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How Messages Route Within an Internal Exchange Environment

Using Services for UNIX to Integrate UNIX Systems with an Active Directory/Exchange Server 2007 Environment

Exchange Server 2007 as the Focal Point for Remote and Mobile Communications

Synchronizing Directory Information with Microsoft Identity Integration Server (MIIS) 2003

Using DNS to Route SMTP Mail in Exchange Server 2007

Domain Name System and Its Role in Exchange Server 2007

Integrating Client Access into Exchange Server 2007 Design

Synchronizing Exchange Server 2007 with Novell eDirectory

Designing Exchange Infrastructure

Improvements in Exchange Server 2007 Relative to Security and Compliance

Securing and Maintaining an Exchange Server 2007 Implementation

Managing Identity Information Between LDAP Directories and Exchange Server 2007

Understanding DNS Requirements for Exchange Server 2007

Configuring Exchange Server 2007 for Maximum Performance and Reliability

In Exchange 2007, the concept of the recovery storage group has been removed. Exchange 2003 introduced the recovery storage group as a way to restore an Exchange database to an Exchange server that wasn’t the original server that the database was created or was running on. With Exchange 2007, Microsoft has added a whole new series of technologies. The new technologies do a better job of replicating Exchange databases and making Exchange recoverable both from a local database crash and from a server or entire site failure.

Also relative to Exchange databases, the STM database has been removed, so Exchange is now back to just the EDB database as it was in Exchange 2000 and prior versions. Rather than completely removing the STM database, Microsoft incorporated the streaming data technology into the new EDB database, so instead of having two databases for each mailbox and trying to reconcile the storage of information within those two databases, the combined mailbox database is now the standard.

From an administration standpoint, the concept of administrative groups and routing groups has been completely removed. Administrative groups were introduced with Exchange 2000 as a method of grouping together users to identify who would manage and administer groups of mailboxes. Administrative groups were brought forward from Exchange 5.5 where administration was done based on sites connected by site connectors. In Exchange 2007, administration is now completely consolidated into an enterprise view of users and mailboxes. The administration of the users and mailboxes is handled as delegated rights of administrators, not by a group of users and servers. So, rather than grouping together servers and users into special containers, an administrator is merely assigned rights to manage specific users, mailboxes, servers, or preexisting containers.

As noted in the preceding paragraph, routing groups have also been removed. Rather than having to group servers by routing groups, Exchange 2007 has done away with separate routing groups within Exchange. Instead, the Active Directory Sites and Services now uses its configuration to determine organizational sites and the routing of message communications to those sites.

With the release of Exchange 2007, Microsoft has noted that public folders are being deemphasized, which basically means they are still there in Exchange 2007, but will be completely going away in a future version of Exchange. What you will find is when you install Exchange 2007 from scratch, public folders are not created at all. You need to manually add public folders to a Mailbox server and extend public folder access from the server system. During a migration, if the organization has public folders, they will continue to operate in Exchange 2007. Public folders, however, have not been improved in Exchange 2007. Their support is there, but no changes were made in the way public folders work or the features and functions of public folders. Microsoft has created excellent hooks between Exchange 2007 and SharePoint 2007 that allow a user to click on what used to be a folder for public folders, but instead a SharePoint share is rendered in the user’s Outlook or OWA screen. You can do pretty much everything you were able to do with public folders with SharePoint 2007—and then some.

Several things have drastically changed in Exchange 2007, such as a completely new Exchange administration tool, a new Exchange server scripting language, and the removal of front-end and bridgehead servers with new server roles that will be covered in the next handful of sections.