A: Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 is the next version of Microsoft Exchange. Microsoft Exchange is the industry’s leading e-mail, calendaring, and unified messaging server. The release of Exchange Server 2007 is closely aligned with the 2007 Microsoft Office release. Together, these products deliver a best-in-class enterprise messaging and collaboration solution.

A: Exchange 2007 provides built-in protection to keep the e-mail system up and running and protected from outside threats and lets employees work more productively from wherever they are by using a variety of clients. These clients include Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, Microsoft Office Outlook Web Access, and mobile devices. Exchange Server 2007 makes it easier for IT departments to deliver these new capabilities to their organizations by making the messaging environment easier to manage and more cost-efficient. For more information about Exchange Server 2007, see What's New in the Exchange 2007 product documentation.

A: Outlook 2007 provides the most complete e-mail, calendaring, contacts, and tasks functionality available in an e-mail client that is compatible with Exchange. When Outlook 2007 is used with Exchange Server 2007, users benefit from the new Scheduling Assistant that automates time-consuming meeting and resource scheduling, the ability to plan and customize out-of-office communications, and managed e-mail folders that facilitate compliance with internal and regulatory policies. Outlook 2007 and Exchange Server 2007 also combine to enhance security by offering features that are easy to use and let users confidently send and receive sensitive business communications through e-mail. By enabling the Autodiscover service, you can reduce the complexity of client configuration and reduce administrative costs that are associated with troubleshooting connectivity issues for users.

A: You can find Exchange Server 2007 product documentation on the Exchange Server 2007 Technical Library Web site, on the Start menu, or by clicking F1 within the product after it has been installed. You can also access product documentation from the Microsoft Exchange Server TechCenter. You can visit the Exchange Server Community Web site or the Exchange Team Blog Web site for additional product information, common issues, and troubleshooting assistance.

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The content of each blog and its URL are subject to change without notice. The content within each blog is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. Use of included script samples or code is subject to the terms specified in the Microsoft Terms of Use.

A: Customers can purchase the Exchange Enterprise Client Access License (CAL) or the Exchange Standard CAL. The Exchange Enterprise CAL is sold as an add-on to the Exchange Standard CAL. Two server editions will continue to be offered: Exchange Server Enterprise Edition and Exchange Server Standard Edition. You can run either CAL together with either server edition. For more information about Exchange Server 2007 editions and Client Access Licenses, see Exchange Server 2007 Editions and Client Access Licenses.

A: In addition to the improvements and new capabilities that are available with the Exchange Standard CAL, the Exchange Enterprise CAL includes Unified Messaging, advanced compliance capabilities, and on-premises and hosted antivirus and anti-spam protection. For more information about Exchange Server 2007 editions and Client Access Licenses, see Exchange Server 2007 Editions and Client Access Licenses.

A: Exchange Server 2007 is offered in two server editions: Standard Edition and Enterprise Edition. Exchange Server 2007 Standard Edition is designed to meet the messaging and collaboration needs of small and medium organizations. It may also be appropriate for specific server roles or branch offices. Exchange Server 2007 Enterprise Edition, designed for large enterprise organizations, enables the creation of multiple storage groups and databases. For more information about Exchange Server 2007 editions and Client Access Licenses, see Exchange Server 2007 Editions and Client Access Licenses.

A: If you are running 64-bit hardware in your current messaging environment, you may not have to buy additional hardware. However, Exchange 2007 does require hardware and an operating system that are 64-bit. 64-bit hardware provides the system architecture that is required to support the increased memory, storage, and enhanced security requirements in a more cost-effective manner. For more information about how to select the hardware for Exchange 2007, see How to choose server hardware for Exchange Server 2003 that can be effectively re-used for Exchange 2007.

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The content of each blog and its URL are subject to change without notice. The content within each blog is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. Use of included script samples or code is subject to the terms specified in the Microsoft Terms of Use.

A: Exchange Server 2007 supports servers that have "x64" processors. Most new servers include processors from Intel and AMD that provide this x64 support. The Intel processors are called Intel Extended Memory 64 Technology (EM64T), and the AMD processors are called AMD64. Exchange Server 2007 does not support Itanium (IA-64) processors.

A: For the best performance, when an Active Directory organization contains more than 20,000 objects, you should upgrade to 64-bit. Upgrading servers that run Active Directory domain controllers and the global catalog to 64-bit improves the overall performance and scalability of your Exchange Server 2007 environment. However, 32-bit domain controllers are still supported.

Lookup and response times between the Exchange 2007 categorizer and the Active Directory directory service will improve with the use of 64-bit. The size of the Extensible Storage Engine (ESE) database that holds Active Directory can frequently be larger than 3.0 gigabytes (GB). This prevents caching of the contents of the whole database, and therefore increases lookup and response times. By using 64-bit, the available RAM for caching can be increased beyond 4.0 GB. This is large enough to cache the whole ESE database, even for large Active Directory organizations, and will improve Exchange 2007 lookup and response times.

