Chapter 10. Outlook Web Access 2003

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Understanding OWA and the Exchange Virtual Server

• Designing an Exchange Front-end/Back-end OWA Architecture

• Configuring Front-end and Back-end Servers

• Upgrading Existing Exchange 2000 Front-end OWA Servers

• Best Practices

Beginning with Exchange 5.5, the Outlook Web Access (OWA) tool has offered users the ability to view email information from a Web browser. Early versions of the OWA client were cumbersome, lacked functionality, and didn't scale very well beyond a few hundred connections. With Exchange 2000, the OWA client was rewritten and improved, but still lacked many of the functional characteristics of the full Outlook client. The Outlook Web Access Client in Exchange Server 2003, however, is vastly improved and closer than ever to full Outlook client functionality.

As the OWA client has improved, the need for the Exchange Server infrastructure to support and streamline OWA has risen as well. In the past, many organizations removed or disabled OWA functionality for security or support reasons. With Exchange Server 2003, the arguments against using OWA are diminished, and it becomes more important to analyze how OWA can fit into a client access plan.

This chapter focuses on configuring an Exchange Server 2003 to support Outlook Web Access functionality. It focuses on best practices of front-end/back-end server configuration, including network load balancing (NLB) and front-end server upgrade considerations.