Connectivity and Migration Tools

Information is stored in various places within a corporation. For employees , business partners , and customers to collaborate effectively, these islands of information must be connected and made accessible. To enable this, Exchange Server has a number of built-in migration and coexistence tools.

A series of connectors enables an Exchange Server system to coexist with other types of collaborative systems. These connectors ensure the reliable delivery of messages between Exchange Server and these other systems, but the connector's capabilities do not stop there. These connectors, such as the Lotus Notes connector, can also provide directory synchronization between two systems. Directory synchronization gives clients on both systems the ability to query the directory for users on another system. This global, unified directory in the Exchange Server system makes building collaborative applications easier because it centralizes information. The systems that Exchange Server can connect to, send messages from, and synchronize directories with include Microsoft Mail, Lotus cc:Mail, and Lotus Notes. Exchange Server can transfer messages with host-based systems such as OfficeVision VM (PROFS) and System Network Architecture Distribution Services (SNADS) systems such as IBM OfficeVision/MVS and Fisher TAO.

Sometimes corporations find it more cost-effective to have only one collaborative system rather than several. To help organizations move to Exchange Server, migration tools for a large number of systems are included in the product. These tools make it easier for organizations to transfer their users and information into the Exchange Server system. The products supported by these migration tools are Microsoft Mail, Lotus cc:Mail, Novell Groupwise, and Lotus Notes.

SharePoint Portal Server

SharePoint Portal Server (SPS) 1.0 shares most of the same underlying technology as Exchange 2000, with a few key differences. Because SPS has the same fundamental architecture as Exchange, many of the development options we've looked at in this chapter also work on SPS. For example, SPS ships with CDO for Exchange 2000 and with OWA. This means you can build rich collaborative applications on SPS that are similar to the types of applications you can build on Exchange and also take advantage of the SPS feature set, such as the portal, document management, and search capabilities. Furthermore, SPS 2.0 provides even more functionality than version 1.0 and ties in well with your Exchange environment. You'll find a wealth of information about SharePoint in the companion material for this book, which is posted on the book's Web site.