Chapter 2: Exchange Server 2007 Architecture

Overview

What separates a good Exchange Server administrator or implementer from a great one? Well, certainly there are a lot of factors, including an eye for details, patience with users, and knowledge of Exchange. However, truly effective Exchange Server 2007 planning, deployment, administration, performance optimization, and troubleshooting depend at least partially on understanding what is going on behind the scenes. This includes knowledge of the Exchange Server architecture, installation options, database configuration, and server roles.

In this chapter, we will introduce you to some of the basics of Exchange Server architecture and how you can make some of the right decisions early in your Exchange Server deployments. Certainly understanding what Exchange Server 2007 requires of its underlying operating system is a good start. And it's important to understand the differences between Exchange Server 2007 editions and client access licenses so you can pick the edition with the features and scalability that your organization requires.

A lot of changes have occurred for Exchange 2007 from the perspective of architecture and the choices that are available to the Exchange designer, implementer, or administrator. Although we introduced a lot of these concepts in Chapter 1, we will go in to more depth on the architectural changes in this chapter.

Topics in this chapter include the following:

• Exchange 2007 requirements

• How to plan for disk space

• The move to 64-bit Windows

• Active Directory and Exchange Server

• The basics of a client/server system