Datasheet

Active Directory for Exchange Server 2007 3
information about mailboxes and recipients. What filled this void? A descendant of the
Exchange 4.0 directory was reworked into a more powerful version that was then built into
Windows 2000 and called Active Directory or, as the service is called in Windows Server
2008, Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS). Although this was a painful transition
for many organizations due to the complexity of the migration, it turned out to be the right
direction for Exchange as a product. This change allowed Exchange to become more flex-
ible and more scalable.
Exchange 2003 was released three years later with improved scalability, stability, and
mobility. Features like RPC over HTTP, Recovery storage groups, Exchange ActiveSync,
and the Exchange migration tools made it one of the most compelling yet easiest versions to
deploy to date.
Even with the improvements found in Exchange 2003, there were areas that needed
work. Exchange 2007 was released as a 64-bit-only application, requiring the use of 64-bit-
capable hardware with a 64-bit edition of Windows Server. It also introduced the concept
of server roles, allowing specific features of Exchange to be installed on separate servers.
Two of these five new roles are the Unified Messaging role, which provides for integrating
voicemail and fax features, and the Edge Transport role, which is designed as an Internet-
facing mail-processing engine.
What is Exchange Server 2007? Simply put, it is an enterprise-class messaging system
that provides the best-in-class email delivery, unified messaging, and electronic calendaring
functionality.
Active Directory for
Exchange Server 2007
As briefly discussed in the last section, Active Directory is one of the most important com-
ponents of Exchange Server. Although a full discussion of Active Directory is outside the
scope of this book, the nature of Exchange Server’s tight integration with Active Directory
warrants a brief discussion of the technology and an examination of how it affects the
Exchange messaging environment.
Active Directory
To understand Active Directory, it is first necessary to understand what a directory is. Put
simply, a directory contains a hierarchy that stores information about objects in a system.
This is similar to how a phone directory stores information about a person, their phone
number, and their home address.