Average Mailbox Size Using Exchange PowerShell
PowerShell is now becoming more and more prevalent in Microsoft’s Exchange and Server software. This scripting language is becoming a must know for Administrators and knowing this scripting can help get all kinds of useful information. When I was an administrator for an Exchange system, it helped me to monitor the mailbox(s) and databases for their size, so that I could make plans for the future.
The script below gathers mailbox information and pulls the information together and shows it in the PowerShell window.
<———–Start Script———–>
# Retrieve the list of mailboxes from the specified mailbox database
$listOfMailboxes = Get-MailboxDatabase "Mailbox Database 1081629644" | Get-Mailbox
# Initialize the counter variables that we'll use
$mailboxCount = 0
$mailboxTotalItemCount = 0
$mailboxTotalSize = 0
$mailboxAverageSize = 0
$mailboxAverageItemCount = 0
# Start a loop that will count stats from individual mailboxes
foreach ($individualMailbox in $listOfMailboxes)
{
# increment the mailbox count by 1
$mailboxCount++
# Get the name of the current mailbox so that we can...
$individualMailboxName = $individualMailbox.Identity.DistinguishedName
#... quickly and easily get stats from that mailbox
$individualMailboxStats = Get-MailboxStatistics -Identity $individualMailbox
# Get the size of the mailbox in MB and save it in a variable
$individualMailboxSize = $individualMailboxStats.TotalItemSize.value.toMB()
# Get the number of items in the mailbox and save it in a variable
$individualMailboxItemCount = $individualMailboxStats.ItemCount
# Add the size of this mailbox to a running total
$mailboxTotalSize = $mailboxTotalSize + $individualMailboxSize
# Add the number of items in this mailbox to a running total
$mailboxTotalItemCount = $mailboxTotalItemCount + $individualMailboxItemCount
}
# Calculate the average mailbox size
$mailboxAverageSize = $mailboxTotalSize / $mailboxCount
# Calculate the average number of items per mailbox
$mailboxAverageItemCount = $mailboxTotalItemCount / $mailboxCount
# Display the results to the user
Write-Host "Total Number of Mailboxes in database: $mailboxCount"
Write-Host "Total Size of Mailboxes: $mailboxTotalSize MB"
Write-Host "Total Items in Mailboxes: $mailboxTotalItemCount"
Write-Host "-------------------"
Write-Host "Average Mailbox Size: $mailboxAverageSize MB"
Write-Host "Average Items per Mailbox: $mailboxAverageItemCount"
<-----------End Script----------->
If everything ran correctly and you don’t see any errors, you will see the below displayed.
Total Number of Mailboxes in database: 320
Total Size of Mailboxes: 412270 MB
Total Items in Mailboxes: 14757
-------------------
Average Mailbox Size: 1288 MB
Average Items per Mailbox: 46.115625
We’re Back from Blackout
First, I would like to apologize to anyone who found the blackout of this site inconvenient. We blacked out our site in solidarity with 75,000+ sites who joined together, in the largest online protest (to date), to try to let congress know to stop the SOPA and PIPA bills from passing. These bills would kill the internet as we know it, and anyone with a real ear to the internet could tell you they wouldn’t solve the problem and people who wanted to, could have gotten around it.
Though the day of internet protest is over, this doesn’t mean our actions should be over as well. As long as there are non-technical people in congress trying to regulate what they don’t understand (yea, I know they do it alot), these bills will always be a threat, and lurking in the shadows.
While I understand the concerns of the people pushing SOPA/PIPA to protect their intellectual property, there is no reason to destroy the internet in the process. The internet has worked so well, because it is free and limiting it only hurts those who don’t know the ways around. But you’re asking what you could do to help:
Here are a few easy things you can do:
- Educate yourself about how SOPA and PIPA work, don’t just take anyone’s word for it.
- Print and mail letters to your state’s senators and representatives, urging them not to support this. Physical mail is harder to ignore than email. It piles up. You can find representatives’ addresses here and senators’ addresses here. Remember that PIPA is a Senate bill and SOPA is a House of Representatives bill.
