5 Things You Should Know About Exchange 2007

By now you know about the upcoming release of Exchange Server 2007, formerly code-named Exchange 12. You might even be familiar with some of the new features and capabilities included in the new product; Microsoft has spent a great deal of effort to improve Exchange by adding new features, fixing old ones, and redesigning some components. You can read more about these enhancements in the Windows IT Pro article "Surveying Exchange 2007," June 2006, InstantDoc ID 50052. With Exchange 2007's release right around the corner, it's time to start thinking about your deployment strategy. Here are five key points you'll need to know to effectively plan and deploy an Exchange 2007 architecture.

1: More Roles for Servers Mean Less Work for You
Exchange Server 2003 supports two server roles: Back-end servers host mailbox and public folder databases, and front-end servers serve as proxies between clients and back-end servers. In Exchange 2007, Microsoft has expanded the range of supported server roles, adding several roles that don't have direct counterparts in Exchange 2003. A single server can have any or all of these roles:

• Client Access Server (CAS)—acts as a proxy server for client connections for non–Messaging API (MAPI) connections. You can think of servers with this role as the replacement for Exchange 2003 front-end servers, although the CAS role does a good bit more than simply act as a front-end server. The CAS role provides Microsoft Outlook Web Access (OWA) service and service to mobile devices that use the Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) protocol.
• Mailbox server—holds mailboxes and accepts MAPI connection requests from clients.
• Edge Transport server—provides message filtering, including antispam and antiphishing capabilities. Edge transport servers don't need to be part of the organization's Active Directory (AD) forest, and you can safely place them inside the network demilitarized zone (DMZ). They can maintain their own Active Directory Application Mode (ADAM) directory, which is synchronized with the organization's AD forest.
• Hub Transport server—moves mail between mailbox servers within the organization. This role is new; in earlier Exchange versions, mailbox servers move their own mail. However, because you can add the Hub Transport role to a mailbox server, there's no explicit requirement that you have a dedicated server in this role—but the ability to separate internal and external mail transport is a nice feature.
• Unified Messaging (UM) server—routes communications between private branch exchange (PBX) or telephone systems, CASs, and mailbox servers. The UM server role acts as a gateway for voice and fax data, sending new incoming messages to your mailbox and retrieving mailbox data for use by Outlook Voice Access (OVA).

Exchange 2007 has a new version of Exchange System Manager (ESM) called the Exchange Management Console (EMC). EMC lets you view servers by role, as Figure 1 shows, so you can quickly see, for example, which CAS servers you currently have. In fact, EMC has been revamped with a much more intuitive interface that makes it easier to find the right objects and commands to accomplish a given task, as Figure 2 shows. As a bonus, EMC's new Toolbox interface provides links to a variety of useful tools, including the Exchange Server Best Practices Analyzer, as Figure 3 shows. . . .