Chapter 13: Connecting with Other Messaging Systems

As you learned in Chapter 8, ‚“Building Administrative and Routing Groups, ‚½ Exchange Server 2003 relies on various connectors to provide messaging links between routing groups in an organization. Connectors are also used to provide messaging links between Exchange organizations and external messaging systems. The external messaging system could be a legacy system you have in place on your own network, a messaging system (even another Exchange organization) on someone else ‚ s network, or the Internet itself. Exchange Server 2003 comes with a few general-use connectors, such as the X.400 and SMTP Connectors, which are used to establish communications with other systems capable of using these same protocols. In addition, Exchange Server 2003 comes with several specialized connectors used to establish communications with the Novell GroupWise and Lotus Notes messaging systems.

This chapter begins with a look at two of the general-purpose connectors: the X.400 Connector and the SMTP Connector. Since the basic configuration of these was covered when we discussed linking routing groups together in Chapter 8, we will look at the differences in configuring the connectors to be used with external systems. We will also look at the details of using the SMTP Connector to enable communications with the Internet. From there, we will turn our attention to the Novell GroupWise and Lotus Notes connectors.

Connecting to X.400 Systems

If you recall from Chapter 8, the X.400 Connector can be used to link Exchange routing groups in the same organization and also to link an Exchange organization to a foreign, X.400-based messaging system. When you create an X.400 Connector, the computer on which the connector is configured becomes a bridgehead server to the foreign system.

It is important to note that you can also configure the X.400 Connector between Exchange Server 2003 routing groups when connectivity between them is poor. The X.400 Connector uses standard messaging-based data transfer from one end of the connection to the other, while the routing group connector uses Remote Procedure Calls (RPCs). RPCs require reliable connectivity to function properly.

Note ‚  

Unlike the Routing Group Connector, which can automatically create a connector at the opposite end of the connection for you, X.400 connectors will need to be configured manually on both ends to ensure proper communications occur.

To configure the X.400 Connector in Exchange Server 2003, you first must create a Message Transfer Agent (MTA) Service Transport Stack . This Transport Stack is configured on a particular Exchange server and is basically a set of information about the software and hardware making up the underlying network. The use of the Transport Stack allows for a layer of abstraction between the X.400 Connector and the network itself. You can configure Transport Stacks that support either the TCP/IP or X.25 protocols.

After creating the Transport Stack, you must create the connector. Exercise 13.1 outlines the basic steps for creating a new TCP/IP Transport Stack and an X.400 Connector to use that stack.

Many of the property pages used to configure an X.400 Connector were previously discussed in detail in Chapter 8. However, three of the pages are relevant only to configuring external X.400 connections. Those pages are covered in the next few sections.

EXERCISE 13.1: Creating a TCP/IP Transport Stack and an X.400 Connector

1. Click Start > Programs > Microsoft Exchange > System Manager.

2. Expand the Administrative Groups folder, the administrative group, and then the server on which you want to create the stack.

3. Expand the Protocols container, right-click the X.400 container, and choose New TCP/IP X.400 Service Transport Stack from the context menu.

4. Use the property pages that open to configure the new stack, and click OK when you have finished.

5. Locate the routing group for which you want to create the connector.

6. Right-click the Connectors container and choose the New TCP X.400 Connector option from the context menu.

7. This opens the property pages that you must configure for the new connector. After you have configured these pages, you must get the administrator of the external X.400 system to create the corresponding connector to your system.

 

Override Properties

The Override page, shown in Figure 13.1, lets you configure settings that override the local MTA settings when messages are sent over the X.400 Connector. For the most part, you can leave these advanced settings alone. When connecting to a foreign X.400 system, that system ‚ s administrator will be able to tell you the settings that need to be adjusted.

Figure 13.1: Configuring override properties for an X.400 Connector

You can also override the name and password of your local MTA. This is used mainly when the name and password of the local MTA are too long or use characters or spaces that MTAs on foreign systems cannot accept. The overriding values are used only for the X.400 connection.

Address Space Properties

Foreign systems do not necessarily use the same addressing scheme as Exchange Server 2003. For this reason, the Exchange MTA relies on address spaces to choose foreign gateways over which messages should be sent. An address space is the part of an address that designates the system that should receive the message. For example, look at a typical Internet address: user @company.com. Everything after the @ sign is the address space. The format of the address space is enough to tell the MTA that the message should be sent via SMTP.

The Address Space property sheet, shown in Figure 13.2, lets you configure an address space for the foreign X.400 system to which you are connecting. The Exchange MTA compares the destination address of outgoing messages with this address space to determine whether the outgoing messages should be sent over the X.400 Connector.

Figure 13.2: Configuring address spaces for an X.400 Connector

Clicking the Add button opens an Add Address Space dialog box, shown in Figure 13.3, which allows you to specify the type of address space that you want to add. Because you are connecting to a foreign X.400 system, you want to configure an X.400 address space.

Figure 13.3: Choosing an address space type

After you choose the X.400 address space type and click OK, the X.400 Address Space Properties dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 13.4. The particular addressing information that needs to be configured for the foreign system should be provided by the administrator of the foreign system. X.400 addresses are case-sensitive and need to be typed in exactly the same format as provided.

Figure 13.4: Configuring the address space

Advanced Properties

The Advanced page, shown in Figure 13.5, is used to specify options for MTA conformance, links, and message attributes. The settings depend mostly on the specifications of the foreign system to which you are connecting.

Figure 13.5: Configuring Advanced properties for an X.400 Connector

Table 13.1 lists the properties available on the Advanced page.

Table 13.1: Advanced Properties for an X.400 Connector

Property	Description
Allow BP-15 (in addition to BP-14)	The Body Part 15 (BP-15) standard is part of the 1988 X.400 recommendation and supports several advanced messaging features, such as the encoding of binary attachments. The Body Part 14 (BP-14) standard is part of the older 1984 X.400 recommendation, which supports fewer features. If you do not select the Allow BP-15 option, only the BP-14 standard will be used.
Allow Exchange Contents	Microsoft Exchange supports the use of Extended MAPI-compliant clients , which in turn support such features as rich-text format. Make sure that any foreign X.400 system to which you are connecting supports such features before you allow them to be transferred.
Two-Way Alternate	The Two-Way Alternate specification is an X.400 standard in which two connected X.400 systems take turns transmitting and receiving information. If the foreign system to which you are connecting supports this option, enabling it can greatly improve transmission speed.
X.400 Bodypart For Message Text	This option specifies how message text should be formatted. Unless you are communicating with foreign systems that use foreign-language applications, leave this value at its default setting, International Alphabet 5 (IA5).
X.400 Conformance	X.400 standards are periodically published as recommendations. Exchange Server 2003 supports the two primary recommendations: those issued in 1984 and those from 1988. New updates have been made to the standard since 1988, but they don ‚ t really form a new recommendation. The 1988 recommendation itself has two versions: normal mode and X.410 mode. The default setting is 1988 normal mode, and you can expect it to work with most foreign X.400 systems.
Global Domain Identifier	The global domain identifier (GDI) is a section of the X.400 address space of the target system. The GDI is used to prevent message loops that can occur with outgoing messages. The administrator of the foreign X.400 system will let you know if you need to modify these values.