Configuring Schedule+ Free Busy information between the forests – Exchange 2007 & 2003

                            Configuration of Schedule Free Busy in a cross-forest topology

Let me take you back to Exchange 2003 schedule+ free busy between two different forests. Whenever we are thinking of schedule+ free busy in exchange 2003, the first thing reflect in our mind is public folder. Reason, because schedule free busy & OAB are part of system folder and system folder is stored in public folder.

Basically when we are sending a meeting request in exchange 2003 topology , it will take atleast 45 minutes to update the Free busy information and if it is interorg scenario it will might take more then that. In a inteorg scenario, we need to configure the interorg replication tool by appropriating proper permission.  So in exchange 2003 we must have public folder store for retriving the free busy information of one user’s mailbox.

Before we getting into this session please read this article
Configuring Interorg Replication Tool for replicating the Public Folder
Inter-org Replication from Exchange 2003 forest to Exchange 2007 sp1 forest

In Exchange 2007, there is drastic improvement interms of schedule free busy because no more it is stored in public folder, instead of that it is stored in user’s mailbox and time interval for free busy is 60 seconds. And the responsible guy for this update in exchange 2007 for outlook 2007 users is availability service. So before we get into the interorg schedule+ free busy between exchange 2003 and exchange 2007 forest, first let’s understand what is availability service all about.

Basic Information on Availability Service:

Availability service provides information on free/busy to outlook 2007 users of Exchange 2007 mailboxes. It uses the Autodiscover service to give out the information on free busy. This availability service is installed automatically in the Client Access Server role and perform the following function like – retriving free busy information from Exchange 2007 mailboxes of same Administrative group, between the sites and between the forests. Basically when a client makes a query for free busy information it will create a connection to the CAS server via autodiscover service using the availability url. If the user is located in the different site then it will create a https connection from source CAS to target CAS and the target CAS server will get the Free Busy information from the target mailbox via MAPI, which is then forward the request to the source CAS.

It is one of the coolest feature we have in exchange 2007 as compare to exchange 2003 because we don’t require to wait for 45 minutes to update the time interval and even we don’t really require to force the publish in exchange 2007 for outlook 2007 users.

Now I hope everyone got some information on Exchange 2007 free busy like where it get stored, who is responsible and how it works. For understanding little bit in details about availability service please look into the reference link.

Configuring schedule free busy between the forests

My topology
Forest 1:
Domain name : smile.com
Exchange Version : Exchange 2003 with sp2
Users : Created two users – Publisher and Testsmile
Client : Outlook 2003

Forest2:
Domain Name : happy.com
Exchange Version : Exchange 2007 sp1
Users : Created two users – Subscriber and testhappy.
Client : outlook 2007
One windows 2003 server – just for running interorg replication tool

Scenario:
Happy.com decided to merge with smile.com i.e., happy.com plan to acquire the smile.com completely in near feature. So happy.com and smile.com wants to share their free busy information between them.

        Scope : Happy.com should able to see the free busy information of smile.com users and vice versa.

How to achieve it:
1) Understanding of Exchange Topology in both the forest (I will explain it later in this session why need to concentrate) in the section of configuring the inter-org replication tool.
2) Configuring DNS
3) Create Forest Trust Relationship
4) Mailflow and update free busy.
5) Galsync
6) Assign Proper Permission for subscriber and publisher on exchange servers.
7) Create a ExchangesyncSecurityfolder and assign the appropriate permission & Give permission on schedule free busy for publisher and subscriber
8) Configuring the inter-org replication tool.

1) Configuring DNS:
 DNS is very important part in Active Directory. You can’t perform any single activity which is related to communication unless and until you have your DNS configured properly. For this article we need to have proper DNS, and having a secondary zone for each primary dns zone. How to achieve it click here  and look at the section called as configuring DNS.

Once you configure the DNS it doesn’t mean that we are done with dns configuration, do know why : at the time of releasing the inter-org replication it was the trend of windows NT\Windows 2000 where we have exchange 5.5 and exchange 2000, so during that time Microsoft created this tool based on netbios concept. So we need to add the ip address and netbios name of exchange servers from where we are running this tool and make sure that you are able to ping netbios and FQDN of exchange servers. As we have created the secondary zone we will able to ping the FQDN value however we will not able to ping netbios name so for that we need to add a host entry.

