microsoft exchange

In this review, we look at the changes the latest version of Exchange brings to the table to see if it's worth upgrading.


Microsoft released Exchange Server 2010 earlier this month, nearly three years after the appearance of Exchange 2007 in November 2006.



Exchange 2007 was a major upheaval for administrators, introducing 64-bit and breaking a previously near-monolithic product into several distinct pieces: a mailbox store, a Client Access server, and a Hub Transport server. The goal was scalability, but it also increased the complexity of the product and presented administrators with a tough learning curve.



The changes in Exchange 2010 are less radical. At least on the surface. The management console will look broadly familiar, and the same server roles exist. That said, there are some big changes underneath, once again aimed mainly at improving scalability and availability. In Exchange 2007, high availability was based on Windows failover clustering, which was complex and expensive.



Exchange 2010 has been re-engineered with a focus on mailbox databases, which can now be continuously replicated to one or more additional servers without needing a cluster. Even a two-server setup can make use of this effectively. A further benefit is that you can use cheaper storage, if you trust the new resilience features to fix things up in the event of a failure.