Chapter 8 - Designing Hosted Services with Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server

Chapter 8

About This Chapter

Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server offers application service providers (ASPs), an extensive set of options that provide standard and customized e-mail and groupware services to clients who want to outsource their communications infrastructures. Outsourcing takes place when an organization completely transfers ownership and control of its messaging environment to another company (that is, an ASP) with its core competency in information technology (IT). The premise is that the ASP, centrally sharing its computer equipment and pool of experienced administrators across multiple organizations, can achieve lower operations costs than those that could be achieved in-house. ASPs can realize this efficiency by maximizing the utilization of their equipment, thereby reducing the hardware, installation, and upgrade costs per end user.

Your organization may hesitate to outsource its business-critical facilities (such as the communications infrastructure) to an independent ASP. However, to reduce maintenance costs, organizations of any size find it attractive to host their messaging and groupware systems in data centers maintained by dedicated IT and support departments. In a way, this does not differ much from the ASP outsourcing approach. The IT department fills the role of the supplier, and all other departments or business units assume the roles of subscribers. All business units are usually part of the same messaging organization, but depending on the political situation, separate Exchange 2000 Server organizations may be necessary. This is required, for instance, if competing corporations belong to the same global conglomerate.

This chapter explains how to implement and operate a highly scalable and secure Exchange 2000 Server environment that provides hosted messaging and real-time communication services to multiple organizations. Lesson 1 addresses the deployment of Exchange 2000 Server in a front-end/back-end configuration for maximized scalability. Lesson 2 then covers the creation of virtual Exchange 2000 organizations in a shared environment, which entails, among other things, distributed user account and mailbox administration as well as specific configuration requirements for server-based address lists. Lesson 3 concludes this chapter with a discussion of instant messaging that ASPs or internal data centers may want to implement to increase the attractiveness of their communication services. Security issues pertaining to hosted services are discussed in Chapter 9, "Implementing Security for Hosted Services."

Before You Begin

To complete the lessons in this chapter, you need to

• Be aware of the technical features of Exchange 2000 Server, as explained in Chapter 1, "Introduction to Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server"
• Have practical experience in administering PC-based messaging systems and be familiar with the concepts of directory synchronization, as discussed in Chapter 4, "Assessing the Current Messaging Infrastructure"
• Know the various design elements of Exchange 2000 Server, such as administrative and routing groups, as discussed in Chapter 5, "Designing a Basic Messaging Infrastructure with Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server"