Overview of Compliance Features
Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 will reach end of support on April 11, 2017. To stay supported, you will need to upgrade. For more information, see Resources to help you upgrade your Office 2007 servers and clients.
Applies to: Exchange Server 2007, Exchange Server 2007 SP1, Exchange Server 2007 SP2, Exchange Server 2007 SP3
This topic discusses the compliance features that are available in Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. This topic also includes links to topics that provide detailed information about each feature.
Compliance in Exchange 2007 is an all-encompassing solution that applies to e-mail messages in transport and messages at rest in a mailbox. The following compliance features provide the tools to help you seamlessly manage messages in your organization. With messaging records management (MRM), mailboxes are no longer islands where messages can remain forever. With transport rules, you now can control how messages are handled as they pass through your organization. With premium journaling, you can target individual recipients or senders or whole groups to accommodate your organizational needs, instead of adjusting your needs to accommodate technical limitations.
Messaging Records Management
Messaging management policies help organizations comply with legal requirements and conserve information technology resources. In the past, it was difficult to enforce those policies and monitor user compliance. In addition, it was expensive and time-consuming to comply with legal discovery orders. Attempts to automate the messaging management process met with limited success. The MRM functionality in Exchange 2007 addresses these challenges.
The strategy to make Exchange 2007 messaging management and policy enforcement more reliable, effective, and easy-to-use is based on three principles:
Users classify their own messages.
Obsolete messages are removed.
Required messages are retained.
If a Managed Folder Mailbox Policy contains settings for Managed Custom Folders, an Exchange Enterprise Client Access License (CAL) is required for each mailbox on which the policy is applied. For more information about licensing and journaling, see the "Enterprise Licensing vs. Standard Licensing" section later in this topic.
For more information about MRM, see Managing Messaging Records Management.
Transport Rules
Transport rules in Exchange 2007 let you apply messaging policies to e-mail messages that flow into, out of, or through your Exchange 2007 organization. These messaging policies let you modify the delivery or content of messages based on conditions that you specify.
Note
Although transport rules can also be run on computers that run the Edge Transport server role, only transport rules that run on Hub Transport servers are designed for use in compliance scenarios.
Many organizations today are required by law, regulatory requirements, or company policy to apply messaging policies that limit the interaction between recipients and senders, both inside and outside the organization. The Transport Rules agent in Exchange 2007 provides the functionality that you must have to meet these requirements.
Transport rules are available with both the Exchange Enterprise CAL and the Exchange Standard CAL. For more information about licensing and journaling, see the "Enterprise Licensing vs. Standard Licensing" section later in this topic.
For more information about transport rules, see Overview of Transport Rules.
Journaling
Journaling is the ability to record all communications, including e-mail communications, in an organization for use in the organization's e-mail retention or archival strategy.
For more information about journaling, see Overview of Journaling.
Premium Journaling
In Exchange 2007, we've introduced premium journaling. Premium journaling lets you implement targeted journaling rules by specifying Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) addresses that belong to mailboxes, contacts, or distribution lists that you want to journal in your organization. When you specify a target recipient or sender on a journal rule, you target specific recipients or senders for journaling. These recipients or senders may be subject to the regulatory requirements that were described earlier in this topic. Alternatively, they may be involved in legal proceedings where e-mail messages or other communications are collected as evidence. If you target specific recipients, senders, or groups of recipients or senders, you can easily configure a journaling environment that matches your organization's processes and regulatory and legal requirements.
Whether you can use premium journaling depends on whether you have purchased Exchange Enterprise CALs for Exchange 2007. For more information about licensing and journaling, see the "Enterprise Licensing vs. Standard Licensing" section later in this topic.
Standard Journaling
In addition to premium journaling, Exchange 2007 also offers standard journaling. This lets you enable journaling on a per-mailbox store basis. All the messages that are sent to or from mailboxes in a mailbox database that has journaling enabled are sent to the specified journaling mailbox. Standard journaling is equivalent to journaling in Exchange Server 2003.
If you have only Exchange Standard CALs for the mailboxes that you want to journal, you must use standard journaling. For more information about licensing and journaling, see the "Enterprise Licensing vs. Standard Licensing" section later in this topic.
Enterprise Licensing vs. Standard Licensing
The availability of compliance features depends on whether you have purchased Exchange Enterprise CALs or Exchange Standard CALs. All the compliance features listed earlier are available to you if you have purchased Exchange Enterprise CALs. If you have purchased Exchange Standard CALs, you can use only the compliance features that are part of the Exchange Standard CAL. Table 1 shows which features are available for each type of CAL:
Table 1 Compliance features available for each type of CAL
| Compliance feature | Exchange Standard CAL | Exchange Enterprise CAL |
|---|---|---|
Messaging records management |
|
X |
Hub Transport rules |
X |
X |
Standard journaling |
X |
X |
Premium journaling |
|
X |
If you want to use the advanced compliance features available with an Exchange Enterprise CAL, purchase the number of Exchange Enterprise CALs equal to the number of users who will be using the advanced compliance features. For example, if you have 1,000 mailboxes and plan to enable MRM on only 100 of those mailboxes, you only have to purchase 100 Exchange Enterprise CALs. The 900 remaining licenses can be Exchange Standard CALs. If you want to apply premium journaling to some of the same 100 mailboxes that were previously covered by the Exchange Enterprise CALs, you don't have to purchase additional licenses. However, if you want to apply MRM or premium journaling to more than the original 100 mailboxes, you must upgrade the appropriate number of Exchange Standard CALs to Exchange Enterprise CALs.
Note
You can use either Exchange Enterprise CALs or Exchange Standard CALs with both Microsoft Exchange Server Enterprise Edition and Microsoft Exchange Server Standard Edition. For example, you can put mailboxes that require premium journaling, such as Exchange Enterprise CALs, on a computer that is running Exchange Standard Edition.
Note
Other features of Exchange 2007 may require Exchange Enterprise CALs. You must purchase Exchange Enterprise CALs for each mailbox that uses an Exchange Enterprise CAL feature.
For more information about licensing, see Frequently Asked Questions.
Using Exchange Hosted Services
Some compliance features are enhanced by or are also available as a service from Microsoft Exchange Hosted Services. Exchange Hosted Services is a set of four distinct hosted services:
Hosted Filtering, which helps organizations protect themselves from e-mail-borne malware
Hosted Archive, which helps them satisfy retention requirements for compliance
Hosted Encryption, which helps them encrypt data to preserve confidentiality
Hosted Continuity, which helps them preserve access to e-mail during and after emergency situations
These services integrate with any on-premise Exchange servers that are managed in-house or Hosted Exchange e-mail services that are offered through service providers. For more information about Exchange Hosted Services, see Exchange Hosted Services.