Microsoft Exchange

What is Microsoft Exchange?

Microsoft Exchange is a messaging system developed by Microsoft in the far 1993. From then it has made many improvements to become something that it is today and that is a powerful and the most used program for messaging and collaboration. You will read a brief history in a review of the development of the Exchange from its first version to the one that will be reviewed here, the 2010 version.

Microsoft Exchange relases

Let’s start with the Exchange 1.0
In that time Microsoft Exchange was a simple messaging system in a form of an e-mail client that could be used on Windows 95, 98 and Windows NT 4.0. In 1996 Exchange gets a new name, Windows Messaging, as Microsoft continued using this name but for server type only. Microsoft Exchange continued its branch of products and today, probably the direct line to that 1.0 product version would be Microsoft Outlook (Outlook 4.0 with Windows 98 back then). Back then those versions had many flaws, like the lack of POP3 and SMTP protocols, there was coming to confusion for the unknown users that used both Outlook and Exchange making them believe they have doubled e-mails on two different programs, and when somebody would delete mail from one program it would automatically delete it from the server.

Microsoft Exchange 4.0 was released in the 1996 making some improvements to the messaging system and the whole software, but the thing that is worth mentioning is the introduction of the Active Directory. The Active Directory was based on the new X.400-based client–server mail system with a single database store that also supported X.500 directory services. Active Directory is later integrated in the Microsoft Windows 2000 as basic for Microsoft Server domains.

Microsoft Exchange Server 5.0 turned out to be more promising that its predecessor. In the second quarter of 1997 when it was released, this introduced the new Exchange Administrator console, as well as opening up “integrated” access to SMTP-based networks for the first time. There was another release in the final quarter of the 1997 which had improvements in the database store size, mail transport connectors and clustering capabilities. Exchange Server 5.5 introduced a number of other new features including a new version of Outlook Web Access with Calendar support, support for IMAP4 and LDAP v3 clients and the Deleted Item Recovery feature.

Microsoft Exchange 2000 when released it made a great fuss about numerous improvements that are differing it from its predecessor in more ways than imagined. The most noticeable difference was it raised the maximum sizes of databases and increased the number of servers in a cluster from two to four. But upon gaining knowledge about that Exchange 2000 has in-built dependency on the Active Directory which reverted people from migration from the previous Exchange 5.5 version.

Now the Titans arrive and with the codename Titanium, in September, 2003 comes out the Microsoft Exchange 2003. The supporting systems for this Microsoft product were Microsoft’s Windows 2000, but only with SP4 installed, and the Microsoft Server 2003. What’s making the migration so easy and painless is multiple compatibility modes that are allowing the migration to be conducted step by step, as most of the mega enterprises can’t allow such downtime that complete migration requires, without heavy losses. As the Microsoft Exchange 2003 was released many have decided that it was time to migrate on the newer software, especially the ones still using the Exchange 5.5 and Windows NT 4.0, but with the knowledge that it can’t be run on windows NT, many decided to take that step but then others decided not to. Unfortunately for those who didn’t upgrade, Microsoft Exchange 5.5 and Windows NT 4.0 versions where stopped providing support from Microsoft. One of many features that come out the most is the upgraded ability for quicker recovery from a disaster. Better anti-virus and anti-spam protection have also been added, both by providing built-in APIs that facilitate filtering software and built-in support for the basic methods of originating IP address, SPF ("Sender ID"), and DNSBL filtering which were standard on other open source and *nix-based mail servers. Added filtering methods in Exchange Server 2003 are Connection, Recipient, Sender ID and Intelligent Message.  Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 was released in two versions: Standard and Enterprise edition.

Every version of Exchange server had something characteristic for it release, which stand out and marked that version with its feature. Microsoft Exchange 2007 which was released in the final quarter of the year 2006 was also characterized by a significant advantage unlike other pre-releases. Introducing the 64-bit architecture of the software announced much faster, better and reliable software to come. But with this version there were of course other changes that need to be mentioned, like stopping migration support from Exchange 5.5 and other services from that time directly to 2007 version. Windows Exchange 2007 runs only on Windows Server edition on x86 and x64 architectures. This might sound a bit confusing as it was just said that Exchange works only on x64, but this is because the demo of Exchange 2007 available for download is a 32-bit architecture. There are other requirements that also need to be fulfilled like the 64-bit hardware support. If you are working on hardware that supports only x86 architecture then besides the software upgrade, hardware also must be upgraded.

These were all the previous version of Microsoft Exchange so far, and what has become of this technology from the moment it started with its first version, and the one we have today the Microsoft Exchange 2010.