- Call your senators and representatives on the phone and urge them not to support the bills. See above links for phone numbers or click here to get a quick list of representatives based on where you live.
Let your elected representatives know that censoring the Internet is something you do not and cannot support. Congressmen care about getting reelected. If everyone reading this plays their part, these bills will be killed.
Change IE Bookmarks Location
Recently in my job, I was looking for a way to keep as much data on the server as possible and making the Windows boxes hold as little data as possible in case of a crash. While I already redirect the “My Documents” drive to the server (note only if you trust your users do this). We as an office generally use Internet Explorer for browsing (with some exceptions), and wanted to change the locations of the Folder.
Well after some looking around, I found the keys that need to be modified. This involves modifying the registry for the current user logged in. As I always warn: If you are editing your registry, it is recommended you know what you are doing, and you make a backup of the regisry in case anything goes wrong.
In the Registry, you’re looking at the following subkeys:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ShellFolders
and
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\UserShellFolders
Look in the right pane for the Favorites value. Note the full path to the Favorites folder. From those two keys, you just type where you want the files to go, and reboot the system and re-login as that user.
Q&A Monday: IT Education
Question:
Jim,
For someone looking to segue into IT, what is the most direct educational route to take- tech school, university, or career diploma program? In general, what do you recommend for a good IT foundation?
Tony DiPaciner
Philadelphia, Pa
Answer:
Like most questions in IT, there is a lot of debate for the best route into the Information Technology field. I personally went with a specialty school (which offered a diploma, but I went for a degree) and have been happy with the choice. The tech school method I would consider one of the quickest paths into the Information Technology field. You get the information you need, the hands on experience to help, and than quickly into the field. The downside to these kind of diploma schools is that, they tend to quickly flood the market with IT professionals with the same credentials all competing for the same jobs.
If you are more inclined to go to a 4 year college, you are required to take courses outside of the technology field, but with the flooded market, some companies will weigh a Bachelors Degree heavier than anything below it. This occurs even if the people have the same experience outside of that. The downside to that, is after 4 years where the market will be at, and the diploma guy might have a 3 years of experience head start.
If you are looking to just add some skills (as everyone in IT should), then online courses are a great primer to what you already have. All my skills in web design, come from me just designing websites and trying to copy what other sites were doing. I would read tutorials, try it myself, and then try to change it for my site. There were many days where I wanted to pull my hair out, but I eventually learned. Every Information Technology professional should be continuing your education, if you stop then you risk loosing your edge completely.
So in conclusion, it’s not a simple answer, each choice has its own benefits and its own downsides. I tend to lean towards a degree, since it does get you a heads up in the field (even if it is an unfair one), and would always recommend toying around on your own with either choice, and get some experience.
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If you have any questions that you want Jim to answer, from business servers to home computers, drop him a line at me@jimguckin.com, and he’ll try to answer your question. Check back every Monday for a new Question and Answer session, and during the rest of the week for his other technical insights.
Mobile: Apps vs Mobile Web
I’ve been asked many times where I think the future in the smart phone market is, either applications or site designed for mobile web? Now I think it’s funny that since I am in the IT field, I should know (or at least have thought on) the mobile market. But since I try to answer the questions that come in, I’ve decided to write about my wholly unprofessional opinion.
The first thing that I would look at (if I was a company struggling with this decision), was what the market place currently looks like for the mobile market. I’ve posted a grapgh below to show you what the market looks like:
Source:
What I see here, is that while there is no single competitor who hold the majority of the mobile market, is there are several big players. If I wanted to design a mobile app for my users/customers/readers/etc, I would need to design for several different platforms to make sure that I didn’t keep out anyone who wanted to access my service.
This is where I see the strength in mobile web design. I can design a website, that will work with almost all of these phones and not have to change it much from one application to another. Now the problem here, is that you would need to use technology that is supported on all these platforms (i.e. avoid Adobe Flash). I think that can be easily done, in comparison to making an app for IOS, and a version for android and a version for blackberry.
