Microsoft Exchange Server is a messaging and collaborative software product developed by Microsoft. It is part of the Microsoft Servers line of server products and is widely used by enterprises using Microsoft infrastructure solutions. Exchange's major features consist of electronic mail, calendaring, contacts and tasks; support for mobile and web-based access to information; and support for data storage.
History
Planning the migration from Microsoft's internal "legacy XENIX-based messaging system" to Exchange Server environment began in April 1993 , and by January 1995 some 500 users were running on Exchange Server Beta 1 . By April 1996 32,000 users were migrated to that environment.
Exchange Server 4.0
Exchange Server 4.0 , released on June 11 , 1996 , was the original version of Exchange Server sold to the public, positioned as an upgrade to Microsoft Mail 3.5 . The original version of Microsoft Mail (written by Microsoft) had been replaced, several weeks after Lotus acquired cc:Mail, by a package called Network Courier , acquired during the purchase of Consumer Software Inc. in April 1991. Exchange Server was however an entirely new X.400-based client-server mail system with a single database store that also supported X.500 directory services. The directory used by Exchange Server eventually became Microsoft's Active Directory service, an LDAP-compliant directory server. Active Directory was integrated into Windows 2000 as the foundation of Windows Server domains.
Exchange Server 5.0
On May 23 , 1997 , Exchange Server 5.0 was released, which introduced the new Exchange Administrator console, as well as opening up "integrated" access to SMTP-based networks for the first time. Unlike Microsoft Mail (which required a standalone SMTP relay), Exchange Server 5.0 could, with the help of an add-in called the Internet Mail Connector, communicate directly with servers using the internet mail standard. Version 5.0 also introduced a new Web-based e-mail interface Exchange Web Access, this was rebranded as Outlook Web Access in a later Service pack. Along with Exchange Server version 5.0, Microsoft released version 8.01 of Microsoft Outlook, version 5.0 of the Microsoft Exchange Client and version 7.5 of Microsoft Schedule+ to support the new features in the new version of Exchange Server.
Exchange Server 5.5 , introduced November, 1997, was sold in two editions, Standard and Enterprise. They differ in database store size, mail transport connectors and clustering capabilities. The Standard Edition had the same 16 GB database size limitation as earlier versions of Exchange Server, while the Enterprise Edition had an increased limit of 16 TB (although Microsoft's best practices documentation recommends that the message store not exceed 100 GB). The Standard Edition includes the Site Connector, MS Mail Connector, Internet Mail Service (previously "Internet Mail Connector"), and Internet News Service (previously "Internet News Connector"), as well as software to interoperate with cc:Mail, Lotus Notes and Novell GroupWise. The Enterprise Edition adds an X.400 connector, and interoperability software with SNADS and PROFS. The Enterprise Edition also introduced two node clustering capability. 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. Exchange Server 5.5 was the last version of Exchange Server to have separate directory, SMTP and NNTP services. There was no new version of Exchange Client and Schedule+ for version 5.5, instead version 8.03 of Microsoft Outlook was released to support the new features of Exchange Server 5.5.
Exchange Server 2000
Exchange Server 2000 (v6.0), released on November 29 , 2000 , overcame many of the limitations of its predecessors. For example, it raised the maximum sizes of databases and increased the number of servers in a cluster from two to four. However, many customers were deterred from upgrading by the requirement for a full Microsoft Active Directory infrastructure to be in place, as unlike Exchange Server 5.5, Exchange Server 2000 had no inbuilt Directory Service, and had a dependency upon Active Directory. The migration process from Exchange Server 5.5 did not have any in-place upgrade path, and necessitated having the two systems online at the same time, with user-to-mailbox mapping and a temporary translation process between the two directories. Exchange Server 2000 also added support for Instant Messaging, but that capability was later spun off to Microsoft Office Live Communications Server.
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.
