Chapter 1: Introducing Exchange Server 2003

Microsoft Exchange Server has been a leading collaborative product since its introduction in April 1996. Exchange Server is one of the best-selling server applications in Microsoft’s history. With each new release, Microsoft has added functionality to enhance Exchange Server’s capabilities. The latest version, Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, builds on the superior performance and features that Exchange users have come to expect.

This chapter provides an overview of the capabilities and structure of Exchange Server, discussing the components of Exchange Server architecture—in particular, how those components are organized and how they interact to provide a comprehensive messaging system. It also offers a look at the powerful new features of Exchange Server 2003. Exchange Server is a complex program, but with a little dissection you will see how its complexity can benefit any enterprise.

What Is Exchange Server?

So, what is Exchange Server? Ask three different administrators and you’re liable to get three different answers. Is it a messaging system? Is it a groupware product? Is it a development platform? The answer is all three.

As a messaging system, Exchange Server 2003 represents the state of the art in reliability, scalability, and performance. Over the past couple of decades, electronic messaging has become one of the dominant methods of business communication, and Exchange Server is one of the most popular messaging systems in the world.

The term groupware was coined in the 1980s to describe products that could be used to create collaborative applications in which people share access to a collection of centralized documents and resources. These days, we just call it collaborative software. Exchange Server 2003 lets you store and share virtually any type of document within the Exchange system. Exchange Server can also automatically send copies of documents to different physical information stores, making the use of shared documents across an organization much more efficient.

Microsoft Outlook 2003 is the newest version of Microsoft’s premier messaging and collaboration client for use with Exchange Server 2003. It allows users to send and receive messages that include many different types of data, to share scheduling and contact information, to participate in public folder discussions, and even to access both network and local file systems.

Exchange Server is also increasingly being used as a development platform— that is, as a basis for creating applications and systems to address the specific needs of organizations. For example, you can use it to create forms that extend the capabilities of a simple message. You can even attach application logic to those forms and then configure Exchange Server to route the forms to specific users or destinations, where they can undergo further modification. Additional tools allow you to access and manipulate the information stored in Exchange Server or to take advantage of Exchange Server’s delivery services.

As you can see, Exchange Server is a multifaceted and complex product. By the time you complete this book, you will fully understand how to use Exchange Server to implement and administer all these features, and you will be equipped to exploit Exchange Server to its fullest.