I’ve already seen some companies address this model of using a mobile site over an mobile app. Some big companies though seem to be hedging their bets by having a mobile version and versions for IOS and android. I know I’ve gone the way mobile web sites with this site (that I don’t know how to program for either Android or IOS)
Q&A Monday: Outlook 2003 problems with Exchange 2010
Question:
My company has recently upgraded our Exchange server to 2010, but I still have some users using Outlook 2003. There are plans in the next 6 months to update these remaining users, but some of them are experiencing a problem. The users have a bunch of shared calendars and are getting a connection issue, any advice?
Eric Davidson
Baltimore, MD
Answer:
The most typical problem I’ve seen with this is caused by the throttling police that is new in Exchange 2010. When an Outlook 2003 client makes a connection to a shared calendar it can open two or more connections back to the server. In Exchange 2010, this default throttling policy limits the machine to access 5 (or maybe 6) shared calendars. Since you didn’t explain how many calendars, this may be the case.
The fix to this isn’t complicated, you just need to create a special throttling policy (Great Directions HERE and tells you how to map it to users) and map this new throttling policy to your 2003 users.
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If you have any questions that you want Jim to answer, from business servers to home computers, drop him a line at me@jimguckin.com, and he’ll try to answer your question. Check back every Monday for a new Question and Answer session, and during the rest of the week for his other technical insights.
Alternatives to Outlook
I’ve been asked about this more times than I can remember, so I figured I’d just do an article about it….What are some alternatives to Microsoft Outlook. To fully disclose I still cling on to my Outlook for my windows machine, but I do use other software for my linux machines. So I’ve done some testing and some asking around and found out alternative for Microsoft Outlook. Just like I did, you should test out and find one that works for you.
- Evolution - http://projects.gnome.org/evolution/Evolution use to be one of the email software choices that I would use on my linux box’s, but now they have an experimental version for Windows. This client has many features. It’s not really that complicated to learn, but for a windows user may be a little more difficult to install (you need to be kinda an expert to install)
- Thunderbird – http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/Thunderbird from what I figure is probably one of the most popular alternatives for Outlook that I’ve found. It’s made by the same company that made the Firefox and has plenty of add-on tools out there for users to use.
- Pegasus Mail - http://www.pmail.com/Pegasus is probably one of the oldest e-mail clients out there, but seems to be the most studry e-mail client that I’ve seen. The downside, if you have an exchange system that you want to connect to, then you are kinda out of luck with this one.
- eM Client – http://www.emclient.com/Now here’s another good client that I have used, but like many out there, this doesn’t connect with Exchange. It’s optimized for XP thru Vista, and works great with 3rd party email server like Hotmail, Yahoo, and Gmail and can import from other email clients. As someone who lives off my Gmail calendar it offers a full-featured calendar that can even sync with my Gmail calendar
- Web-based SystemThis is kind of a cop-out. But Exchange like many other services (like Gmail) have a web interface that you can access. This keeps you from having to install and update the clients on each machine, and it’s generally available anywhere the internet is.
Are there other programs that you use that I didn’t mention? Did I stub you favorite email client? In the comments below let me know.
Removing Crapware
Crapware (or bloatware) is unwanted software alreay installed on a new PC. This software has started to come bundled with other software you may want on your computer.
For example most software I install on my computers now, I have to pay close attention to, because it wants to install a browser or toolbar or sometimes even virus or spyware protection. My major problem with that is that one, If I had wanted your software you wouldn’t need to trick me into using it and two, more software on a computer leads to more area of attack for some hacker to take advantage of my system.
It isn’t a trend that is going to end anytime soon, companies want to make a little extra money (especially if the product is freeware) and PC manufactures use this to offset cost of the system. I generally believe most people don’t pay attention to the useless software sitting on their computer, but to me it’s just a cluttered mess.
So I wanted to share some ways I’ve removed Crapware (bloatware) from my systems.
