What is Microsoft Exchange Server 2007?

Exchange Server 2007was released in late 2006 to business customers as part of Microsoft's roll-out wave of new products. It includes new clustering options, 64-bit support for greater scalability, voice mail integration, better search and support for Web services, better filtering options, and a new Outlook Web Access interface. Exchange 2007 also dropped support for Exchange 5.50 migrations, routing groups, admin groups, Outlook Mobile Access, X.400, and some API interfaces, amongst other features.

Exchange Server 2007 (v8 or with SP1 v8.1) runs on 64-bit x86-64 versions of Windows Server only. This requirement applies to supported production environments only; a 32-bit trial version is available for download and testing. However, companies currently running Exchange Server on 32-bit hardware will be required to replace or migrate hardware if they wish to upgrade to the new version. Companies that are currently running Exchange Server on 64-bit capable hardware are still required to migrate from their existing Exchange 2000/2003 servers to a new Server 2007since in-place upgrades are not supported in 2007.

The first beta of Exchange Server 2007 (then named "Exchange 12" or E12) was released in December 2005 to a very limited number of beta testers. A wider beta was made available via TechNet Plus and MSDN subscriptions in March 2006 according to the Microsoft Exchange team blog On April 25, 2006, Microsoft announced that the next version of Exchange Server would be called Exchange Server 2007.

Exchange Server 2007 is an integrated part of the Innovative Communications Alliance products. At Exchange 2007 release, the server roles will be:

- Mailbox (MB): The Mailbox server role is responsible for hosting mailbox and public folder data. This role also provides MAPI access for Outlook clients. Note that there is also a variation of this role called Clustered Mailbox role, for use with high-availability MSCS clustering of mailbox data. When Clustered Mailbox role is selected, other server roles cannot be combined on the same physical server.

- Client Access (CA): The Client Access server role provides the other mailbox server protocol access apart from MAPI. Similar to Exchange 2003 FrontEnd server, it enables user to use an Internet browser (OWA), 3rd party mail client (POP3/IMAP4) and mobile device (ActiveSync) to access their mailbox.

- Unified Message (UM): This role enables end users to access their mailbox, address book, and calendar using telephone and voice. IP-PBX or VoIP gateway needs to be installed and configured to facilitate much of the functionality of this server role.

- Hub Transport (HT): The Hub Transport role handles mails by routing them to next hop: another Hub Transport server, Edge server or mailbox server. Unlike Exchange 2003 Bridgehead that needs Exchange admin defined routing groups, Exchange 2007 Hub Transport role uses AD site info to determine the mail flow.

- Edge Transport (ET): The last hop of outgoing mail and first hop of incoming mail, acting as a "smart host" and usually deployed in a perimeter network, Edge Transport provides mail quarantine and SMTP service to enhance security. One advantage of this role is that is does not require Active Directory access, so it can function with limited access to the corporate network for increased security.

Server Role Tasks and UI

Server configuration for both Cmdlet and GUI is organized around the server role concept. To check what roles are installed on the server, you can use task: Get-ExchangeServer and check properties: IsMailboxServer, IsClientAccessServer, IsHubTransportServer and IsUnifiedMessagingServer. For each role, Exchange 2007 provides dedicate tasks to manage properties specific to each server role:

- Get/Set-MailboxServer
- Get/Set-ClientAccessServer
- Get/Set-TransportServer
- Get/Set-UmServer

Note that Get/Set-TransportServer is used by both Transport server roles (Hub Transport and Edge Transport). Please refer to help for more detailed info regarding these tasks. In Exchange 2007 management console under Server Configuration, each server role has a dedicated node with the role name. Servers with the selected role installed will be listed in the results pane for each server role node. A single server will appear in multiple results panes if multiple server roles are installed on that server. This design gives user a clear view on what servers are available for each specific server role.