Business users have come to rely
on having access to email anywhere and anytime. Exchange
Server 2003 has long provided features
to support mobile email users, including an Always Up-To-Date (AUTD)
capability, which works in tandem with
Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) to automatically synchronize a wireless
mobile device to an Exchange user's
mailbox data. New features in Exchange
2003 Service Pack 2 (SP2) significantly
enhanced Exchange's mobility functionality, particularly in the areas of
security and synchronization through
Direct Push technology. (For a look at
another new mobility feature in
Exchange 2003 SP2, see "Exchange
2003 SP2's GAL Lookup Feature.") We'll explore how EAS, AUTD, and
Direct Push technology work to push
email from an Exchange server to a
mobile device while conserving band-
width and minimizing wireless data
charges.
EAS: The Basis for Direct Push
EAS has been part of Exchange 2003
since the original Exchange 2003
release to manufacturing (RTM). EAS
is a synchronization protocol based
on HTTP and XML that's optimized to
deal with high-latency and low-bandwidth networks as well as low-capacity clients (i.e., clients that have low
memory, storage, and CPU). Among
the benefits of EAS are that it works
with the four main data types (contacts, tasks, email, calendar; is built into
Exchange; doesn't require software installed on the desktop PC; and provides
a familiar setup process through
Exchange System Manager (ESM). . . .
