Simon Barratt

MS Exchange 2003 - Day 1

Without wanting to run the risk of becoming an Exchange Ranger, here are the details from day one of the Exchange 2003 class.

It's kind of a strange environment to be in.  I have built many email environments over the year, and I think I know my stuff.  So here I am sat in a class learning the basics of an email system, without knowng my way around.  I've usually learnt more by experience to start off, rather than from a classroom environment.  It will make more sense when I start building a lab!

Most of the class participants are currently running Exchange 5.5!  So I guess the reports about MS customers not being very keen to upgrade are true.  It has required just too much effort to complete the upgrade, and was not justifiable.  Now that key pieces of their infrastructure are becoming less and less supported, they seem to be left with no choice but to upgrade now.  Of course they could switch!

So far, what I have seen seems ok.  The management is all through the MMC, with a few extra tools required for troubleshooting, but we have not got to those yet.

The restrcitions on Storage groups and databases, reminds me of reverting back to the dark days of multiple POs in cc:Mail.  Never let them get too big, and each one needs care and attention to keep it healty, or you will impact a large number of users!  I mean, you have to take the database off line, to defrag/reduce it's space utilisation!  That sounds far to familiar - hopefully, this will not be a practice that has to be performed very often.

In fact a large percentage of the focus on day 1 has been about monitoring and preventative maintenance.  All stuff that you need to know, but I hope it's prominence in the running order, is not too indicative!