Exchange 2007 Server Roles

To learn and know-more about Exchange 2007, knowing the role is important. This section, we would like to share the role available:

Edge Transport Role
The Edge Transport server role is deployed in DMZ as a stand-alone server. Short word, SMTP server which we used to use. It is not required to be a domain member, the Edge Transport server handles all Internet-facing mail flow, like we mentioned ealier, SMTP and smart host services for the Exchange organization, no more IIS or thrid party apps for smart host. Edge Transport Role, with Forefront, provide protection against viruses and spam, apply transport rules to control message flow, and provide connection security. Mentioned in previous section, you can have rules here.

Hub Transport Role
Deployed inside the Active Directory forest, or in the LAN normally, the Hub Transport server role handles all mail flow inside the organization, applies transport rules, applies journaling policies, and delivers messages to a recipient's mailbox. Likewise, mails that flow to Internet will pass to the Edge Transport Server. If think that you are not going to deploy Edge Transport server, then configure the Hub Transport server to relay Internet messages directly.

Client Access Role
The Client Access server role accepts connections to exchange server from a variety of different clients. This include outlook, other mail client as well as mobile devices.

Mailbox Role
The Mailbox server role hosts mailbox databases, which contain users' mailboxes and public folders (If you choose that you still have pre Outlook 2007 client during installation, only public folder database created). It allows mailbox access through MAPI and handles core messaging functions. Besides, Mailbox server role improves the information worker experience by providing richer calendaring functionality, resource management, and offline address book downloads.

Unified Messaging Role
The Unified Messaging server role enables users to access their voice mail, e-mail, fax messages, and calendar information that is located in their Exchange Inbox. Unified Messaging combines voice messaging, fax, and e-mail into one Inbox, which can be accessed from the telephone and the computer. Unified Messaging integrates Exchange Server 2007 with the telephony network. We yet to find which telephony network or PABX that support UM.

Till then,

Happy reading.

Vista - a briefing from Jeff

Thanks for Jeff (From Microsoft Malaysia) who is kind enough to share with us his research and experience with Windows Vista. Its really an enjoyed session. We MCT Malaysia, got the first hand knowledge of Vista, in Beta 2. FYI, RC1 is coming out soon.

Shall I wait for Exchange 2007 or go to Exchange 2003?

Shall I wait for Exchange 2007 or implement Exchange 2003 currently?

Some of our existing customer which is implementing Exchange 2003, ask us, shall we wait?

Let us share with you – please find out the different between Exchange 2003 and Exchange 2007, listed in the table below:

Since this blog dont allow me to draw a table, list it in the picture below:

What Exchange 5.5/2000/2003 administrators need to know to move to next version

What we would like everyone that is either in Exchange 5.5/Exchange 2000 or Exchange 2003, what you need to know to move forward to Exchange 2007. START PLANNING...

Take note on soon discontinued features

Public Folders
Microsoft mentioned that SPS (Microsoft SharePoint Services) can perform better. As for system folders, which an important element in previous Exchange is now remove from Exchange 2007. Good news!

CDOEx, WebDav, ExOLEDB
These APIs, yes, is discouraged to use. The reasons due to these services need to run in the Exchange server itself. Exchange 2007 provides more rich web-based APIs which support in hosting in different server.

As for those discontinued features

Administrative Groups
Exchange 2000 introduced this to comply with Exchange 5.5. Since Exchange 2007 does not allow Exchange 5.5 servers in the same Organization, it is now relies on Active Directory administrative Topology!

Routing Groups
Lots of people has the headache to plan on this as it is different compared with AD Site and Services. Good new is, Exchange 2007 now uses AD site as a boundary for routing messages.

Co-existence with Exchange 5.5
As predicted, Microsoft Exchange 2007 doest not allow Exchange 5.5 in its Organization. In addition, there is no direct upgrade path from Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2007. You will need to upgrade to Exchange 2003 first.

OWA to Public Folders
With the Anywhere Access for document (with SPS) and Universal Naming Convension (UNC) shared folder, PF in OWA is now out the picture.

OMA
EAS (Exchange Active Sync) replace OMA, introduced in Exchange 2003. This solved many issues on technical with OMA.

Exchange 2007 - Cool features

Exchange 2007 at last comes out to the market.

We are please that UEMB being selected as the TAP. We would like to share out some features available in E2007.

E2007 supports new data protection mechanisms – LCR & CCR. Local Continuous Replication, the Exchange server maintain a duplicate of storage group on another volume in the server. In Clustered Continuous Replication, another physical server maintains a copy of the storage group.

As for security, E2007 provides improved message security and regulatory compliance – allow establish sender, recipient, connection based anti spam! Besides, it can detect the Sender reputation to avoid any attack on the server. Storage rules now can be defined that allow message retention. Lastly, still remember SmartScreen technology in Exchange 2003 SP2? In E2007, it will then automatically update.

Administration part, the Exchange Management Console replaces Exchange System Manager. Exchange Management Shell provides a powerful, scriptable administrative environment. With Outlook 2007, Exchange 2007 support client AutoDiscover.

With the hottest topic, Unified Messaging Services, now you can have one inbox for e-mail, faxes, and voice mail!

In our next post, we will mentioned more about Hardware and Infrastructure requirements.

My server do not seems to start in Windows Server 2000/2003 - MSCONFIG

Hi all,

Good day. Sorry for not posting for days. This post, would like to share about if you have Windows 2000/2003 servers not be able to start normally - what should we do?

Still remember MSCONFIG in windows 98? Simply just copy it to your tumb drive, boot up Windows 2000/2003 in the safe mode, launch MSCONFIG.exe

You can then control what service/application to start during boot up. In this case, just select the minimum programs/applications to start.

Me myslef find out this is a good/fast way to perform such a scenario. Hope this help.