Lesson 2: Exchange 2000 Server Design Goals | MCSE Training Kit Exam 70-224(c) Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server Implementation and Administration

Microsoft's customer-driven software design process relies on direct customer responses, usability testing, and field studies. Customer responses are gathered from sources such as Microsoft Product Support Services and discussion forums on the Internet, as well as direct design requests, which come primarily from developers, solutions providers, independent software vendors, and IT managers. Usability testing is the process of verifying the implementation and design of certain product features until they pass specific usability standards, which is performed in usability labs at Microsoft. Field studies are conducted to observe how customers apply the software in their own environments. Early adopters, for instance, used Exchange 2000 Server in their production environments during the beta phase and provided valuable feedback that helped to guarantee a high quality standard for the released software.

This lesson highlights the three major design goals Microsoft defined for its development of Exchange 2000 Server, which address customer demand for increased performance and scalability, new technologies for collaboration and Web integration, and support of emerging technologies, such as teleconferencing.

At the end of this lesson, you will be able to:

List the most important design goals for Exchange 2000 Server.
Describe system improvements in respect to earlier versions of Exchange Server.

Estimated time to complete this lesson: 75 minutes

Powerful Infrastructure for Messaging and Collaboration

Each organization has a unique environment and a unique set of requirements. A small company might plan to use Exchange 2000 Server for only 80 users. Their requirements will differ from Internet service providers (ISPs) and application service providers that may plan to use Exchange 2000 Server to provide outsource messaging and collaboration services for millions of users. To best support the former, Exchange 2000 Server must be easy to maintain and administer; to support the latter, the system must provide excellent scalability.

Distributed Security Services

You can ensure a secure messaging and collaboration environment for your organization because Exchange 2000 Server takes advantage of Windows 2000 Server's flexible and comprehensive security architecture. This includes Kerberos and Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), which allow seamless access to all authorized network, messaging, and collaboration resources on the basis of a single authentication that is performed during the initial logon to the network. You can read more about the Windows 2000 security integration in Chapter 19, "Implementing Advanced Security."

Distributed Server Configurations

With Exchange 2000 Server, you can partition services across multiple servers to implement front-end/back-end server configurations. You can read more about front-end/back-end server configurations in Chapter 4, "Planning the Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server Installation."

Integration with Active Directory Directory Services

Trouble-free administration and maintainability is achieved through seamless integration with Windows 2000, particularly with Microsoft's Active Directory. Active Directory enables you to build an organization-wide directory that contains information about user accounts and mailboxes as well as the configuration of messaging components, such as connectors and gateways. You can read more about the integration with Active Directory in Chapter 2, "Integration with Microsoft Windows 2000."

Internet Mail Integration

Seamless integration with Windows 2000 is also a key factor in Exchange 2000 Server's improved performance and scalability, which is achieved through increased integration with Internet-based message transport protocols. For instance, Exchange 2000 uses and extends the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) service of Windows 2000 for all native server-to-server communication, which results in a flexible routing scheme. Advanced routing algorithms relying on link state information can ensure message delivery even if network problems occur. You can read more about SMTP-based routing in Exchange 2000 Server in Chapter 16, "Message Routing Administration."

Likewise, Exchange 2000 Server provides the best performance for Internet-based e-mail clients through its capability of storing and retrieving message objects encoded with Multiple Internet Mail Extensions (MIME). Format conversion takes place on demand when Messaging Application Programming Interface (MAPI)-based messaging clients, such as Outlook 2000, are accessing the same objects. In addition, Exchange 2000 Server supports X.509 V3 certificates and certificate trust lists (CTLs), which enable Secure/MIME (S/MIME) compatible e-mail clients to send S/MIME encrypted and signed e-mail. You can read more about the support of Internet-based messaging clients in Chapter 11, "Internet-Based Client Access."

Microsoft Management Console (MMC) Integration

Exchange 2000 Server supports the MMC-based management environment of Windows 2000. Utilizing MMC's features, you can create customized management tools and assign them to your administrators to let them focus on specific management tasks, such as mailbox and public folder maintenance. You can read more about MMC integration in Chapter 2, "Integration with Microsoft Windows 2000."

Multimaster Clustering

Windows 2000 Advanced Server supports multimaster clustering. Clustering with multiple active nodes and Exchange 2000 Server can benefit from these advanced configurations. Cluster configurations are often used to increase system availability and performance. You can read more about the installation of Exchange 2000 Server in a clustered environment in Chapter 7, "Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server in Clustered Environments."

Multiple Storage Groups

With Exchange 2000 you can split your mailbox and public folder resources across multiple message databases. This allows you to perform backup and restore operations for subsets of messaging resources independently. For instance, you can place the mailboxes of senior management in a separate storage group and perform backups more frequently than for ordinary users. If you need to restore a storage group, other storage groups can remain online. Splitting mailbox and public folder resources across multiple storage groups increases reliability, results in fewer lost work hours in the event of system failure, and reduces the time required to restore a system. You can read more about storage groups in Chapter 20, "Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server Maintenance and Troubleshooting."

Support for Collaborative Business Solutions

When specialists get excited about a particular software solution, they sometimes refer to it as a "killer app." The installable file system of Exchange 2000 Server, which relies on the Web Storage System, is such a solution because it allows you to access your mailbox and public folder resources using virtually any application you want. You can access your mailbox directly from within Microsoft Windows Explorer, any Web browser, Microsoft Word, a similar office application, or any other standard application. Have you ever tried a DIR command to list all your messages at the command prompt?

