Chapter 16: Securing Mobile Exchange Access

Overview

Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, Be it ever so humble , there s no place like home.

”John Howard Payne

Users want to be untethered: they want to be able to go wherever they want, whenever they want, and still have access to their important data. Whether this is actually a good idea is the subject of some debate; I have a good friend who is a project manager for a company that works on nuclear reactors. His work is extremely time-critical, because for every hour that a nuclear reactor is offline for maintenance it costs the owning utility millions of dollars. He wryly refers to his BlackBerry as the homewrecker because it makes it possible for him to check his e-mail at any time, even when he shouldn t. However, it also makes it possible for him to get his work done without being tied to his office, so he can run out to pick up a sick child from school or have lunch with his wife without worrying that he s missing something critical. Whether for good or ill, users have caught on to the possibilities of these devices and are asking for them. Microsoft noticed, and they ve beefed up the mobile support in Microsoft Exchange Server 2003.