Why This Chapter Matters

One of the most fundamental aspects of deploying a new network application—especially one as complicated as Exchange Server 2003—is planning. Lack of planning and flaws in the planning stage are the leading causes of implementation failure and other significant problems.

Exchange Server 2003 integrates extensively with Active Directory directory service, which makes proper planning even more important. In this chapter, you'll learn what you should consider when planning an Exchange Server 2003 deployment, including preparing the Active Directory forest and domain for an Exchange Server 2003 installation. You will also install Exchange Server 2003.

In the next several chapters, you will install Exchange Server 2003 into a number of environments: a clean installation (this chapter); to coexist with Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5 in an existing organization (Chapter 4); upgrading or migrating to Exchange Server 2003 from Exchange Server 5.5, Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server, and foreign messaging systems (Chapter 5); and finally you will install Exchange Server 2003 in a clustered environment (Chapter 6).