The June 2 , 2003 , release of Exchange Server 2003 made the migration from pre-2000 versions of Exchange significantly easier (although still involved the same basic steps), and many users of Exchange Server 5.5 waited for the release of Exchange Server 2003 to upgrade. The upgrade process also required upgrading a company's servers to Windows 2000. Some customers opted to stay on a combination of Exchange Server 5.5 and Windows NT 4.0, both of which are no longer supported by Microsoft.
One of the new features in Exchange Server 2003 is enhanced disaster recovery which allows administrators to bring the server online more quickly. 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.
Exchange Server 2003 added several basic filtering methods to Exchange Server. They are not sophisticated enough to eliminate spam, but they can protect against DoS and mailbox flooding attacks. Exchange Server 2000 supported the ability to block a sender's address, or e-mail domain by adding '*@domain.com', which is still supported in Exchange Server 2003. Added filtering methods in Exchange Server 2003 are:
Exchange 2003 mainstream support ended on April 14, 2009.
Editions
Exchange Server 2003 is available in two versions, Standard Edition and Enterprise Edition. Standard Edition supports up to two storage groups (with one of the storage groups, called the recovery storage group, being reserved for database recovery operations) and a maximum of 2 databases per storage group. Each database is limited to a maximum size of 16GB. Beginning with the release of Service Pack 2, Standard Edition allows a maximum database size of 75 GB, but only supports 18 GB by default; larger sized databases have to be updated-in with a registry change. Enterprise Edition allows an 16 TB maximum database size, and supports up to 4 storage groups with 5 databases per storage group for a total of 20 databases per server.
Exchange Server 2003 is included with both Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 Standard and Premium editions and is 32-bit only, and will not install on the various 64-bit versions of Windows Server 2003.
Exchange Server 2007
Exchange Server 2007 was released on November 30, 2006, to business customers as part of Microsoft's roll-out wave of new products. It includes new clustering options, 64-bit support for greater scalability, voice mail integration, better search and support for Web services, better filtering options, and a new Outlook Web Access interface. Exchange 2007 also dropped support for Exchange 5.50 migrations, routing groups, admin groups, Outlook Mobile Access, X.400, and some API interfaces, amongst other fea
Exchange Server Home
How to install Microsoft Anti Spam Agents on Exchange 2007; Outlook 2007 and Exchange 2007 Certificate issue; Exchange Server 2003 and third party compliance archiving
exchange server 2007 anti-spam
Microsoft Exchange Server Standard Anti-spam Filter Updates keep the heuristics for the anti-spam content filter current. Microsoft Exchange Server Standard Anti-spam Filter ...
Microsoft Exchange Server 2007
Find out more about how Exchange Hosted Filtering can block spam and viruses before ... Microsoft Forefront Security for Exchange Server includes multiple scan engines from industry ...
Anti-Spam Filter for Microsoft Exchange 5.5, 2000, 2003
Often anti-spam add-ons for Outlook are not able to catch junk messages downloaded from Microsoft Exchange server. But at the same time spam messages that Outlook receives from POP3 ...
Microsoft Exchange Server | Master Concepts & Server Optimization
Learn how Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 can help you keep your business moving forward with enhanced ... See how you can decrease spam and viruses, enable confidential communications ...
Microsoft Exchange Server - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Better anti-virus and anti-spam protection have also been added, both by ... Microsoft Exchange Server 2007: A Beginner's Guide. ISBN 9780071486392. Luckett, Richard; Bharat ...
Exchange Server 2007: Exchange 2007 Help
Welcome to Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, which provides a reliable messaging system, with built-in protection against spam and viruses. Using Exchange ...
Microsoft Exchange Server Security: Spam protection and recovery
Enhance your Microsoft Exchange Server Security strategy to protect against spam, malware and viruses, and learn about system recovery after an attack.
TechNet Support WebCast: Fighting spam using Microsoft Exchange Server ...
This Support WebCast will discuss the anti-spam features in Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 and Microsoft Office Outlook 2003, and how to effectively use them.
TechNet Webcast: Fighting Spam in an Exchange Environment with ...
TechNet Webcast: Fighting Spam in an Exchange Environment with Microsoft Exchange Server 2003—Level 200 Event ID: 1032262247