Adding the host entry:
 Logon to Exchange 2003 server (Reason – I am planning to run interorg replication tool from this machine)
 Go to C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
 Add the following :
  192.168.0.1 E2K7

 Logon to client machine in the happy domain (reason – first of all schedule free busy always one-way replication so we need to have one more interorg tool running from happy.com and we can’t install interorg replication tool in the Exchange 2007 server itself)
Note: Don't Install Outlook in that specific computer
 Go to C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
 Add the following :
  192.168.1.1 E2K3
Once you are done check whether you are able to ping the netbios and FQDN of exchange servers.

2) Forest Trust Relationship:
 I hope everyone knows what is my current topology -  inorder to have perfect inter-org replication we need to have trust relationship between these forests. So far I have installed Exchange 2007 in my happy active directory and Exchange 2003 in my smile active directory and configured one tunnel so that they can able to communicate with each other, inorder to do this you need to make the Active directory as forest functional level and then configure forest trust relationship
How to create forest trust relationship click here :  and refer the point 2 - Creating forest trust between these two forest:

3) Mailflow and update free busy:
Before we could configure interorg replication tool i.e creating a connection for outside world first we need to confirm the following things:
 Are you able to send email internally?
 Are you able to send meeting request internally?
 Created a mail connector for both the exchange servers?
 Are they able to send and receive email properly and also able to receive meeting request.
 Does your Exchange 2003 & Exchange 2007 updating the free busy information for their own mailboxes?
If you are answer for all the above question is “YES” then proceed further otherwise work on that and then proceed.

4) Galsync:
You need to have contacts for all the users of both the forests i.e happy.com users should have contacts of users who are in the smile.com and vice-versa.
For configuring the galsync refer this link and follow the instruction for galsynchronization.
As I am doing a test for schedule free busy where I have only 2 users for each forest, so simply created a contacts manually
Figure 1-A:
Happy.com


Figure 1-B

 

5) Assign Proper Permission for subscriber and publisher:
Inorder to  have interorg replication to work fine you need to assign them atleast exchange view administrator only. In my situation I have given them as owner permission
Figure 2-A:
Exchange 2007 – happy.com


Figure 2-B:
Exchange 2003 – smile.com
 

6) Create a ExchangesyncSecurityfolder and assign the appropriate permission:
 I don’t want to discuss about exchangesyncSecurityfolder, if you would like to know information about ExchangesyncSecurityfolder click here on the following link:
Configuring Interorg Replication Tool for replicating the Public Folder
Inter-org Replication from Exchange 2003 forest to Exchange 2007 sp1 forest

How to create ExchsyncSecurityFolder:
For Exchange 2003 forest:
>>> Create a public folder called as “ExchsyncSecurityFolder” and assign a visible permission.
>>> Assigned Publisher mailbox account as owner for schedule free busy folder
Figure 3-A


Assigned Publisher mailbox account as owner for the schedule free busy
Figure 3-B:

 

How to create ExchsynSecurityFolder and assign permission for ExchsyncSecurity Folder and Schedule Free busy in Exchange 2007 org:
 Logon to Exchange 2007 Server
 Open Exchange Management Console
 Toolbox
 Public Folder Management Console (This is the new feature added with sp1)
 From the action pane : click on Connect to Server and add the new public folder database server name.
 Then Select Default Public Folders and click on Create new public folder
  Create a folder called as ExchsyncSecurityFolder
 Once we have created the ExchsyncSecurityFolder we need to assign him atleast a foldervisible permission I have given owner permission for subscriber mailbox (note : For security reason you need to give folder visible)
 Inorder to assign the permission open the Exchange Management Shell and run this following command : Add-PublicFolderClientPermission -Identity "\ExchsyncSecurityFolder" -AccessRights Owner -User subscriber

Assign owner permission for schedule+ free busy folder :
 inorder to assign owner permission run this following command : Add-PublicFolderClientPermission -Identity "\NON_IPM_SUBTREE\SCHEDULE+ FREE BUSY\EX:/o=HAPPY/ou=Exchange Administrative Group (FYDIBOHF23SPDLT)" -AccessRights Owner -User subscriber

7) Configuring Interorg Replication Tool for schedule free busy:
As I said earlier it is always one-way directional replication for free busy, so first we will configure the interorg replication tool in Exchange 2003 Server then we will configure for Exchange 2007 organization:
 Download Exchsync.exe from this link
 Extract it
 Double-click excfg.exe and put this following information:
 Click on Session => Add and select Schedule Free Busy
Note: This section also as same like how we configured free busy inter-org replicaction setting in Exchange 2003 server see here 
Figure 4:


