So, how do you feel about Exchange Server 2003 and its constant companion, Windows Server 2003? Ready to move on? Discouraged? If you're feeling a bit daunted, don't give up quite yet. For all the newness and complexity in Microsoft's new Windows and Exchange products, Exchange Server 2003 and Windows Server 2003 are conquerable. Both products offer the end user a comfortable and often better working environment than did their predecessors.
End users will hardly realize that they're using new server operating and electronic messaging systems. Logging into the network will look pretty much the same, and so will accessing file shares and printers. If they're using Outlook, POP3, or IMAP4 e−mail clients, all will appear almost exactly the same. Only users accessing Exchange Server 2003 through Outlook Web Access−that is, using their Web browser−will experience a noticeable difference. And that will be a pleasant experience, as Figure 2.11 shows.
Figure 2.11: Exchange Server 2003's implementation of Outlook Web Access
I mean, look at that interface! It looks almost like the Outlook 2003 client. And take a close look at what I'm doing in this figure. Yes, I'm dragging a message from my Inbox and dropping it into a folder that I created a minute ago while in the Web interface. Is that cool, or what?
The bottom line is that you're going to have to stretch some to get your arms around Windows Server 2003 and Exchange Server 2003. The good news is that you won't have to worry much about supporting users as they access what's on these server products. And there are even a few really nice rewards for users, including the new Outlook Web Access support offered by Exchange Server 2003. Wonderful world!
In the next chapter, I'll spend a little time discussing some key information that you need to get started with Windows 2003 and Exchange 2003. Join me.
Summary
Like Exchange 2000 and Windows 2000, Exchange Server 2003 is tightly integrated with Windows Server 2003. As with other systems (Unix comes immediately to mind), with Windows Server 2003 and Exchange Server 2003, it's often difficult to tell where the operating system leaves off and the electronic messaging system begins. Integration has its price: It demands very careful planning, and after you've implemented Windows and Exchange 2003, it will keep you or those with whom you work hopping from one interface to the other to create and manage the myriad objects required to make a complex electronic messaging system work.
Windows Server 2003 is an evolutionary product featuring Active Directory, Microsoft's first system− wide user and resource directory borrowed in part from earlier implementations of Exchange, much stronger reliance on Internet standards (including DNS and LDAP), and advanced security based on Kerberos. Much of Windows 2003 hasn't changed, from the Windows GUI look and feel, to starting network drive mapping from the Explorer Tools menu. With Windows Server 2003, size does matter. Four server editions exist. The first three, in order of potential capacity and system redundancy, are Standard, Enterprise, and Datacenter. The Enterprise and Datacenter editions support either 32− bit or 64−bit CPUs. Windows Server 2003 Web Edition, the fourth Windows 2003 server, is designed to support Web−based applications.
Exchange Server 2003 is also more of an evolutionary than revolutionary product. With a good portion of Exchange 5.5's innards appropriated for use in Windows Server 2000/2003, Exchange 2000/2003 is somewhat less than it was in former incarnations. Maintenance of most recipients is done in Windows 2003 Active Directory interfaces, not Exchange 2003 interfaces. Windows 2003 provides basic SMTP and NNTP services.
Exchange 2003 enhances these and incorporates them into a sophisticated electronic communications environment. Exchange 2003 sports a fair number of innovative features carried forward from Exchange 2000, including storage groups and full−text indexing. Exchange comes in two sizes, Standard and Enterprise. The former, best suited to smaller electronic messaging environments, runs on all flavors of Windows Server 2003 but Web Edition. The Enterprise edition requires Windows Server 2003 Enterprise or Datacenter Edition.
The best news regarding Microsoft's new Windows and Exchange products is for end users. Combined, the two products promise end users better access to the precious data and information stored in Windows server−based computing environments.
We're not finished with Windows 2003, not by a long shot. In Chapter 3, we'll look in more detail at Windows 2003's Active Directory and networking. Exchange Server 2003 is so dependent on these that you have to get a good handle on them before you can move on to Exchange itself.
Chapter 3: Two Key Architectural Components of
Windows Server 2003
Overview
If you're new to the Windows and Exchange 200x product line, I suspect you're going to have a lot of what I like to call Escher moments. I'm sure you've seen those drawings in which a guy is walking up a set of stairs that suddenly seem to be going down. That certainly was my experience with both Windows 2000 Server and Exchange 2000 Server. I'd be reading something in the documentation or trying to fix a problem in the software itself, sure that I was on the right track, and then suddenly things veered off, leaving me without a solution and with less time to find one.
Windows and Exchange 2003 are no easier if you're coming to them anew or from NT 4. So, in this chapter, I'll cover the two biggest problems that I encountered in my early work with Windows Server 2003. These relate to the architectures of Active Directory and Windows 200x Server networking.
Featured in this chapter: