NEWSLETTER - NEW FEATURES IN EXCHANGE SERVER 2007
For most businesses today, e-mail is a mission-critical communications tool that allows their people to produce the best results. This greater reliance on e-mail has increased the number of messages sent and received, the variety of work getting done and even the speed of business itself.
Dealing with changing expectations
Amid this change, employee expectations have also evolved. Today, employees look for rich, efficient access - to e-mail, calendars, attachments, contacts, and more - no matter where they are or what type of device they are using. For IT professionals, delivering a messaging system that addresses these needs must be balanced against other requirements such as security and cost.
Enterprise security requirements have become more complex as the demand and use for e-mail has increased. Today, IT departments must contend with e-mail security threats that are wide ranging: continually evolving Spam and viruses, noncompliance risks, the vulnerability of e-mail to interception and tampering, in addition to the potential harmful effects of natural and man-made disasters.
While security is clearly a priority, IT is ever cognisant of the need to manage cost. Time, money, and resource constraints are a fact of life as IT is made accountable to do more with less. As a result, IT professionals look for a messaging system that addresses both enterprise and employee needs while also being cost-effective to deploy and manage.
Meeting the challenges
Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 has been designed specifically to meet these challenges and address the needs of the different groups who have a stake in the messaging system. The new features of Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 deliver the advanced protection your company demands, the anywhere access your people want and the operational efficiency IT needs to deliver.
These new features include:
- Exchange Management Console – The Exchange Management Console is one of two new administrative interfaces for Exchange 2007 and is based on Microsoft Management Console (MMC) 3.0. It combines all management tasks into one user interface and enables the easy management of all Exchange servers, recipients and organisational components in the organisation
- Exchange Management Shell – The Exchange Management Shell is a new task-based command line shell and scripting language for system administration. It can be used to perform every task that the Exchange Management Console can perform and additional tasks that it cannot perform
- Unified Messaging – Exchange 2007 includes support for Unified Messaging (UM). Unified Messaging combines multiple messaging infrastructures into a single messaging infrastructure
- Performance improvements – Exchange 2007 supports deployment on a 64-bit architecture for improved performance and capacity. Exchange 2007 lets you create as many as 50 storage groups per server
- Improved availability – When multiple Exchange 2007 computers that are running the Hub Transport server role are deployed in a site, mail flow between Hub Transport servers and Mailbox servers is automatically load balanced and does not require any additional configuration by the administrator. If a Hub Transport server (formerly known as a bridgehead server) is unavailable because of a failure or regularly scheduled maintenance, failover to the other Hub Transport servers is automatic
- High availability for mailbox servers – Exchange 2007 includes three built-in features that provide high
availability for Mailbox servers:
- Local continuous replication (LCR)
- Cluster continuous replication (CCR)
- Single copy clusters (SCC)
- Messaging policy and compliance features – Exchange 2007 includes many new messaging compliance features. The new Messaging Records Management (MRM) feature in Exchange 2007 helps users and organisations retain the messages that they need for business or legal reasons
- Security and Protection – Exchange 2007 includes several improvements to the suite of anti-Spam and antivirus features that were introduced in Microsoft Exchange Server 2003. These provide services to block viruses and Spam, also known as unsolicited commercial e-mail, at the network perimeter
- Autodiscover – To optimise bandwidth, when a remote user connects to an Exchange 2007 computer that has the Client Access server role installed, the Client Access server that accepts the initial request locates the user's mailbox. After the user's Mailbox server is located, the client request is redirected to the Client Access server that is nearest to the user's Mailbox server
- Extensibility and Programmability – Exchange 2007 includes a new set of services, known as Exchange Web Services, which enable developers to interact with Exchange mailboxes and contents by using standard HTTP. Exchange Web Services provides access to the mailboxes of authenticated users and the items in their mailboxes
Conclusion
Exchange Server 2007 provides services well beyond traditional e-mail. Built-in capabilities that give users an anywhere access platform, with more ways to access more types of information than ever before. Built-in services that, when configured, provide dependable access to information compliant with regulatory requirements.
This information is supported in many formats, including e-mail, voice mail, fax, calendar, contacts, SharePoint sites, and file shares.
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