6 interview questions you need to ask

1. "If you stayed with your current company, what would be your next move?"

2. "What makes you stand out from others?"

3. Tell me your greatest accomplishment.

4. "Give me an example of a time when you took the time to share a co-worker's achievement with others."

5. "How many hours a week do you need to work to get your job done?"

6. "Do you take enough time to make a decision?"

from: http://www.microsoft.com/business/en-us/resources/management/recruiting-staffing/hiring-6-interview-questions-you-need-to-ask.aspx?fbid=2uhbb53JOtk

New High Availability Features in Exchange 2010 SP1

New High Availability Features in Exchange 2010 SP1

* Continuous replication - block mode
In the RTM version of Exchange 2010 and in all versions of Exchange 2007, continuous replication operates by shipping copies of the log files generated by the active database copy to the passive database copies. Beginning with SP1, this form of continuous replication is known as continuous replication - file mode. SP1 also introduces a new form of continuous replication known as continuous replication - block mode




* Active mailbox database redistribution
This feature is present in two forms. The first form is a script that can be periodically run by administrators to balance the distribution of active database copies across a database availability group (DAG). The second form we hope to implement is the addition of copy distribution awareness to Active Manager's best copy selection (BCS) process.

* Improved Outlook cross-site connection behavior and experience

* Enhanced datacenter activation coordination support  :  In the RTM version, DAC mode is limited to DAGs with at least three members that have at least 

two or more members in the primary datacenter.

In SP1, DAC mode has been extended to support two-member DAGs that have each member in a separate datacenter. 


* New and enhanced management and monitoring scripts
CheckDatabaseRedundancy.ps1 (new) 
StartDagServerMaintenance.ps1 and StopDagServerMaintenance.ps1 (new)
CollectOverMetrics.ps1 (enhanced)
CollectReplicationMetrics.ps1 (enhanced)


* Improvements in failover performance

http://blogs.technet.com/b/jribeiro/archive/2010/04/26/new-high-availability-features-in-exchange-2010-sp1.aspx

Manually move the Primary Active manager in DAG

Under any circumstances, if you have to move the Primary Active Manager to another server of a DAG then from Exchange management shell use the following command

cluster.exe “DAG Name” /MoveTo:NewDAG

what is BDAT (Binary Data)

BDAT
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The SMTP BDAT command is an alternative to the DATA command, which can be used when a remote SMTP server presents the CHUNKING verb. CHUNKING is an ESMTP functionality. Microsoft Exchange servers implement this feature by default, as do other SMTP servers.

The BDAT verb takes two arguments. The first argument indicates the length, in octets, of the binary data chunk. The second optional argument indicates that this data chunk is the last.

Servers that offer the BDAT extension MUST continue to support the regular SMTP DATA command.

After all MAIL and RCPT responses are collected and processed, the message is sent using a series of BDAT commands. The BDAT command takes one required argument, the exact length of the data segment in octets. The message data is sent immediately after the trailing <CR> <LF> of the BDAT command line. Once the receiver-SMTP receives the specified number of octets, it will return a 250 reply code.

The optional LAST parameter on the BDAT command indicates that this is the last chunk of message data to be sent. The last BDAT command may have a byte-count of zero indicating there is no additional data to be sent. Any BDAT command sent after the BDAT LAST is illegal and MUST be replied to with a 503 "Bad sequence of commands" reply code. The state resulting from this error is indeterminate. A RSET command MUST be sent to clear the transaction before continuing.

DATA and BDAT commands cannot be used in the same transaction. If a DATA statement is issued after a BDAT for the current transaction, a 503 "Bad sequence of commands" MUST be issued.

The equal logic array sends messages in small chunks using BDAT command. Exchange 2007 & 2010 will by default tarpit (slow down) any BDAT command that is not the “LAST” chunk. Each chunk gets delayed 5 seconds before Exchange confirms it has received it. As there are plenty of BDAT commands sent per message with a 5 second delay per packet it adds up very quickly. Now equal logic array has a timeout of 2 minutes and hence the failure

The problem occurs when multiple email messages are transferred within the same TCP session using multiple BDAT commands. The transfer of a single email per session, with the use of only one BDAT command does not pose a problem.
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