Generic Mailboxes and Enterprise Vault

Folder Level access can be a bit trick in Enterprise Vault. Depending on how your environment is set up you may run into this issue.

Issue 
Non owner’s users who operate shared mailboxes are unable to open Enterprise Vault Items. Users will see the following error “You do not have access to this vault.” although they have folder level access to the mailbox and are able to see the EV item.

Cause 
Default or Anonymous permissions have been used in order to grant the users access to the mailbox folder. 

Resolution
Grant each user permissions to a mailbox folder. Users will then receive access to Enterprise Vault Items.  

Don’t let a offline exchange server affect your scripts!!!

I’m sure you like most of you have being remote power shelling for some time but if you are running an on prem solution this might be worth adding to your scripts. In short a simple loop based on a static array. 

Such a loop will assist with completing a retry in the event that the remote session is unable to be created to the exchange server.  

$ExchangeServers = ("SRVEXC001","SRVEXC002")

$SessionActive = $false

$Counterlimit = 10

$Counter = 0

DO

{

       Try{

    $ExchangeServersSession = $ExchangeServers | Get-Random

    Write-Warning "Attempting to Connect to Exchange Server: $ExchangeServersSession"

       $Session = New-PSSession -ConfigurationName Microsoft.Exchange -ConnectionUri http://$ExchangeServersSession/PowerShell/ -Authentication Kerberos -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

    $Counter++

    $SessionCurrent = Get-PSSession | Where{($_.ConfigurationName -eq 'Microsoft.Exchange') -and ($_.State -eq 'Opened') -and ($_.Availability -eq 'Available')}

    }

    Catch{

   

    }

    Finally{

    If($SessionCurrent){Write-Warning "Connected to Exchange Server: $ExchangeServersSession";Import-PSSession $Session;$error.clear();$SessionActive = $true}

    }

} Until (($SessionActive -eq $true) -or ($Counter -gt $Counterlimit))     

If($Counter -gt $Counterlimit){Write-error "No Exchange Servers are responding to Remote Powershell Requests"} 

You could also automate the static array $ExchangeServers and select the servers you require without too much hassle but I’ll let you guys look after that part… J

Does Session Affinity really make Sense!

Quick post dedicated for my wife who is a word/grammar guru…

In the IT world there is so many things that we say or pick up that creates you might say a new sub language even possibly IT street language. I wonder if I could register a new creole for the IT industry… But does it often make sense…. I know many will say that it doesn’t really matter.

Session Affinity has been defined as:

Most servers use the term "Session Affinity" to indicate that within a cluster of servers, requests from the same client always get routed back to the same server. This eliminates the need to replicate session data like the Http Session or Stateful Session Beans.

Implementations vary, but is usually base on some kind of routing scheme that identifies the client by IP address or a browser cookie.

Affinity Some seven hundred years ago, affinity meant “relation by marriage.” By extension, the proper use of affinity involves mutuality. But that sense of mutual attraction is often absent in contemporary uses of affinity. An online search reveals many examples such as these: “She always had an affinity for growing fruit.” “I have an affinity for vintage chairs.” “My friend has an affinity for making things out of cardboard.” In these examples, “growing fruit,” “vintage chairs,” and “making things out of cardboard” are passive elements, not active components in a relationship. Better to say “a talent for growing fruit,” “a fondness for vintage chairs,” “a flair for making things out of cardboard.”

In the examples above, affinity is followed by the preposition for. But in formal English, the phrase affinity for is despised. The editor Theodore M. Bernstein advised writers to “discard for” and instead “use between, with, or sometimes to.”

Here are three sentences that use affinity correctly: “There is an affinity between the Irish and the Italians that can be hard to explain.” “Some people have a natural affinity with children.” “Two vaccines containing native proteins with affinity to porcine transferrin were tested.”

There is no affinity unless it is shared by both parties.