The following are best practices from this chapter:
Review Chapter 1 to understand the common reasons organizations plan and deploy the Exchange 2003 messaging system.
Leverage the planning and design details in Chapters 4 and 5 of this book to prepare the business for an appropriate messaging system design and configuration.
The easiest way to install the first Exchange 2003 server in a new environment is to follow the interactive installation process initiated by an autorun automatic load from the Exchange Server 2003 CD.
For an organization that will be installing many Exchange servers and wants to ensure an identical build between servers, creating an unattended installation script can ensure that a common installation process is followed.
After installing Exchange 2003, consider locking down services that may not be needed ”such as POP3, IMAP, and the like ”which can improve security on the Exchange server.
Create additional Exchange databases when the database file size begins to reach 15 “20GB, to keep data backup, maintenance, and recovery to a more manageable level.
Use system policies to minimize the effort it takes to manage servers individually when a single change in a group policy can automatically make changes on all servers simultaneously .
Use a bridgehead server to minimize the traffic between site boundaries that can be better served by managed message transmission and routing.
SMTP relaying should be enabled only when absolutely necessary, and when enabled should be properly locked down. This prevents spammers from gaining unauthorized access to relay spam messages.
