Pushing Microsoft Exchange 2007 To Its Limit

At the top of our "to-do" list in the near term will be an analysis of how well Apple's new iPhone 2.0 software can integrate into an Exchange environment. The capability of the iPhone to mesh with Exchange will be a significant make-or-break issue for Apple to establish a strong foothold in the corporate IT market with the device.

Exchange as SaaS is a hot topic now. We look forward to doing comparisons of Exchange as a hosted service versus the traditional model of deploying as part of a network infrastructure and will analyze the pros and cons of each implementation.

The release of Server 2008 and Hyper-V beta has generated a lot of buzz about virtualized Exchange. Is it possible? Is it practical? Microsoft's stance is that Exchange on Hyper-V is unsupported, but will that remain the case when Hyper-V officially launches? We will be taking an extensive look at the possibilities of running Exchange virtually.

Our plans also include using this test bed to enhance our security testing and trend spotting.

So far: Exchange 2007 may be Microsoft's best offering yet.

Aside from a closed SMTP port issue on the side of our ISP, there were virtually no pain points with configuration. Exchange 2007 works so seamlessly with Active Directory that setup was easy. Mailboxes are setup within in Exchange rather that AD because there is no recipient service in Exchange 2007 to update user attributes. Setting up mailboxes this way gives more options that setting up in AD.

Of course, we haven't had the system running up for long. As a lot of VARs have already deployed and are maintaining Exchange 2007, we would be interested in hearing your pain points. Let us know which features are pluses and which are bombs for you. Also, you can send us any recurring examples of spam or malware for us to have a look-see.

Contact us at: [email protected] or leave a comment right here.