Working with Autodiscover in Exchange 2010
Last modified: May 27, 2009
Applies to: Exchange Server 2007 | Exchange Server 2010
Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 includes two different types of Autodiscover service:
The Autodiscover Service (POX) in Exchange 2010 provides a mechanism that allows you to use "plain old XML" (POX) messages — that is, messages that consist solely of XML payloads without any enclosing SOAP envelopes — to automatically configure Exchange 2010 client applications to access the Client Access server. For an example that shows how to use the POX Autodiscover service, see Autodiscover Sample Application.
The Autodiscover Service (SOAP) in Exchange 2010 provides a mechanism that allows you to automatically configure Exchange 2010 client applications to access the Client Access server by using SOAP as the messaging framework for messages sent between the client application and the Exchange server.
In Exchange 2010, we recommend that you use the SOAP Autodiscover service instead of the POX Autodiscover service for the following reasons:
The SOAP Autodiscover service supports batch requests.
The SOAP Autodiscover service provides the ability to request only the settings that you need.
The SOAP Autodiscover service has first-class support in the Microsoft Exchange Web Services Managed API.
In the future, all new Autodiscover features will be added to the SOAP Autodiscover service but not to the POX Autodiscover service.
Note
Use the Autodiscover service to set up the service binding for all connections to the Exchange server that use Exchange Web Services. Make sure that HTTP Proxy is set up correctly so that Exchange Web Services calls are effectively proxied.