Public Folders

In Exchange Server 2003, public folders are managed similarly to the way they are managed in Exchange 2000 Server. This approach includes the following features:

• Administration of public folders is accomplished through the Exchange Folders Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in.

• Public folder trees are far more scalable and flexible. You can now create public folder trees by geography, department, or function. The next section, “Multiple Public Folder Trees,” discusses this feature in more detail.

• Public folders are integrated with Active Directory, which means that e-mail entries enable you to send messages to a public folder instead of posting them directly to the public folder.

• Public folders use the users and groups in the Active Directory directory service for security.

• Accessing a public folder over the Web is more direct and much easier. With a standard URL, it’s possible in Exchange 2003 to open up the contents of a public folder.

• Full-text indexing is built in with public folders. Outlook clients automatically use this new index when performing a Find or Advanced Find search.

• Referrals are enabled by default. Public folder referrals enable clients to gain access to any folder in the organization because referrals between routing groups are now enabled by default.

• Public folders can be created with the Exchange Folders snap-in. You are no longer required to use Outlook to create a public folder, though this capability still exists.

Multiple Public Folder Trees

In Exchange Server 2003, you can create multiple public folder trees for a variety of purposes. For instance, suppose that you have a project team composed of three internal LAN clients, two users in your company at remote locations, and three consultants outside your organization. You can create a public folder tree for these users that is separate from the default public folder tree (Figure 2-10).

Figure 2-10: Multiple public folder trees.

Each public folder tree stores its data in a single public folder store on a per- server basis. You can replicate specific folders in the tree to every server in your company that has a public folder store associated with that public folder tree. The default public folder tree is available via MAPI, IMAP4, Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP), and HTTP. Additional public folder trees are available to only HTTP and NNTP clients.