If you see the above configuration I have just given the netbios name of both servers, this is very important
Under Schedule – I have set 5 minutes but recommended to keep it for atleast 30 minutes.
Logging : I have enabled it.
Advanced : Given the account information
Site List : Unchecked All Sites, Clicked on Logon and Selected the Smile First Administrative Group
 Then click on Ok and save this file as “Schedule.esc”
 Click on exssrv.exe
 Then click on Install
 Give the following details as per the screen:
Figure 5:

 
 Then click on Start and wait till it complete interorg replication interval : in my case I have set it for 5 mins.
Figure6:
 

If you see the above screen it will give you last completion status as successful.
Note : If you are getting any errors in the completion status then that means your interorg replication service is not configured properly most of the time permission issue. For troubleshooting you can check the logs.

Once we are done on Exchange 2003 interorg tool, do you think that we are able to see the free busy information of Exchange 2003 org users in Exchange 2007 org for outlook 2007 users. Answer is in the background it is working you might see on outlook 2003, but not in outlook 2007. Because Exchange 2003 is configured to access only http url by default however later we can change it to https or configure SSL certificate. But if we have http access in exchange 2003, users in Exchange 2007 server who is having outlook 2007 will not able see that information, reason is Exchange 2007 has it’s own certificate installed and 128-bit encryption is enabled for all virtual directories which is including the public folder as well so when we have 128-bit encryption it will try to give only https output. So we need to uncheck 128-bit encryption setting or configure your exchange 2003 with SSL Certificate. That’s why I told you initially we need to understand Exchange topology of both the organization.

In my situation I have unchecked 128-bit encryption:
Inorder to do this :
 Logon to exchange 2007 server
 Open the IIS
 Expand Default Web Site
 Go to the properties of Public
 Click on Directory Security Tab
 Under Server Certificate, click on Edit and uncheck 128-bit encryption
Figure 7:


> Then logon to Exchange 2007 server
> Open the Exchange Management Shell and type the following command : Add-AvailabilityAddressSpace -ForestName smile.com -AccessMethod PublicFolder

 Then close the outlook 2007 if you have opened it already and re-open it back and then add the Exchange 2003 organization users in the schedule meeting it should show out the free busy status:
Figure 8:
 

So we are done with free busy replication from Exchange 2003 org to Exchange 2007 org. now it is a time for configuring the free busy replication from Exchange 2007 to Exchange 2003. Inorder to do it we need to follow the below steps

Configuring Free Busy information from Exchange 2007 to Exchange 2003:
 We need to have one computer where we don’t have Exchange 2007 installed nor outlook installed, in my case I have one server called as client where I don’t have any application running.
 If you try to run interorg replication tool it won’t work at all and it will give you the error message : “Unable to initialize the MAPI interface”
 First thing we need to install ExchangeMapicdo, you can get this from this link
 Once you install ExchangeMapicdo : it will create a folder called Exchange Mapi under C:\Program files.
Figure 9:
 

 Now copy all the dll files from C:\Program Files\ExchangeMapi to C:\Windows\System32
 Under C:\windows\System32 rename MAPI32.dll to MAPI32.dllold and rename EXMAPI32.dll to mapi32.dll
 Now configure the interorg replication tool: as same like what we did on Exchange 2003 interorg replication tool.
Note : only thing we need to change is in publisher table we need to put the service account of Exchange 2007 mailbox and under subscriber table we need to put the information of exchange 2003 service account
Service account for Exchange 2007 : subscriber
Service account for Exchange 2003 : publisher and rest all are same
Figure 10:


 Configure the exssrv.exe as like we did for Exchange 2003 org
Figure11:

 
 Then click on start
 Now it should show as Successful under “Last Completion Status”
Figure 12:
 

Now lets see the free busy information for subscriber and testhappy users contact under Exchange 2003 org
Figure13
 

I hope that this article is very helpful for you all. Thank you for your time.

Upcoming Article:
Schedule Free Busy – Cross Forest Topology in Exchange 2007

Related Article:
Configuring Interorg Replication Tool for replicating the Public Folder 
Inter-org Replication from Exchange 2003 forest to Exchange 2007 sp1 forest

Reference Link:
Understanding the Availability Service
Availability Service FAQs
What does Exchange 2007 Availability Service do?
How to Configure the Availability Service for Cross-Forest Topologies
Managing the Availability Service