Bug fixes and new features straight to your server
No software company releases commercial software in a perfect state, so the release of Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server Service Pack 1 (SP1) comes as no surprise. (As of this writing, SP1 was scheduled for release in May 2001.) True to Microsoft form, SP1 combines bug fixes and new functionality—a sort of spring-cleaning for Exchange 2000. And although many companies haven't yet deployed Exchange 2000, the release of SP1 might signal the start of more migrations (as the sidebar "Easy Does It," page 78, explains).
SP1 doesn't require an Active Directory (AD) schema update, which simplifies the process of introducing the service pack in a Windows 2000 forest. Keep in mind, however, that installing a service pack isn't simply a matter of sticking the CD-ROM into a server and seeing what happens after the installation program finishes. Always test a service pack (i.e., install the pack on a test server and monitor its progress for a minimum of 1 week) before you let the software anywhere near a production server.
Old Bugs, New Features
SP1 represents a consolidated set of all the bug fixes that Microsoft has released since the debut of Exchange 2000. (A full list of bugs was unavailable at the time of this writing, but Microsoft should have published such a list in the Knowledge Base by the time you read this article.) Many of these fixes involve the Store, the SMTP Routing Engine, the Message Transfer Agent (MTA), clustering, and other components, which isn't surprising, considering that these components underwent the most work during the evolution of the Exchange 2000 architecture. You can't expect to partition the Store into multiple storage groups (SGs) and databases without a great deal of effort and thus an increased potential for errors. And transferring responsibility for message routing from the tried-and-tested X.400-based MTA (which still provides a communication path with Exchange Server 5.5 and earlier connectors) to the new SMTP-based Routing Engine is a major achievement. Such changes worked surprisingly well, but several glitches appear when you work the code hard in production. SP1 clarifies and improves failover conditions and routing decisions and improves the interaction between the Routing Engine and the MTA.
Like most software companies, Microsoft emphasizes delivery of quality products at preset dates. This methodology means that developers are likely to remove features from the final build if they can't complete the features on time or if the code contains too many bugs. Often, such features reemerge in the product's service packs. In addition to bug fixes, SP1 includes five new features that deserve attention:
- Mailbox Manager
- Virus Scanning API (VS API)
- Microsoft Exchange Calendar Connector for Novell GroupWise
- Interorganization functionality for Migration Wizard
- Support for Win2K Datacenter Server
Welcome Back, Mailbox Manager
Mailbox Manager lets administrators automatically clean up user mailboxes according to criteria such as message age or size. (For example, you can prevent users from keeping more than a month's worth of messages in their Inbox and Sent Items folders. For information about how to use Mailbox Manager, see "Mailbox Management," October 2000.) Mailbox Manager first appeared in Exchange Server 5.5 SP3 and is popular with administrators (and much less popular with users).
Microsoft failed to ship an upgraded version of the utility in Exchange 2000. The tool's original code used Messaging API (MAPI)—an API that Microsoft is keen to move away from—so developers needed additional time to rewrite Mailbox Manager to use ADO and OLE DB, both of which Exchange 2000 supports. Also, a great deal of testing was necessary to ensure that the tool still performed adequately. (Because of a small but potent bug, a similar utility written for another messaging system back in 1990 did a fine job of deleting every message on a server. No one—least of all those of us who take the phone calls from distraught users—would thank Microsoft for a utility that produced such a well-cleaned server, so care and attention during testing are mandatory.) Mailbox Manager's reappearance is welcome, but take some time to ensure that you are completely familiar with the way the new version of the utility works before you launch it into production.