Microsoft Exchange 2007 is Ready for Prime Time
Microsoft Exchange 2007’s Service Pack 1 arrived at the end of November 2007. If you’ve been holding off on upgrading you can now stop waiting and start making it happen! Along with the bug and security fixes that typically get rolled out in a Service Pack, there are a multitude of new features and functionalities that make this product truly ready for prime time.
New Option for High Availability
As mentioned in previous letters, one of the biggest new features in Service Pack 1 is Standby Continuous Replication (SCR). SCR allows you to replicate data on a per-storage-group basis to another Exchange 2007 server anywhere in your Active Directory Domain. The targets, whether single mailbox servers or clusters, can be placed either inside the primary data center or in a remote location.
The main differences between Standby Continuous Replication and the Cluster Continuous Replication (CCR) that was introduced with the release of Exchange 2007 are summarized as follows:
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Issue
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SCR
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CCR
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Clustering
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Not required
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Required
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Failover
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Manual
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Automatic
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High Availability
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Possibility of minor downtime if 1st server goes down
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Virtually no down time because of automatic failover
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Positioning by Microsoft
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Disaster Recover solution
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High Availability solution
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So if you’re looking to have extremely high High Availability, with virtually no down time at all, you should go with Cluster Continuous Replication. But if your greatest need is for a way to be able to quickly recover from a large data center failure, Standby Continuous Replication is probably your best bet.
Increased Functionality for Outlook Web Access
Updates to Outlook Web Access fill some big holes that were left when Exchange 2007 was first released. S/MIME support now allows for public key encryption and signing of emails. Individual users can now access, create and manage personal distribution lists, personal mailbox rules and the monthly calendar view. In addition, users can now access public folders and recover deleted items themselves via Outlook Web Access.
More Options for Exchange Administrators
For Exchange administrators who prefer working with the GUI interface instead of the power shell command line interface, the Move Mailbox administrator tool has been enhanced to allow the import and export of mailbox data to a PST file. In addition, a variety of features have been added to the Exchange Management Console. These include:
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Public Folder Configuration
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POP and IMAP Configuration
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SendAs Permission Configuration
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Delegation Wizard
Administrators will also be glad to know that support for Windows 2008 has been added. Exchange 2007 will be fully supported on Windows 2008 when it is released (probably some time next month).
Major Time Savers Added for Developers
Finally, some additional Web Services have been added that will enable developers to save time and effort. These include:
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Public Folder Access
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Delegation Management
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Folder Permission Management
It’s Time to Upgrade
Between the bug and security fixes and the additional features and functions provided in Exchange 2007 Service Pack 1, we feel that Exchange 2007 is ready to be rolled out to production environments. These updates, coupled with Microsoft’s stated position that mainstream support for Exchange 2003 will end in April 2009, mean that its time to start seriously considering upgrading to Exchange 2007. As always, we’re here to help you.
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