Celebrating 10 Years as a Microsoft MVP!

Back from my vacation, I am thrilled to share that I have been awarded the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award for the 10th consecutive year. In addition to being recognized as an expert within Teams, I am have also been recognized as an expert with Microsoft Copilot. This means a lot to me.  Being an MVP has been an incredibly rewarding journey, both personally and professionally. It has provided me with countless opportunities to grow, learn, and connect with like-minded professionals who share a passion for technology and innovation.  The award is not just a title; it's a testament to the hard work, dedication, and contributions to the tech community. It's a privilege to be part of such an esteemed group of individuals who share the same love for technology, and sharing their knowledge about it.  As I reflect on the past decade, I am thankful for the experiences and knowledge I've gained. This recognition motivates me to continue sharing my expertise, mentor

Name vs. ip.addr. in the year 2008?

Here’s a problem I thought was history. In an environment with DHCP and DNS, I thought it was impossible to get things wrong. But obviously, I am the one who’s wrong.

I have been troubleshooting a Voicemail system with strange symptoms. Where among the strange log messages were: Could not locate %dbname% on server %hostname%. The database was running on the same server as the voicemail application, and name resolution was not an issue. Or so I thought. I tested name resolution through nslookup and tried to ping by using various names (hostname and fqdn). Everything seemed to be working. As a last desperate test, I changed the configuration in several places, to reflect the server’s ip-address instead of it’s hostname (inserted to the config by default during installation). Wonders of all wonders this solved my problems.