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Microsoft Exchange Server is a collaborative software server from Microsoft, positioned as a rival to the Lotus Notes / Domino server from IBM. The use of Microsoft Exchange is very widespread in large corporations using Microsoft infrastructure solutions.
Among other things, Microsoft Exchange manages electronic mail, and is thus a popular mail server.
Microsoft Exchange Server uses a proprietary RPC protocol, of which only the API is documented (see MAPI), and is used almost exclusively from the Microsoft Outlook client. However there also exists a rival client program in the form of a plug-in program for Novell Evolution called Connector. If the system is configured properly, Exchange accounts can also be accessed through a web browser.
Exchange 2000 overcame many of the limitations of its predecessors, Exchange 4.0 and 5.5. For example, raising the maximum sizes of databases and increasing the number of servers in a cluster from two to four. However, many customers were deterred from upgrading by the requirement for a full Microsoft Active Directory infrastructure to be in place. This, in turn, required upgrading a company's servers to Windows 2000. Many customers have opted to stay on a combination of Exchange 5.5 and Windows NT, both of which are now close to their end of service dates.
The current version of Exchange is 2003 SP 1. And is compatible with Windows 2000 Server, and Windows 2003, although some new features only work with the latter. Like Windows 2003, Exchange 2003 has many compatibility modes to allow users to move over in a slower fashion than the all at once that was used in the past. This is handy since many large companies use distributed Exchange environments, and can not afford the downtime, and often the expense that comes with an all at once migration.
Among the new features in 2003 is enhanced disaster recovery allowing administrators to bring the server online more quickly, by allowing the server to send and receive mail while the message stores and being recovered from back up. Better anti-virus and anti-spam protection, by providing built-in APIs the facilitate filtering software, also new is the ability to drop inbound e-mail before being processed. There are also improved message and mailbox management tools, which allow administrators to execute common chores more quickly. On the downside, some of Exchange's collaborative features, such as Public Folders, have been de-emphasised. Whereas others, such as Exchange Conferencing Server have been extracted completely, in order to form separate products. Microsoft now appears to be positioning a combination of Microsoft Office, Live Meeting and Sharepoint as its collaboration software of choice. Exchange is now to be simply email and calendaring (which, its rivals claim, is all it ever has been).
Exchange 2003 is available in two versions Standard edition, which has a 16GB message database maximum and one database per server, and Enterprise Edition which allows an 16TB maximum database size, and up to 20 databases per server. Enterprise Edition also supports clustering, 4 nodes when using Windows 2000 Server, and 8 nodes with Windows 2003.
Like Windows Server products, Exchange requires Client Access Licenses which are different and cost more than Windows CALs.
Exchange 2003 is included with the Microsoft Small Business Server Product.
Future
Despite its phenomenal success, the future of Exchange is currently unclear. Although Microsoft have said that there will be a new version of Exchange some time in the future, they have not said when. Nor have they indicated what new features might be in it. A version of Exchange, code named "Kodiak", which was to have been built on top of Microsoft SQL Server was scrapped. As was an add-on, called Exchange Edge Services, which was to have been released in 2005.
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