Exchange Information Store Service Architecture

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The core data storage repository for Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 is the Microsoft Exchange Information Store service, which contains both mailbox store and public folder store data. The Microsoft Exchange Information Store service uses a database engine called Extensible Storage Engine (ESE), a transaction-based database technology.

This section explains the role of the Microsoft Exchange Information Store service in the Exchange Server 2003 messaging system. The Microsoft Exchange Information Store service, as its name implies, implements the Exchange store. The Exchange store hosts mailbox and public folders. The responsibilities of the Exchange store also include public folder replication, which is covered in a separate section because of its complexity.

This section discusses the following concepts:

  • Exchange Storage Architecture   Exchange Server 2003 uses a transaction-based storage architecture that includes a database file, a native content file, transaction logs, and other files, such as checkpoint files and reserved logs. You must understand how Exchange Server 2003 uses these files to store messaging data.

  • Extensible Storage Engine Architecture   Extensible Storage Engine is at the core of the Exchange store. You must be familiar with Extensible Storage Engine to understand the architecture of the Exchange store.

  • Responsibilities of the Exchange store   In the client/server architecture of Exchange Server 2003, the Microsoft Exchange Information Store service has exclusive access to the messaging databases. Exclusive database access entails a number of responsibilities that you should be familiar with to understand the role of the Microsoft Exchange Information Store service.

  • Public Folder Replication   Public folder replication enables you to maintain multiple instances of the same public folder on different Exchange servers and to keep these instances synchronized. This feature can be used to provide users in a distributed Exchange organization with access to a local copy of a public folder. Replicated public folders can also increase fault tolerance for workgroup solutions. You should know how the Exchange store replicates public folder data across an Exchange organization.

For information about managing the Exchange store and about backup and disaster recovery, see the Exchange Server 2003 Administration Guide.