Foreword

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Tony knows Exchange!

I recall early on the job of running the Exchange server business unit being introduced to someone described to me as an "Exchange legend." That person turned out to be someone who has been around the messaging business for a very long time. At Digital Equipment Corp, at Compaq, and now at HP. That person turned out to be someone who knows an awful lot about Exchange too. That person turned out to be Tony Redmond.

Tony's relationship with the Exchange product extends back to the inception days of Version 4.0 up to today. His feedback and input into the product group have been instrumental in helping us build what today is the premier messaging and collaboration platform.

In this book, Tony takes you on an in-depth tour of Exchange Server 2003. This is a product that we have worked on for the last three years.

To us, it was called "Titanium." Our goal was to build the best messaging server the world had ever seen.

We wanted users to have access to their mailboxes from anywhere. We wanted users working offline to enjoy the power they had online (shared investment with Outlook 2003 in cache mode). We wanted users to access their mailboxes from their mobile phones (Outlook Mobile Access and Exchange ActiveSync). We wanted users to access their mailboxes from home or a hotel room without the need for a smart card (RPC over HTTP). We wanted users to access their mailboxes from kiosks and casual machines (Outlook Web Access). We even invested in allowing users to access their mailboxes from non-Internet Explorer or older version clients (BASIC experience OWA).

We wanted administrators to have the power to consolidate sites (cache exchange mode and MAPI bandwidth improvements). We wanted administrators to easily migrate from Exchange 5.5 (migration tools). We improved our clustering support (eight-node clusters). We supported query-based distribution lists. We supported volume shadow services and recovery groups for optimal disaster planning and recovery scenarios.

We improved our antivirus support and added antispam features into the product. We invested in trustworthy computing. We invested in secure messaging and S/MIME.

But first and foremost, we invested in quality.

We built a product that we are truly proud of, and Tony is the right person to walk you through it in this book.

I hope that you enjoy this book and Exchange Server 2003 as much as I have.

Mohsen Al-Ghosein
Vice President, Microsoft Exchange
Microsoft Corp.
June 2003

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