This summer, 3 years after shipping Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server, Microsoft plans to ship Exchange Server 2003. If you're using Exchange 2000, Exchange 2003 will look more like a service pack than a full product release. However, the new version contains some interesting manageability, mobility, scalability, security, and client enhancements. Let's take a brief look at some of the more interesting changes and at how an Exchange 2003 deployment might play out.
Manageability
Manageability improvements in Exchange 2003 come from better integration with Windows (especially Microsoft Internet Information Services—IIS); a more fully developed, built-in Exchange module for the Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) framework; improvements to the Exchange System Manager (ESM) console; and 3 years of Exchange 2000 customer feedback. Hundreds of small changes make Exchange 2003 easier to manage than Exchange 2000.
For example, you can use simple Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) queries to maintain dynamic distribution-group membership. After you populate Active Directory (AD) with the necessary data, you can create query-based lists that Exchange builds on the fly. For example, you can have lists that let users address messages to all users with a mailbox on a specific server or to everyone in a particular department.
Another example of a small but useful improvement is ESM's view of message queues. The console now presents queues for a server in one pane that also incorporates options to examine, freeze, and release queue contents, as Figure 1 shows. This change might not be dramatic, but making sure that email flows properly is an important part of an email administrator's life, and the elegant new ESM interface simplifies that task.
Spam is an obvious irritant to anyone who manages an email server. Exchange 2003's new spam-blocking capability is yet another improvement. See the sidebar "Antispam Support," page 40, for information.
Mobility
In response to the spread of mobile computing devices such as Pocket PCs, Microsoft has made Exchange 2003 a key point of integration for mobile devices. Email, calendars, and contacts are the most important features for most mobile-device users, so making mobility a core Exchange attribute makes sense. When you deploy Exchange 2003, you can use the Exchange Task Wizard to configure mobility settings along with other Exchange features, as Figure 2 shows.
Microsoft has put on hold its attempt to expand Exchange into a collaboration server and instead has focused on making Exchange 2003 the best possible messaging server. As a result, the company has removed the optional Exchange-branded versions of Instant Messaging (IM), Chat, and Conferencing Server from Exchange 2003. If you want to deploy a Microsoft version of IM, you'll need to wait for the upcoming Microsoft Real-Time Communications (RTC) Server (code-named Greenwich). Greenwich builds on the Internet Engineering Task Force's (IETF's) Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and is far more firewall-friendly than Exchange IM, which uses Microsoft's Rendezvous Protocol (RVP). For more information about Greenwich, see "Microsoft Releases 'Greenwich' RTC Server Beta," March 6, 2003, http://www.winnetmag.com, InstantDoc ID 38261, and "Understanding the Session Initiation Protocol," January 2003, http://www.winnetmag.com, InstantDoc ID 27397.