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What roles will Exchange Server 2007 play in your environment?

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April 2006 marked the 10th year that Microsoft Exchange has been providing messaging services to organizations large and small; with the release of Exchange 4.0 in April 1996. Yes, we have come a long way. Back then, Microsoft Exchange Server was an X.400-based messaging system with an X.500-like directory. Industry messaging was simple (e-mail), and features such as shared calendaring and public folders wowed us like those fancy dance moves in 1996 pop hit "Macarena".

Today, e-mail is a tool we use and rely on as much as the telephone – more so in some cases. This long and dynamic history of Exchange shows how the product has evolved and set the standard for enterprise messaging along the way. Today's business requirements – such as security, disaster recovery, and mobility – are more extensive than ever before. To meet these requirements, Exchange has extended its reach beyond simple e-mail to increase user productivity and keep information close at hand, while being flexible enough to meet your organization's administrative model.

To rise to the new challenges, the architecture of Exchange Server 207 has been updated to take advantage of 64-bit hardware, simplified administration and routing, and to enable Exchange server to host one or more server roles. So what roles will your Exchange 2007 server take on in your environment? There are 5 roles that will be deployed to your environment:

  • Client Access role.Similar to the front-end server in earlier versions of Exchange, this server proxies Internet client traffic to the correct mailbox server.
  • Mailbox role.This role hosts user mailboxes stored in databases that can be replicated or clustered.
  • Hub Transport role.This role provides internal routing of all messages – from Edge servers, Unified Messaging (UM) servers, or between two users on the same mailbox database. The Hub Transport role is also where messaging policy is enforced for messages moving within and outside the organization.
  • Unified Messaging role. This role enables PBX integration to allow voice mail and fax messages delivered to Exchange mailboxes, and provides voice dial-in capabilities to Exchange Server.
  • Edge Transport role.This server resides outside your internal network and provides on-premise e-mail security, antivirus, and anti-spam services for Exchange. Off-premise filtering can be provided by Exchange Hosted Filtering.

Role Rules: With the exception of the Edge Transport role, multiple roles or all roles can be installed on a single system. This is because an Exchange server running the Edge Transport role in a perimeter network (DMZ) is not a member of Active Directory or the Exchange organization for security reasons. In a single-server environment, you will deploy edge transport agents instead and enable filtering capabilities that would normally be taken on by the Edge Transport.

Exchange Server 2007 takes a hard line approach to security by stopping spam and viruses before they enter your organization. Whether you chose on-premise protection using Edge services or off-premise protection using Exchange Hosted Filtering, you'll get dynamic protection that is regularly updated as security threats change.

Learn more about Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 at https://www.microsoft.com/exchange .