Chapter 1: Introducing Exchange Server 2007

Overview

A hint of understanding passed over the butler's stoic face when he found the bloodstained candelabra, but loyalty to the master would prevent him from saying…oh, sorry, wrong book. Let's try this again. One of the most common misconceptions that even experienced Exchange administrators are making when approaching Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 is to assume it is a "point" release. It is too bad that Microsoft has moved away from a system that more objectively identifies the significance of the release, such as v4.0, v5.0, v5.5, and so on. Now the products are named without actually including major or minor versions.

Someone simply examining the product names Exchange Server 2003 and Exchange Server 2007 might not think there have been significant changes. Although moving from Exchange 2000 or Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2007 is not quite as significant as moving from Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2000, Exchange Server 2007 does introduce enough new features and a major shift in the administration model that it must be considered a major release.

During the year coming up to the initial release of Exchange 2007, experienced Exchange administrators have often made comments similar to this: "Exchange 2003 already has most of the features and functions that we need. How could it significantly be improved?" Clearly, Exchange 2007 offers a significant enough number of improvements that all Exchange administrators will see some of the advantages in upgrading. Many sessions have been attended at TechEd, seminars have been held, and literally hundreds of articles and blog entries have been written about Exchange 2007. Arguably, Exchange 2007 is the most anticipated release of Exchange Server ever. Certainly it is the most widely hyped. The improvements (along with the misconceptions about Exchange 2007) have been widely discussed.

We'll discuss these improvements in this chapter, but in short Exchange 2007 introduces simplified administration as well as improvements in e-mail life cycle management, scalability, the availability of services, security, and internal SharePoint portals.

Summarizing even a few of the new features in this brief introduction is difficult, but early adopters of Exchange 2007 have reported the following features to be some of the most popular and useful:

• Powerful message transport rules applied and enforced at the server

• Continuously replicated Exchange databases for both clustered servers and nonclustered servers

• Vastly improved anti-spam features

• Customizable "over quota" and nondelivery messages

• Exchange Management Shell command line and scripting interface

• Transportable databases (databases that can be restored to a different server)

• Improved calendaring support via calendar concierge, the Availability service, and resource mailboxes

• Simplified permissions model and message routing

• Unified messaging technology that is now an integrated part of Exchange Server 2007

This list could go on for the entire chapter, but this gives you a taste of a few of the features that Exchange administrators as well as administrators from other messaging systems are getting excited about when they talk about Exchange 2007.

In this chapter, we will cover the changes to Exchange 2007 not only to give experienced Exchange administrators the proper perspective on Exchange 2007 but also to educate newly minted Exchange administrators on just how powerful Exchange has become and some of the new features.

Topics in this chapter include the following:

• The evolution of e-mail

• The new features of Exchange 2007

• Features and functions being deemphasized or phased out

• Some common points of confusion