A: You will need the 64-bit version of Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2003 R2 to deploy Exchange 2007. Volume licensing customers can exchange their 32-bit version of Windows Server 2003 for the 64-bit version any time by using their media kits.

A: When you upgrade to Exchange Server 2007, you cannot perform an in-place server upgrade on an existing Exchange server. Instead, you must install a new Exchange 2007 server into the existing organization, and then move the required data to the new Exchange server. Exchange Server 2007 supports mixed environments that include Exchange 2000 Server, Exchange Server 2003, or both. This allows for an easier and more gradual transition. For more information about how to plan and deploy Exchange Server 2007, see the Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 product documentation.

A: Yes. Exchange 2007 is based on Active Directory sites. If your current Microsoft Exchange environment maps as closely as possible to Active Directory sites, your interoperability and migration story will be easier. Additionally, the recommended upgrade path is to upgrade all the Exchange 2000 Server or Exchange Server 2003 servers in a single routing group before you upgrade the next routing group. This lets you fully decommission a routing group as you upgrade and reduces the complexity of your current routing topology. Mapping the Exchange 2000 Server or Exchange Server 2003 routing groups to the Exchange 2007 physical topology also makes it easier to plan for an upgrade to Exchange 2007 because the two environments are similarly organized and generally correlate to Active Directory sites.

A: You can deploy Exchange Server 2007 directly into your organization’s existing Active Directory topology. For many organizations, deploying directly into the existing Active Directory topology greatly simplifies the overall management of the Exchange 2007 deployment. However, given the extensive access to domain controllers and global catalog servers that is required by Exchange 2007, you may decide to create dedicated sites for your organization. You might want a dedicated site if other applications in your organization must access Active Directory domain controllers and the global catalog server.

A: Link state routing must be disabled whenever two or more routing groups are configured to send or receive mail from an Exchange 2007 computer that has the Hub Transport server role installed. (The Hub Transport server was formerly known as a bridgehead server). This is because Exchange 2007 uses Active Directory to determine routing topology. The Exchange 2007 servers do not propagate link state updates. If link state routing is enabled and there is more than one routing group configured to send mail to or from an Exchange 2007 Hub Transport server, routing loops might occur.

A: Exchange 2007 uses Active Directory sites to replace routing groups. Using Active Directory is more efficient because it allows for site awareness and eliminates the requirement to create and maintain a routing topology that is separate from an organization’s physical topology.

A: Because Exchange 2007 is role-based, you can deploy all Exchange Server 2007 server roles, except the Edge Transport server role on a single physical server. If you are clustering, you cannot deploy the Mailbox server role on the same server as the Client Access, Unified Messaging, Hub Transport, or Edge Transport server roles. When the server roles are installed on the same or shared hardware, they function as separate entities.

A: Installing the Client Access server role in every Active Directory site that contains user mailboxes reduces the use of corporate bandwidth by redirecting the connection to the Client Access server that is in the same Active Directory site in which the user's mailbox is contained.

A: You can disable redirection for the Client Access server. The Internet-accessible Client Access server will act as an HTTP proxy to the Client Access server that is located in the same site as the user’s mailbox.

A: Unified Messaging servers submit voice mail and fax messages to a Hub Transport server by using SMTP. This can occur only if they are deployed in the same Active Directory site.

A: Unified Messaging Web services that run on the Client Access server enable full client functionality for UM-enabled users. Additionally, installing and configuring a Client Access server in the same site as the Unified Messaging servers reduces the bandwidth that is required if they are deployed in separate Active Directory sites.

A: The Autodiscover service gathers the required configuration information in Active Directory to enable Outlook 2007, Office Outlook Web Access, and mobile e-mail clients to efficiently locate and connect to the appropriate Exchange 2007 Mailbox server that contains the user's mailbox. The Autodiscover service is also used to make configuring Outlook 2007 clients easier and to provision mobile devices that are used to connect to Exchange 2007. By default, the Autodiscover service is enabled.

A: No. All administration of Exchange Server 2007 must be done by using the Exchange Management Console or the Exchange Management Shell. All administration of Exchange 2000 Server or Exchange Server 2003 must be done by using their respective administrative interfaces. The one exception to this rule is that you can use Exchange System Manager found in Exchange Server 2003 to perform most Exchange Server 2007 public folder administrative tasks.

A: Public folders are similar to mailbox stores, but the information within a public folder store is contained within a dedicated database. Exchange 2007 de-emphasizes public folders. Public folders may not be included in future releases, but support for public folders will be maintained through at least 2016. Current Microsoft Exchange customers should plan to migrate to Outlook 2007 and Exchange 2007. We recommend that you investigate integrating Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services with Exchange Server 2007 if you must have an application that supports sharing documents, calendar items, contacts, and tasks and archiving distribution lists. For other customized applications that are being developed, you should use Microsoft .NET. For more information about public folders, see the Exchange 2007 and Public Folders blog.

Note:
The content of each blog and its URL are subject to change without notice. The content within each blog is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. Use of included script samples or code is subject to the terms specified in the Microsoft Terms of Use.