Monday, July 21, 2008

Exchange Topology Discovery in Exchange 2003

To enable Exchange Topology Discovery, we must first enable Agent Proxy and then configure overrides.
1. Enable Agent Proxy configuration on all managed Exchange servers. In the Administration pane, under Administration, Device Management, Agent Managed, right-click on each Exchange server, select Properties, then the Security and check the box Allow this agent to act as a proxy and discover managed objects on other computers. This step will also make exchange cluster instances to appear in the Agentless Managed section.

2.In the Authoring pane of the Operations Console, click Object Discoveries. In the Object Discoveries pane, right-click Exchange 2003 Topology Discovery, point to Overrides, point to Override the Object Discovery, and then click For a specific object of type: Exchange 2003 Role . Select the desired server running Exchange Server 2003 from Matching objects (do it for both), and then click OK . In the Override Properties dialog box, select Override for the Enabled parameter, and then select True from the Override Setting drop-down list. Select the Management Pack to save the override in, and then click OK.
The previous procedures will enable topology view of your Exchange Organization.
More on Microsoft Exchange Server Support>>
Microsoft release Exchange Servers
Exchange Server 2003
Exchange server support

Monday, July 14, 2008

Microsoft release Exchange Servers

As mentioned above, that data from a Microsoft Exchange server to your computer. This means instead of you having to manually press a button to poll the server and ask for changes, or set up a scheduled polling as soon as something changes on the server, it automatically sends the update out.

Every device being handled by a single central Network Operations Center (NOC), devices can connect to any Windows Server running Exchange (typically your business’ Exchange Server).

Microsoft's prices have always been geared to be affordable for the masses. And when entering a new market, it seems to always start low-ball. Microsoft today finally revealed how it will price online services, including Exchange and SharePoint, and how it will share revenue with partners. The company used its annual Worldwide Partner Conference to detail two bundles of services, one that targets workers who spend little time with a PC and one tailored for "information workers" that includes collaboration tools, portals, instant messaging/presence and Web conferencing. When doing the math for Microsoft's new services bundles, has it continued with the affordable theme? The jury is out.

An "information worker" bundle will be priced at $15 per month (and includes hosted versions of Exchange and SharePoint services with the not-yet-popular Office Communications Server and Live Meeting). Given that the average enterprise refreshes its desktops and software every three to five years, this equates to $540 per user for a three-year cycle. Will that save you money over the per-seat licenses you pay for now for Exchange?

If desktop support really does go away because users are getting the service from the cloud (but come on, how likely is that?), then this is probably a bargain. Hardware costs are killed -- that's true -- but they are relatively cheap these days and network costs could rise. High-volume deals can certainly do better than $15 per seat, too.

The entry-level services fee at $3 per user, per month, seems more in line, but the limited service may not fit the average enterprise. And of course, Microsoft's channel gets hosed when an online service is only $36 per user, per year, and includes no hardware. At 12% for the first contract and only 6% in years after, it takes an awful lot of users to make a living selling the Microsoft cloud. Microsoft resellers tend to service the small business, not the enterprise, so it's hard to see how they will benefit from this pricing scheme, except if they can tack on additional server service fees to the sales. In that case, buyers beware.

Even so, a much bigger concern for all users will be data portability. How will Microsoft "lock in" its customers once they move to the cloud? Will it hold customer data for ransom, or will a customer be able to grab its data and switch vendors anytime it wants to?

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Exchange Server 2003

Exchange Server 2003 (v6.5) debuted on September 28, 2003. Exchange Server 2003 (currently at Service Pack 2) can be run on Windows 2000 Server (only if Service Pack 4 is first installed) and 32-bit Windows Server 2003, although some new features only work with the latter. Like Windows Server 2003, Exchange Server 2003 has many compatibility modes to allow users to slowly migrate to the new system. This is useful in large companies with distributed Exchange Server environments who cannot afford the downtime and expense that comes with a complete migration.
One of the new features in Exchange Server 2003 is enhanced disaster recovery which allows administrators to bring the server online quicker. This is done by allowing the server to send and receive mail while the message stores are being recovered from backup. Some features previously available in the Microsoft Mobile Information Server 2001/2002 products have been added to the core Exchange Server product, like Outlook Mobile Access and server-side ActiveSync, while the Mobile Information Server product itself has been dropped. 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. Also new is the ability to drop inbound e-mail before being fully processed, thus preventing delays in the message routing system. There are also improved message and mailbox management tools, which allow administrators to execute common chores more quickly. Others, such as Instant Messaging and Exchange Conferencing Server have been extracted completely in order to form separate products. Microsoft now appears to be positioning a combination of Microsoft Office, Microsoft Office Live Communications Server, Live Meeting and SharePoint as its collaboration software of choice. Exchange Server is now to be simply e-mail and calendaring.
Source:wikipedia.org