- Image MachinesGranted this only works in a business setting, but it’s always the quickest solution for me, especially when you have a ton of computers coming in with the same configuration. I fix a certain machine to my exacting specifications and then image the machine up and down. I prefer to do this on it’s own network and not the general network if possible to not effect the users network. Though note, that if the machines coming in are not the same, you could be in for a world of hurt. Sometimes even same models don’t have the same hardware on the inside. So make sure you know what you are doing prior to trying this method out.
- PC DeCrapifier – www.pcdecrapifier.comThis is one of the tools that I have used to remove the junk on computers, it does a quick scan for the most common Crapware that is installed on new computers and gives you the ability to choose if you want to remove it.
- Autoruns – http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspxAutoruns is a more experienced product, and should only be used if you have a professional understanding of what should be and should not be running on your computer. This program will display what is automatically set to run at start up.
Q&A Monday: Adobe PDF Printing Alternative
Question:
I am currently looking for a more cost-effective solution than adobe for printing PDF files. I am not looking to edit or create forms, just to print existing documents to PDF. While looking around I’ve found a couple products, but they wanted too much money for the full versions, any suggestions?
Davina Knight
Raft River, ID
Answer:
There is one software that I default to, when Adobe is either not available or there are limited license, and that is CutePDF (http://www.cutepdf.com/). They have a PDF writer that is Freeware, for everyone, without any watermarks. They also have paid software to do most of the things that Adobe can do as well. I’ve personally used the writer software and have had no problems with it. It’s one of those install and forget about programs, and if I had the need, would not even hesitate to buy their other products. They work great in Windows 7 and earlier versions of Windows, but don’t have a Linux version that I can see.
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If you have any questions that you want Jim to answer, from business servers to home computers, drop him a line at me@jimguckin.com, and he’ll try to answer your question. Check back every Monday for a new Question and Answer session, and during the rest of the week for his other technical insights.
Conserving Bandwidth Tips
In today’s world, IT budgets all over the place have been cut down to the bone, and maybe you’re users are starting to hog up all the bandwidth and you don’t have the money in the budget to increase the bandwidth, what do you do? Well there are ways that you can squeeze more out of your current bandwidth by adding some software or hardware solutions in place. While each individual one, may only save a little bit of bandwidth, but together they can help you squeeze a little more out of a connection.
Here are some of the quick and effective ways of squeezing every last drop out of your connection to the internet:
- Block Access to Media Streaming Websites
Videos are bandwidth hogs, pure and simple, and while the occasional video on YouTube may not kill you, the more employees you have and the more people who are streaming content, the more of a chunk that’s going to cut into your over all bandwidth. I’ve been at many a company, that didn’t block websites, and could see many users streaming video and audio, and the company wondered why their connection was slow. - Limit your use of VOIP
VoIP phone services have gotten pretty popular over time, and people forget that these phone calls also eat into your bandwidth. I would recommend that you create a policy with your workers, that phone calls be “business only”. I know, this wont go over well, but most people have cell phones, and it shouldn’t be that big of a deal. - Use a proxy
A proxy server is one of those simple solutions for bandwidth problems. Every time your computer goes to a website, it grabs the whole site every time. A proxy server downloads the site once visited and periodically checks for updates. This means the multiple computers connect to the proxy server looking for the same site, and the proxy server grabs it once and displays it to all the computers connection, saving precious bandwidth.
- Windows Update Server
This is a great way to not only kill the bandwidth slowdown, after Microsoft updates are released, but a way to make sure the updates wont effect your network, by being able to slow roll it out. The idea, was rather than 30 computers downloading 10 updates, you have 1 server downloading 10 updates, it makes less of an impression on your overall bandwidth.
- Use 3rd part mail filtering
At a company that I worked for, we hosted our own MX record and mail server. While doing some routine monitoring I noticed that a huge amount of spam hitting our mail server, our server was doing it’s job and blocking it, but still that bandwidth was still being used. We looked into a 3rd party host for our MX record, that also did virus, maleware, and spam filtering for us, and gave us that bandwidth back.
These are just some of the ways, but I’ve used these in the last couple years to help speed up some networks, and I’ve had networks where bandwidth was of critical importance, because there was so little of it to go around. If you have any other ways to save bandwidth, then please leave a comment below.
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