exchange Server 2010
1. Search specific Mailboxes or DLS
2. Export search results to a mailbox or SMTP Address
3. Request email alert when search completes
4. Search results organized by per original hierarchy
Lot more will be added in the original release

9. What is Legal Hold and what are the features in Legal Hold?
New feature in Exchange Server 2010 to monitor or control a user from deleting a Mail or Mailbox, the features available in Legal Hold are
1. Copy edited and deleted item – this option is in Exchange server 2007 to hold the auto deleted items
2. Set duration for auto delete – indefinite or specify time period
3. Auto alert notification – sends alerts to users that they are on hold, eliminates manual process
4. Search dumpster – use Multi Mailbox search to retrieve deleted/edited items indexed in dumpster folder

10. What is journaling and what are the journaling features in Exchange Server 2010?
Journaling is an option to track mails from particular user or from a group of users. The New Features in Journaling for Exchange server 2010 are
1. Transport Journaling – ability to journal individual Mailboxes or SMTP address and also this gives a detailed report per To/Cc//Bcc/Alt-Recipient and DL expansion
2. Journal report de duplication – reduces duplication of journal reports. Exchange server 2010 creates one report per message

11. What is journal decryption?
Journal decryption is a new feature in Exchange Server 2010, if a user sends an encrypted message to recipient and if journaling was enabled for that user, then the Hub transport Server decrypts the message and sends that decrypted message for journaling. The intended recipient will receive the encrypted message

12. What is Set Quota in Archive management?
With Mailbox quota Management, we can assign mailbox size for a user. This option can be enabled from the properties of the user account, and the default settings to Mailbox quota is 10 GB

1. What is federated sharing?
Federated Sharing allows easy sharing of availability information, calendar, and contacts with recipients in external federated organizations

2. What are the options shared in federated sharing?
1. Free busy information
2. Calendar and contact sharing
3. Sharing policy

3. How federated sharing works in Exchange server 2010?

4. Explain the operation of federation?

5. What are the benefits of federation?
Allow users to act on behalf of specific user
· Specific user identified by E-mail address
· User not prompted for credentials
Reduces explicit trust management
· No AD trusts, service to cloud accounts to manage
· Minimizes certificate exchanges
· Verifies domain ownership

6. Explain the federation commands in Exchange server 2010?
Establish federation trust = New-federation Trust
· Install signing certificate on CAS servers
· Exchange certificate with federation gateway
Prove domain ownership = domainname.com IN TXT AppId = xxxxxxxx
· Create DNS TXT record
Add domain to trust = set-federatedOrganizationIdentifier
Add-federatedDomain
· Must be accepted domain

7. How to establish federated sharing in Exchange Server 2010?
1. Create trust with certificate exchange
2. Prove domain ownership
3. Add domains

8. What is Microsoft Federation Gateway?
Exchange Server 2010 uses Microsoft Federation Gateway (MFG), an identity service that runs in the cloud, as the trust broker. Exchange organizations wanting to use Federation establish a Federation Trust with MFG, allowing it to become a federation partner to the Exchange organization. The trust allows users authenticated by Active Directory , known as the identity provider (IP), to be issued Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) delegation tokens by MFG. The delegation tokens allow users from one federated organization to be trusted by another federated organization. With MFG acting as the trust broker, organizations are not required to establish multiple individual trust relationships with other organizations. Users can access external resources using a single sign-on (SSO) experience

9. What is Federation Trust?
A Federation Trust is established between an Exchange organization and MFG by exchanging the organization’s certificate with MFG, and retrieving MFG’s certificate and federation metadata. The certificate is used for encrypting tokens

10. What is Sharing Policy?
Sharing policies allow you to control how users in your organization can share calendar and contact information with users outside the organization. To provision recipients to use a particular sharing policy
Prerequisites to create a Sharing Policy
 A federation trust has been created between your Exchange 2010 organization and Microsoft Federation Gateway, and the Federated Organization Identifier is configured.
 Although you can create a sharing policy for any external domain, recipients from the specified domain can access your users’ information only if they have a mailbox in an Exchange 2010 organization and their domain is federated

Only Questions :)

1. What is RPC Client Access Service?
2. Why RPC Client Access Service in Exchange Server 2010?
3. How the client Access in Exchange Server 2010 changes by RPC Client Access Service?
4. How directory referral connection works in RPC Client Access Service?
5. What are the outlook Anywhere improvements using RPC Client Access Service?
6. What are the considerations for Client Access Server in Exchange Server 2010?
7. What is the resilience issue in Exchange Server 2007? How it is overcome in Exchange Server 2010?
8. What are the resilience improvements in Exchange Server 2010?
9. How does shadow Redundancy works?
10. How Exchange Server 2010 supports the legacy exchange clients that not support shadow redundancy?
11. What are the performance enhancements changes in Exchange Server 2010 Transport roles?
12. Explain the Performance Changes in Edge Transport Server Role?
13. Explain the Architectural consideration for Exchange Server 2010 Transport Roles?
14. What are the issues in ESE of Exchange Server 2007?
15. How the issues are overcome in Exchange Server 2010?
16. Explain the High Availability Changes in Exchange Server 2010 Mailbox server role?
17. What are the considerations for deploying mailbox server roles?
18. Explain the Architectural consideration for Exchange Server 2010 Mailbox Server role?
19. Explain Public Folders in Exchange Server 2010?