Knowledge Workers Without Limits

The Web Storage System combines the features and functionality of a file server, a Web server, and a collaboration server. Using a Web browser, for instance, you can access all items through URLs and it establishes a platform for information management that includes consistent search and data categorization. Exchange 2000 Server's built-in content indexing and search capabilities can make your organization more productive through better access to information. You can learn more about the Web Storage in Chapter 23, "Microsoft Exchange 2000 Web Storage System."

Exercise 4: Cross-Platform Collaboration

In this exercise you will examine how standard office programs can read and write items from and to your mailbox and public folders. Because the test environment does not include a full Microsoft Office installation, you will use WordPad.

To view a multimedia demonstration that displays how to perform this procedure, run the EX4CH1.AVI file from the \Exercise_Information\Chapter1 folder on the Supplemental Course Materials CD.

Prerequisites

Make sure your test environment is prepared according to the descriptions given in the "Getting Started" section of "About This Book."
Log on as Administrator to BLUESKY-SRV1.

To work with mailbox resources in Wordpad

Click Start, point to Programs, point to Accessories, and then click on Wordpad.
In Wordpad, from the File menu, select Open.
In the Open dialog box, from the Look In list box, select M:\BLUESKY-INC-10.COM\MBX\Administrator\Inbox and, under Files Of Type, select All Documents (*.*). You should be able to see a list of test messages generated using the CDOStress utility used in the previous procedure.
Open one of the test messages and note the HTML-based formatting structures following the line <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN">.
Open the File menu again, and select Save As to display the Save As dialog box.
From the Save In list box, select M:\BLUESKY-INC-10.COM\PUBLIC FOLDERS.
Right-click in the window area displaying subfolders and, from the shortcut menu, point to New and select New Folder.
Accept the suggested name of the new folder and save the opened message document in this folder by clicking Save. If a Wordpad dialog box appears informing you that you are about to save the document in text-only format, click Yes.
Close Wordpad.
At this point, you can switch to Outlook 2000 to open the new public folder called New Folder from the public folders tree. You will then be able to verify that a message object exists and that it is indeed a message, as shown in Figure 1.12.

Exercise Summary

Office 2000 users will benefit from the features of the Web Storage System because it allows working with files and folders directly from within the applications. For instance, you have the option to use Microsoft Word 2000 to share documents easily. Just save your documents directly into a public folder. This public folder may then trigger additional workflow processes, as illustrated in Exercise 3.

click to view at full size

Figure 1.12 Saving documents directly into a public folder

Collaboration and Communication Without Limits

For most organizations, it is crucial to invest in future-oriented technologies, especially when entire business processes must rely on it (such as, the communication infrastructure). With Exchange 2000 Server, you can be confident that your decision is as future-oriented as possible. There is no doubt about it; the future of Exchange 2000-based messaging and collaboration will be exciting. When reading the following words from Bill Gates, keep in mind that Exchange 2000 Server is one of the most important parts of Microsoft's initiative to help knowledge workers overcome the physical and technical limits that often affect their productivity.

"We'll have smart TVs. We'll have cell phones that connect up to the Web and give you the latest information. All the information you care about—your schedule, your address book, your files—will automatically be available. And as you travel, you'll be able to book an appointment or look at your stock portfolio wherever you go. Wherever you are, you'll be able to access your own digital dashboard—the set of information that you care about on any screen, from a PC to that small pocket device. Microsoft and thousands of other companies are advancing the software that makes this possible. We'll spend next year about $3 billion on research and development." —Bill Gates, June 15, 1999

Outlook Web Access

Outlook Web Access is an application that works in conjunction with Internet Information Services (IIS). Using Outlook Web Access, you can access your mailbox, public folders, calendar and appointment items, and contact information using any standard browser that supports script languages and frames. Both anonymous and validated access are possible. Outlook Web Access for Exchange 2000 Server has been significantly improved in terms of performance, scalability, and ease of use. You can read more about Outlook Web Access in Chapter 22, "Microsoft Outlook Web Access."

Online Conferencing

Exchange 2000 Conferencing Server supports two forms of online conferencing— data conferencing and video conferencing. Data conferencing services rely on the T.120 standard, which supports document authoring with client software such as Microsoft NetMeeting. Video conferencing, on the other hand, offers integrated scheduling and management services for multicast video conferencing based on the H.323 protocol suite. You can read more about online conferencing in Chapter 25, "Real-Time Collaboration."

Instant Messaging and Presence Information

Instant Messaging allows you to see who is online (similar to the "buddy lists" of various Internet online services) and send instant messages to online users. It is also possible to invite multiple online users to join your instant messaging conversation. You can read more about instant messaging in Chapter 25, "Real-Time Collaboration."

Unified Messaging

Unified messaging is a synonym for the convergence of voice and data systems. Exchange 2000 Server includes support for the Voice Profile for Internet Mail standard that facilitates interoperability and compatibility among voice and messaging systems and built-in voice forms.

Chat Services

Chat services allow you to create a chat server network for real-time one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many conversations. Chat Service in Exchange 2000 Server can be scaled up to 20,000 users per server. Integration with Active Directory simplifies the configuration of chat rooms and other settings. You can read more about the support of chat services in Chapter 25, "Real-Time Collaboration."