We didn’t cover every single task, but we primarily concentrated on how you deal with storage groups, mail and Public Folder databases, and administering Public Folders in Exchange 2007.
Trang 1In this chapter, we had a look at the feature set that can be confi gured on an Exchange 2007 server with the Mailbox Server role installed As you have seen throughout the chapter, many tasks can be performed on this server role We didn’t cover every single task, but we primarily concentrated on how you deal with storage groups, mail and Public Folder databases, and administering Public Folders
in Exchange 2007 In addition, we had a quick look at each of the organizationwide settings available
on this server, but most of them were relatively superfi cial
Solutions Fast Track
Managing the Exchange 2007 Mailbox Server
˛ The Exchange Store hasn’t changed much since Exchange Server 2003 but has been further improved and of course contains multiple new features
˛ Back in Exchange 2000 and 2003, the databases containing either mailboxes or Public
Folders were known as mailbox stores and Public Folder stores, respectively, but with Exchange Server 2007 they are now referred to as mailbox databases and Public Folder databases.
˛ 64-bit hardware gives us the opportunity to use much more memory than was the case in previous Exchange versions Because Exchange Server 2007 can take advantage of more memory, it means that a larger chunk of each user’s mailbox can be stored in memory, which reduces disk I/O
Exchange 2007 Storage Groups
˛ The Mailbox server in the Exchange 2007 Enterprise Edition supports up to 50 storage groups and a maximum of 50 databases per server Exchange 2007 allows you to create up
to fi ve databases in each storage group, as was the case with Exchange 2003, but best practice is to create one database per storage group The Standard Edition supports up to
fi ve databases in a single storage group
˛ As is the case with Exchange 2003, it’s still okay to keep all storage groups on the same spindles, but in terms of performance, it’s better to keep them separated, although this would be quite unrealistic for most organizations that were using, for example, 30 storage groups!
˛ Exchange Server 2007 fi nally has native support for continuous replication, which is
a functionality that will make it possible to keep a second copy of a database held in
a particular storage group The second copy of a database will be updated using log fi le shipping and log fi le replay The idea of keeping a second copy of a database is, of course,
to get up and running in a couple of minutes by being able to switch to the second database using a few mouse clicks (or CMDlets), should the original database crash or become corrupted
Trang 2Managing the Exchange 2007 Mailbox Server Role • Chapter 4 233
Exchange 2007 Mailbox Databases
˛ As is the case with previous versions of Exchange, databases in Exchange Server 2007 are
still based on the Extensible Storage Engine (ESE) The purpose of ESE is to provide an
interface to the underlying database structure, which is responsible for managing changes
made to the database (more specifi cally the EDB fi le)
˛ With Exchange Server 2007, there’s no longer a database limit for the Standard Edition
˛ In Exchange Server 2000 and 2003, a database was made up of two fi les: an EDB fi le and
an STM fi le The purpose of the streaming fi le (.STM) is, as many of you might be aware,
to house raw Internet content message streams as defi ned in Request for Comment (RFC)
822 The STM has been removed from Exchange Server 2007
˛ The default limit for mailboxes in Exchange Server 2007 is 2GB
˛ As was the case with previous versions of Exchange, Exchange Server 2007 maintains
single-instance storage of messages
Exchange 2007 Public Folder Databases
˛ The default limit for Public Folders in Exchange Server 2007 is 2GB
˛ Public Folders are still supported in Exchange Server 2007, but they have been deemphasized This means that there’s a chance Public Folders won’t be included in the next version of
Exchange (currently code-named E14), but Microsoft will support Public Folders until the
end of 2016
˛ The Public Folders tasks you can perform through the EMC are extremely limited, which means that you need to do most of these tasks via either the EMS or the System Manager
on an Exchange 2003 server that still is part of the Exchange organization
Managing Organizationwide Mailbox Server
Confi guration Settings
˛ The purpose of address lists is to help you organize the different types of recipients within your Exchange organization so that they are listed in a meaningful way when your end
users look up recipients in their mail clients
˛ Using the Managed Default Folders feature, we can manage the default mailbox folders
(such as Inbox, Calendar, and Sent Items) by applying managed content settings to a
specifi c folder or, if needed, the entire mailbox For example, we would be able to apply
managed content settings to a default folder such as the Inbox so that particular types of
items in this folder (and any subfolders) are either deleted or moved to another folder
after, say, 15 days
Trang 3˛ Messaging records management is a premium feature that requires an Exchange 2007 Enterprise CAL to enable on a mailbox
˛ Exchange Server 2007 introduces a completely new distribution mechanism for OABs,
a mechanism that isn’t based on Public Folders, as was the case with Exchange Server 2000 and 2003 OABs in Exchange Server 2007 use HTTP(S) and the Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS), which provides us with several benefi ts, such as support for more concurrent clients, even more reduced bandwidth usage, and fi nally, much better control over the distribution points
Trang 4Managing the Exchange 2007 Mailbox Server Role • Chapter 4 235
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Wasn’t Exchange Server 2007 supposed to use SQL instead of ESE as the database repository?
A: During the early development phases of Exchange Server 2007, this was the plan, but it was
changed rather quickly We’ll not see SQL as the database repository until E15 (the Exchange
version after E14!)
Q: You mentioned that 2GB is the default limit for mailboxes in Exchange Server 2007 Won’t that put quite an I/O load on the disk spindles holding the mailbox databases?
A: No, actually, this isn’t the case, since Exchange Server 2007 is 64-bit, which means that much
more address space can be allocated in memory and will result in reduced I/O load on the disk spindles holding the mailbox databases
Q: I really miss being able to manage Public Folders using the Exchange 2007 Management Console (EMC) Is there a chance that Public Folder management will be implemented in the EMC GUI sometime in the future?
A: Yes, if the Exchange Product Group receives suffi cient customer feedback on this issue, this will
be implemented in a post-RTM version If we’re lucky, it’s already in Exchange 2007 Service
Pack 1
Q: After reading this chapter, I can see that Public Folders still are supported in Exchange Server
2007, but what will happen to Public Folders in future versions of the Exchange product?
A: Although Public Folders are supported in Exchange Server 2007, bear in mind that they have
been deemphasized and will be dropped in a future version of Exchange (most likely E15,
which is the version after E14), but since Microsoft has committed to support Public Folders
until the end of 2016, there should be plenty of time for migrating your Public Folder data to
a SharePoint-based or similar solution
Q: Is it possible to get logon statistics for the users connecting to the mailbox and Public Folder
databases on my Exchange 2007 Mailbox Servers?
A: Yes, you can use the Get-LogonStatistics CMDlet for this purpose Running this CMDlet in
the EMS will give you information about things such as the number of open attachments,
folders, and messages as well as number of messaging operations, progress operations, table
operations, transfer operations, total operations, and successful RPC calls Finally, you can retrieve information such as latency, client version, client IP address, and access and logon times To get
the full list of information, type Get-LogonStatistics | FL.