Bulk Mailbox creating mailboxes in Exchange 2010 multi-tenant
I recently received this email in my inbox so I thought it would be a good idea to dedicate a post answering this question.
Hi Antoine,
First of all, I'd like to thank you for you blog, I used your guide to set up an Exchange 2010 multi tenant set up and it worked like a dream! Very clear instructions, just what I needed to guide us through the potential minefield!
Do you have any blog posts or examples on how to bulk create mailbox in a multi tenant environment, I'd like to a take a spreadsheet with users name, e-mail address etc. and create multiple mailboxes using a powershell script. I'm a GUI man at heart and I find powershell tricky at the best of times. I saw your blog on how to import PST files which I also think will be very useful.
Any help you can offer would be greatly appreciated.
Before getting started, and if you are new to Exchange 2010 multi-tenant mode I suggest you check the list of tutorials I wrote : Exchange 2010 hosting for hosters.
Lab Setup
For this tutorial I am using a single exchange server in hosting mode running all the roles, but the number of exchange servers you have in your setup will not change anything.
I have also created 2 test organizations for this tutorial TestOrg1 and TestOrg2.
A look to the CSV file
Creating a DAG in Exchange 2010 SP1 multi-tenant mode
After my posts about Exchange multi-tenant or hosting mode I got a lot of questions about how to create Database Availability Group, or DAG, when running Exchange hosted. So I decided to dedicate a post on how to configure/create DAG using powershell.
Technically the below applies to any exchange setup but, since when running in hosting mode there is no more Exchange Management Console, it might be specially useful if you are trying to configure a DAG while running exchange in multi-tenant mode.
The setup
For this article I am using 2 Exchange 2010 SP1 servers running the mailbox role in multi-tenant mode configured as below
| Name | LAN IP | Replication network IP |
| VSMBX1 | 10.2.1.71 | 192.168.99.71 |
| VSMBX2 | 10.2.1.72 | 192.168.99.72 |
Disable & Enable Organizations in Exchange 2010 SP1 multi-tenant
One thing I have noticed while working with Exchange 2010 SP1 installed in hosting (or multi-tenant) mode is the lack of the possibility to disable/enable a tenant organization.
There is a lot of scenarios when disabling a tenant organization can be very handy and useful. For example if a client didn't pay, you might want to suspend his account without deleting the whole organization and making him lose data.
I have recently developed my own scripts to disable and enable, or suspend and resume, a specific organization for a client of mine and never thought of sharing them until yesterday when this same question popped up on the technet forum and I thought that they might be helpful for some of you so here they are.
Disclaimer
I need to start with a disclaimer, I have built these script for my own use so they are not polished and might be lacking a lot of features and surely have some bugs. Although I am ready to work on them and enhance them if they find interest and feedback I am not to be held responsible for any damage they might cause to your environment. So, in short,
THE SCRIPTS ARE PROVIDED FREE OF CHARGE AND "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, AND MAY NOT BE ERROR FREE. ANTOINE KHATER, THE AUTHOR OF THESE SCRIPTS, DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES AND LIABILITY FOR ANY KIND OF DAMAGES AND/OR LOSS.
Step-by-step Starting with Exchange 2010 SP1 multi-tenant: Sending and receiving emails
This tutorial is part of 4 parts tutorial on Exchange 2010 multi-tenancy support
Part 1: Installation of Exchange 2010 SP1 in hosting mode
Part 2: Creating and deleting Organizations in Exchange 2010 SP1 hosting mode
Part 3: Managing Organization in Exchange 2010 SP1 hosting mode
Part 4: Sending and receiving emails in Exchange 2010 SP1 hosting mode
Well I didn't think I would dedicate one post for just "sending/receiving emails" in Exchange 2010 hosting mode however I didn't know where to fit this part so here goes the 4th, and last, part of this tutorial "Step by step starting with Exchange 2010 SP1 multi-tenant"
Receiving email
It is well known that if your exchange 2007/2010 is internet facing you will need to add "Anonymous" to the permission groups of the "Default Receive Connector" on your Hub transport server. Exchange 2010 running in hosted mode is no exception however there is no Exchange Management Console anymore to do this change so we will need to do it through powershell by running the following command. Of course don't forget to replace "Exchange" by your Hub server name.
Step-by-step Starting with Exchange 2010 SP1 multi-tenant: Manage your organizations
This tutorial is part of 4 parts tutorial on Exchange 2010 multi-tenancy support
Part 1: Installation of Exchange 2010 SP1 in hosting mode
Part 2: Creating and deleting Organizations in Exchange 2010 SP1 hosting mode
Part 3: Managing Organization in Exchange 2010 SP1 hosting mode
Part 4: Sending and receiving emails in Exchange 2010 SP1 hosting mode
In part 1 of this tutorial we have seen how to install exchange 2010 SP1 in hosting mode and in part 2 we learned to Create and Delete organizations. I will show you today in this tutorial the basic management of an organization like creating/deleting mailboxes.
Managing mailboxes as a hosting company
Creating mailboxes
We need to make the difference here between you, as a hosting company, creating users in a specific organization and the Organization Administrator creating users for its own organization.
Step-by-step Starting with Exchange 2010 SP1 multi-tenant: Create and delete organizations
This tutorial is part of 4 parts tutorial on Exchange 2010 multi-tenancy support
Part 1: Installation of Exchange 2010 SP1 in hosting mode
Part 2: Creating and deleting Organizations in Exchange 2010 SP1 hosting mode
Part 3: Managing Organization in Exchange 2010 SP1 hosting mode
Part 4: Sending and receiving emails in Exchange 2010 SP1 hosting mode
In part 1 of this tutorial I have showed you how to install Exchange 2010 SP1 multi-tenant (or in hosting mode).
Today we will go over the process of creating and deleting organizations and mailboxes mailboxes.
A look at Service Plans
Before doing a jump start and create an organization we need to take a look at some files located on your CAS server called Service Plans.
Service plans are located by default in "C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V14\ClientAccess\ServicePlans" of your CAS server and they define the different services your hosted organization provides to its customer.