matthew.brough

No chance!

We've been here before, remember?

Sort of, it's now called essentials rather than sbs

There have been some significant improvements between the versions, especially in virtualisation and server management but a single server, single site environment I must confess not much benefit

Not a high tech junkie, are you Dave? We went from 2003 - 2008 now 2012

Keep it that way Exchange is an extremely powerful piece of software and has awesome compatibility with the rest of the Windows Server System however it is very expensive, very hard to manage and when it goes wrong, it goes major wrong. The only reason we don't have cloud is I don't want my data somewhere I don't know where it is or who has access to it. If it wasn't for that, we would be cloud tomorrow.

I assume most here now mainly use cloud deployments of exchange however just in case there are any of you that use on premise and have a redundant site I thought I would share with you what can only be described as the weekend from hell. We have 2 exchange servers, 1 on site A and 1 on site B. It hasn't been uncommon in the past that without warning, emails just stop appearing. This is usually down to the 2 servers stopping talking (for no reason) and a restart of both and it processes the missing emails. The same happened yesterday morning, but the usual restart did nothing. I got error after error sending on all sorts of wild goose chases. Database's wouldn't mount, they would be out of sync, certificate errors, services set to auto wouldn't start, started services couldn't be stopped. You name it, it errored. No matter what I tried it just would not work. Comms between the 2 sites perfect and all other replications working a treat as normal. Whilst searching pages and pages of forums I noticed hidden in one complain that MTU had caused a similar issue which lit a bulb in my head. Site A is leased line, high end Cisco routers etc etc but site B is just plain old vdsl and the PPPOE session created by the firewall. Due to issues with Dualcom, I have had to put a Draytek 2860 to managed the VDSL connection so that I can add a Cisco 5505 to mange the connection to CSL and the existing firewall do the rest. I did this on Friday with no problems but it put the idea in my head that these issues had only occurred since this work had been done although it worked fine for 24 hours in this setup and comms down the tunnel were fine. Dissed the Draytek and made the current firewall manage PPPOE as it had done before and all these pages of errors disappeared. I am going to see if this is an MTU issue or if the IPSEC doesn't like it and try Open VPN to see what the root error was. For alarm notifications and support emails these don't touch Exchange due to previous strops it throws with anything non Microsoft so we use a very reliable, simple email program called MDaemon for that. Ironic that the reliable solution costs a tenth of Exchange. An unusual problem that has caused me some serious migraines this weekend so though I would share in case anyone else has the unfortunate job of administering Exchange. All healthy now

Am I strange in that when I ask for stuff done it is rare I get more than one quote?

I wouldn't know . . .

Eh?

Sadly for you, I'm very much alive

I wouldn't be seen DEAD in either of those stores however media reports confirm people are no longer ashamed to visit, the polar opposite is true and that it seems to have become a badge of honour to see how cheap you can buy something. We shop at asda and bill is £95-120 a week. Could we get it cheaper elsewhere? Probably. Can I be arsed, no. They bring it round each week and quite happy with the service.

Suppose you could go to spar for a proper doing over

Didn't say I thought I was white middle class did I?

I believed in a previous life that those in work would never be so desparate but I'm not so sure that is always the case. You are right my donation may go to the work shy but equally it might go to someone who is white middle class with a full time job. I'll never know where my £20 went. Same with the blood I give. Might go to save the life if a kiddie fiddler but equally might save a genuine persons life. I'll never know but I hope it did some good.

That depends. For someone who is prepared to do a days work and work hard, I don't think it's very British or acceptable, no. For people who sit on their bum, deserve all they get No. What's it called so I can look it up on 4od? Is it not the case though that any compassion or handouts will always have an element of abuse? But should the fact a risk of abuse exists be justification to offer no help to anyone? No. What's it called so I can look it up on 4od? Is it not the case though that any compassion or handouts will always have an element of abuse? But should the fact a risk of abuse exists be justification to offer no help to anyone?

I'm very very lucky. I've never had to worry where my next meal is coming from

I'm sure it does but do you wait until you see someone's ribcage before you believe they are starving?

Not at all. Pleasant enough chap. I was in Tesco's the other day and some volunteers asked if I'd be kind enough to contribute to food bank which I did get £20 of food for them. Maybe I should have said **** off incase the people who go to food bank are all liars and aren't really struggling for food?

I've had radom acts of compassion. If someone appears genuine and in need of help I've often gone on the side of give them the benefit of the doubt

Quite possibly. As a society though have we come to the stage we would never help a stranger under any circumstances as we assume they are up to no good?

Contactless, yes mrs matts is. Not keen on that idea. I'm assuming cloning them would be a doddle. My card doesn't have it

Interesting. Didn't know it was even an option. 99% of my buying is done online and has been for a while

Not done one for years. Chip and pin or online. I had assumed thy chip and pin replaced being able to do over the phone. That would make fraud dead easy