Email Servers: Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 Review
Organizations rely on email heavily
to receive information, and send to recipients external or internal of
the organization. Additional features are often added like calendar and
address book. We will look at Microsoft's Exchange server as an Email
server.
Microsoft Exchange Server is a mail server and calendaring server
created by the company giant Microsoft Corporation. It runs only on
Windows Server 2008 R2 and 2012 R2 OS and not available on other
platforms.
The first version of Exchange Server to be published by Microsoft was
Exchange Server 4.0. Exchange initially used the X.400 directory service
but switched to Active Directory later. Versions 4.0 and 5.0 came
bundled with an email client called Microsoft Exchange Client. It was
discontinued in favor of Microsoft Outlook.
Exchange Server uses a proprietary protocol called Messaging Application
Programming Interface or MAPI. On its development it added support for
Post Office Protocol or POP3, Internet Message Access Protocol or IMAP,
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol or SMTP, and Exchange ActiveSync or EAS.
Microsoft Exchange is integrated to the Active directory and thus allows
faster management of the organization. Account creation is easy as any
account in the active directory without any mailbox can be assigned with
its email by simple wizard. It can also be managed via Powershell
Module scripts.
Exchange ActiveSync is a proprietary protocol designed for the
synchronization of email, contacts, calendar, tasks, and notes from a
messaging server to a smartphone or other mobile devices. EAS provides
mobile device management and policy controls. The protocol is based on
XML. The mobile device communicates over HTTP or HTTPS. This feature in
the Microsoft Exchange allows administrators to check mobile connected
emails and to execute remote wipe of the phone to prevent unauthorized
access to data in case of phone loss.
As seen from the Microsoft Technet website, the minimum software
requirements for Microsoft Exchange are: 64bit processor, memory space
of at least 8Gb for Mailbox and Edge transport of 4Gb minimum.
Accordingly, as per Technet, at least 30 GB on the drive on which you
install Exchange. For more info you can check from https://technet.microsoft.com/library/aa996719(v=exchg.150).aspx.
Supported email clients include Outlook 2016/2013/2010/2007, Entourage
2008 for Mac, Web Services Edition, Outlook for Mac for Office 365/2011.
Mobile devices can be configured to use Exchange ActiveSync such as
android, iphone, or email client app supporting ActiveSync.
Overall, Microsoft Exchange provides the functionalities an organization needs for communications. With a visually similar interface like other office product, Microsoft Outlook, newbies and non techie office staff can use all the features of Outlook and Exchange with minimal difficulty and less learning curve. Exchange has a great management GUI and robust PowerShell to automate common tasks suchs as backups, mailbox exports and so on.
