Microsoft Exchange 2010: The Highlights

Message Exchange

Article from ADMIN 01/2010

By Björn Bürstinghaus

For years, Exchange has been the standard in-house server solution for all messaging tasks on Windows. This article introduces the highlights of the new Exchange version 2010.

Exchange 2010 [1] is the latest generation of the Microsoft email server, and it comes with a whole bunch of new and useful functions for administrators and users alike [2]. The version is even interesting for companies currently using Exchange 2007: Besides an archiving function, the new Exchange also integrates an intelligent SMS gateway architecture, thus removing the need for expensive third-party add-ons.

Improved Management for Admins

Many functions that posed tedious Exchange Management Shell tasks for administrators in Exchange 2007 have now been integrated into the console. For example, you can create new certificates or view the current crop of certificates at the console, without needing to compose your own PowerShell request (Figure 1).

This version of Exchange also offers a console view of the number of licenses used in the company. This new transparency allows administrators to identify cases in which a company is using more licenses than it has purchased.

Giving users permission to create distribution groups and their members is also new; this task can be handled in the new, web-based Exchange Control Panel (ECP). In ECP, users can modify their own Active Directory information, such as cellphone numbers or addresses, without needing to contact IT to do so. In this way, ECP will probably make a major contribution to reducing IT costs in the enterprise.

Whereas Exchange 2007 restricted bulk changes to the PowerShell, Exchange 2010 finally lets administrators make bulk changes in the management console, so you can run a task simultaneously against multiple mailboxes, which wasn't possible in previous versions (Figure

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