Exam Essentials

Understand Active Directory. While this book is not trying to prepare you for an exam related to Active Directory design, support, or administration, it is absolutely imperative that you understand how Active Directory is designed and functions. With Exchange being completely Active Directory ‚ integrated and aware, all administrative functions related to users and mailboxes are tied into Active Directory. To that end, ensure that you have a good understanding of both the logical and physical structure of Active Directory. In addition, you should be aware of, and understand, the various domain functional levels that are available in Windows Server 2003 and how they will impact your overall network.

Understand the Exchange database structure. Although only two core files make up the database portion of an Exchange database, there are actually several critical files that are part of an Exchange Server database ‚ you must know them all. The rich-text (EDB) file and the streaming media (STM) file are the actual database files. However, there exists a checkpoint file and one or more transaction log files that must be considered part of the Exchange Server database in order for it to be complete. The transaction logs are used as a temporary storage location for transactions that have not yet been committed to the database files because writing to the database files is a much more time-consuming evolution than writing to the transaction logs. The checkpoint file is used to keep track of transactions that are committed to the database from a transaction log. Using checkpoint files ensures that transactions cannot be committed to a database more than once.

Know the difference between the versions of Active Directory Connector. Recall that the Active Directory Connector that Windows includes by default is designed to allow Windows Active Directory domains to interact with Windows NT 4.0 domain controllers. Exchange Server 2003 installs its own special (upgraded) version of the Active Directory Connector that allows for the interoperation of (and eventual migration from) Exchange Server 5.5 computers. These two different versions of the Active Directory Connector should not be confused .

Understand basic message routing. It is helpful, both in preparing for this exam and in the day-to-day administration of Exchange Server 2003, to understand the various message routing processes that may take place. Recall that there are four basic message routing scenarios:

• From a sender to a recipient on the same server. This may be the case when two users have mailboxes on the same server and transfer messages between them, when a user posts a message to a public folder that exists on the same server, or when an Exchange Server component delivers a message to a local recipient.

• Between different servers in the same routing group .

• Between different routing groups.

• From a sender in the Exchange organization to a user on a foreign messaging system outside the Exchange organization.

You should ensure that you understand the specifics of each message routing scenario.