Microsoft Exchange 2010

This application is the first one that the Microsoft developed and is software for usage and also a service offering. When Microsoft was releasing Exchange 2010 the section for distribution and marketing have simply clarified what we are dealing with here through three simple theses:

Number one – Protection and Compliance

Protection and Compliance were introduces already in the 2007 version , but Exchange 2010 takes a step forward with new e-mail archiving capabilities, more powerful retention policies, automated rights management and a multi-mailbox search user interface. Especially concerning the new feature about e-mail, is the archiving service of the mailbox. Items that you have on your e-mail server provider and also the one in history together with the personal folders are easily dragged and dropped into a folder (that goes for folders and items too), which then can be automatically set to be archived on a special server intended for archiving instead of the so far file sharing and local disk archiving. Another feature that most of the companies will have that work with great data flow in form of text through e-mails is the multiple user mailboxes through e-discovery. Basically every user can type what form of data he needs to access and use it as read-only access. In an attempt of changing the original document all attempts will be audited. This service works through Outlook and OWA user interface. Still the matter of security is always the thing that is mentioned the most as the safety protocols must be continually upgraded, which Microsoft did. Exchange 2010 includes automatic content-based protection with transport rules so that the hub transport server can apply RMS policies to e-mail and voicemail based on attributes, including scanning and indexing attachments. There is also a new template to use, probably that will be used by many a lot, called “Internet confidential”. This template will use an encrypting code to send it over the network and again decrypt it when it comes to its destination. When entering a location for your mail, there can be random mistakes in typing , making your e-mail go to a unknown person which can go very bad for the person in a case of confidential documents. Exchange 2010 integrates a MailTips that alerts you every time when mails that you send are going outside the server.  Of course beside these services there is the option to increase security through multiple anti-virus scans as well as tight integration with the hub transport, mailbox and client access server roles.

Number two – Anywhere Access

What was already good in the 2007 version of the Exchange is now even better in the 2010. With the 2007 most of the connectivity with different appliances has been solved and upgraded, but the 2010 goes further and besides improving the Inbox, Voicemail preview and some Calendar features. As for the MailTips they are not just there so you wouldn’t send an e-mail to a wrong person, but can also be used to reducing unnecessary and undeliverable e-mail, flagging that a user does not have permission to send to a particular group, warning that they are sending information to a large distribution, that a recipient is out of the office, or that a contact group is moderated and message delivery may be delayed. Because of the huge appliance and diversity in usage of the Inbox of Exchange, with the 2010 version there is context-sensitive actions available. For example, when sending a voicemail a text preview is available with it, and then Outlook and OWA will use a part of the text that is important for faster e-mail triage, like a phone number making it available to phone that number with the right click on call option, if there is a possibility from the hardware and configuration part. Exchange 2010 now also allows for the calendar to be shared with other persons outside the company, which comes in really handy when arranging a meeting with business parents or clientele.
Number three – Flexibility and Reliability

Exchange 2010 has made additional improvements in this sector, upgrading technologies that marked the 2007 like the improved installation and deployment with new Exchange Server roles; high availability improvements with various forms of continuous replication; and management improvements with a simplified management console and new PowerShell support for task automation, to a new level. Because these technologies were already quite flexible, a couple of upgrades have been added in a form of organizations to use both on-premise and hosted services, with a single high availability and disaster recovery platform, together with role-based administration and end-user self-service functionality. Even though Microsoft Exchange 2010 supports an outside server to become an archiving place for the Mailbox, Microsoft applied that for of storage on local disk rather on SAN-based replication. The idea is that on-site (CCR) and off-site (SCR) replication technologies are combined into a single database availability group (DAG) framework, handling all clustering activities internally so there is no need to manage failover clustering separately with Windows Server. To put it in short with 16 available copies of each database, and Exchanger servers can host other server roles, this option provides with a lot of reliability making it very secure in the matter of recoverability, using only two servers. Exchange will use databases from one copy to another as it needs to. The advantages of using such service are enormous, in the matter of availability, crash safe how for the disk, also for servers and databases. What’s another advantage of using such services is that when those users become offline, certain tasks that those users were doing can be transferred to other online users with similar administration rights, and take them over until the restoring of the system. About the storage that is used for archiving files, from Exchange 2003 to 2010, it had in every generation a new storage technology available for usage. Exchange 2003 could only use SAN-based clusters, while the 2007 version could use the direct attached (SAS) storage for clusters. This was all because of high availability was always a priority for Microsoft Exchange. The 2010 version includes support for direct attached (SATA) and JBOD (RAID-less) storage. This was all possible the same way as it was possible from 2003 to 2007 version to transfer from SAN-based to direct attached SAS. That was all possible due to reduction in input-output operations per second, which fell for 70% of overall time. This goes for the transition of 2003 to 2007 and 2007 to 2010, as both times Microsoft managed to accomplish does 70% introducing new support for storage. This service also provides minor fault tolerance, as in cases of disk errors; the disk only copies new files from one of the other databases that are connected to. Now all there is left to say is that 2010 is nothing with absolute newness, but it is the 2007 package, only better, in fact much better. A couple of new technologies that implemented, combined with the previous ones and improved previous ones, offer such surroundings that it a relief to work in such easy and simplified surroundings. For those who have the ability to transfer from older version to 2010 version, should do it as soon as they can, because their day spent on computer editing e-mails and searching for data in them would be easy and fast.

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