The Introduction and Development of Microsoft Exchange Server!

Microsoft Exchange Server, an indispensable technology, is a great way of facilitating corporate communication. It is the server side of a client–server, collaborative application product developed by Microsoft. The primary features of Exchange include electronic mail, calendaring, and contacts and tasks. It also enables wireless synchronization of email, calendar and contacts with major mobile devices.

Talking in terms of its history, the migration from Microsoft's internal "legacy XENIX-based messaging system" to the Exchange Server environment began in April 1993. This was completed in 1996 when the last XENIX server on the MS corporate backbone was removed. After that there have been several developments in this area. We have had various versions of the Microsoft Exchange, including 1.0, 4.0, 5.0, 5.5, Exchange 2000 Server, Exchange Server 2003, Exchange Server 2007 and Exchange Server 2010.

Exchange Server 2010 is the latest milestone that was launched in 2009. Microsoft allows for a 120-day free trial with options of Standard and Enterprise editions. There have been several changes in this version as compared to the older ones. In this version high availability options for Mailbox Databases have been replaced by Database Availability Groups (DAGs) in Exchange Server 2010. With DAG you get database level high availability, support for up to sixteen copies of each database and flexible configuration.

The other difference comes out with a comparison between Exchange Server 2007 and Exchange Server 2010. The 2007 version did not enable the combination of  a clustered mailbox server with any other roles. On the other hand, Exchange Server 2010 lets you combine Mailbox Server Role with the Client Access Server or Hub Transport roles.

Exchange Server 2010 also facilitates cost savings in the required hardware. In terms of storage performance, the requirements have been reduced by approximately 70% and 90% over Exchange Server 2007 and Exchange Server 2003 respectively. Another important benefit with the latest version its transport concept called "Shadow Redundancy". This protects e-mail messages while they are in transit, i.e. the server that sends the message to the transport server is able to detect the failure and redeliver the message to a different Hub Transport or Edge Transport server for processing.

Talking about the Outlook Web App, there are improvements like allowing users to track their sent messages and printable calendar views. In terms of Distribution groups, individual messages sent to distribution groups can now be approved or denied by a moderator. There are many more such improvements that have been made in the Exchange Server 2010.

Information Technology professionals can get expertise in this area as there are many institutes that impart Exchange Server training. This training provides the flexibility to tailor deployment as per organization's needs and ensures simplification for keeping e-mail continuously available to users. It allows users to access their communications - e-mail, voice mail, instant messaging, from virtually any platform or web-browser.

With this course, candidates get the knowledge and skills required to configure and manage a Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 messaging environment. It also provides guidelines, best practices and considerations that help in optimizing an Exchange Server deployment.

Author Bio:

The writer of this article is Amit Kataria, who is currently working as a video editor with Koenig Solutions. Amit, besides producing classy and interesting videos, also writes informational articles. Koenig is an IT training firm that has been offering training programmes to students all around the world for more than 18 years now. The company is a certified training partner of Microsoft, Linux, Cisco, Oracle, CompTIA, Redhat etc. It also offers SharePoint Training.