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Exchange Server 2010 -
5 key features that add business value to your infrastructure
Users look for rich, efficient access - to e-mail, calendars, attachments, contacts, and more - no matter where they are or what type of device they are using. Exchange 2010 delivers.
1. Compliance
| Feature |
Description |
| Transport Rules |
With Transport Rules, administrators and compliance officers can establish and enforce regulatory or corporate policies on internal or outbound e-mail, voice mail, or fax. For example,
using a wizard in the Exchange Management Console or the command line in Exchange Management Shell, rules can be written that would prohibit communication between members of
distinct distribution lists, append a disclaimer to any message being sent externally, or BCC the compliance officer anytime a specific phrase appears in the subject or content of a message.
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| Messaging Records Management |
Various corporate retention policies exist for e-mail, voice mail, and fax communications. With Managed Folders, a user can organize messages into Outlook folders that are provisioned
and managed by the administrator. An automated process scans the inbox and these folders to retain, expire, or journal communications based on compliance requirements.
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| Flexible Journaling |
Journaling is flexible in Exchange and can be triggered per database, per distribution list, or per user. All messages can be journaled, or just those sent internally or externally.
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| Multi-Mailbox Search |
Using the Microsoft standard search technology, content in Exchange Server 2010 mailboxes is fully indexed and searchable using a variety of criteria. If compliance or legal requirements require
information discovery, administrators can search across multiple mailboxes within an organization with a single query, routing the results to a Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services site, a new
or existing local PST file, or mailbox that can be made available via Outlook to HR, compliance officers, or others.
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| Archive Integration |
Journaled messages can be archived to any SMTP address, including an Exchange mailbox or Windows SharePoint Services site.
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2. Unified Messaging
| Feature |
Description |
| Voice Messaging System |
Voice mail can now be stored in the mailbox and accessed from a unified inbox in Outlook, Outlook Web Access, on a mobile device, or from a standard telephone. This unification improves
employee productivity by simplifying access to the most common types of communications. It also dramatically reduces cost by removing the need for a standalone voice mail system and by taking
advantage of any existing investments in Active Directory.
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| Fax Messaging System |
Faxes can now be stored in the mailbox and accessed from the user's unified inbox in Outlook, Outlook Web Access, or their mobile device. Unified Messaging centralizes the management of
inbound fax services within the Exchange infrastructure.
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| Speech-Enabled Automated Attendant |
The Attendant answers calls using an automated operator, with customizable menus (e.g. “press 1 for sales“), and global address list directory lookups
(e.g. “who would you like to contact?“). Callers can interact with the Automated Attendant through touch tone menus or their voice using speech recognition.
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| Self-Service Voice Mail Support |
Using Outlook Web Access, users can request a reset of their voice mail PIN, set their voice mail greeting, record their out-of-office voice message, and specify mailbox folders to access when calling in by phone to hear e-mail messages through text-to-speech translation.
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| Outlook Voice Access |
Users can access their Exchange mailbox using a standard telephone, available anywhere. Through touch tone or speech-enabled menus, they can hear and act on their calendar, listen to e-mail messages (translated from text to speech), listen to voice mail messages, call their contacts, or call users listed in the directory.
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| Play on Phone |
Exchange Unified Messaging allows users to playback voice messages received in their Exchange inbox on a designated phone. This feature is useful when a user is in a public place and does not want to play the voice mail over their computer speakers. Play on Phone routes the voice mail to a cell phone, desk phone, or other number specified by the user.
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| New Voice Mail Alerts |
When combined with Office Communication Server 2010 (OCS), users can get an indicator on their Office Communicator client or OC-enabled desktop phone that a new voice mail message is in their inbox.
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| Direct Dial into Outlook Voice Access |
Using Office Communicator, users can dial into Outlook Voice Access with a single click, without the need to input their extension or PIN.
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3. Mobile Messaging
| Feature |
Description |
| Search |
When executing a search from a mobile device, both the local device store and the user's entire Exchange mailbox are queried. Results found through the over-the-air search of the Exchange
mailbox can be rapidly retrieved to the device. This capability enables access to information sent or received days, weeks, or even months before, regardless of the storage limitations of the
mobile device.
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| Direct Push |
Mobile devices using ActiveSync maintain a secure connection with Exchange, receiving new or updated e-mail, calendar, contacts, and tasks as soon as they arrive on the server. This push
method optimizes bandwidth usage while keeping users up-to-date.
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| Rich Experience on a Breadth of Devices |
Users can get a familiar experience on a range of mobile devices without requiring the organization to deploy third-party software or services. The Exchange Server 2010 ActiveSync protocol is
licensed for use by Windows Mobile, Nokia, Symbian, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, Palm, and DataViz. Device choice continues to expand.
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| Device Security and Management |
Administrators may choose to enforce policies on devices used in their organizations including requiring PINs of varying length and strength and enforcing a device wipe of data and
applications, should the device be lost or stolen. These controls become granular with Exchange Server 2010, allowing per-user policies. Device usage can be tracked and managed
centrally within the Exchange Server environment and includes 28 new policies across device, network, application, and security control.
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| LinkAccess |
When a user receives a link to a Windows SharePoint Services site or file share while using a mobile device, Exchange Server 2010 uses LinkAccess to retrieve and display the document,
no VPN or tunnel required.
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| Calendaring and Out of Office |
With Exchange, users have many new options when accessing their calendar from a mobile device using ActiveSync. They can reply to a meeting invitation with a message, forward the invitation to another person, and view acceptance tracking for meeting attendees. Out of Office messages can also be set from the mobile device.
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4. Business Continuity
| Feature |
Description |
| Local Continuous Replication |
Availability can be increased using continuous replication of data across multiple disks on a single server. This establishes a second copy of the production database on the local server
that is kept up-to-date automatically. In the event of a disk failure or data corruption, switching over to the copy database provides a less costly and less complex recovery solution.
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| Cluster Continuous Replication |
Availability can be increased using replication, enabling a copy of not only server configuration and settings but data as well. By not requiring shared storage, the active node and passive
node can be located in separate geographical locations without the performance impact of synchronous replication solutions. Automated failover to the passive server node is transparent
to the end user, dramatically reducing the risk of data loss by relying on logs and queues and providing a less costly and less complex recovery solution for the administrator.
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| Standby Continuous Replication |
Availability can be increased using replication between geographically dispersed data centers in combination with LCR and CCR. In the event of a disk failure, data corruption, or complete
site failure, the administrator can switch to the standby server preventing data loss and enabling a seamless transition for users, providing a less costly and less complex recovery solution for
the administrator.
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| Fast and Fewer Backups |
Backups can be run against the copy of the production database on either the local server or passive server node, decreasing the performance impact on production. Continuous Replication
also reduces the frequency of costly, full disk or tape backups currently used for disaster recovery.
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| Database Portability |
In the case of a complete server failure, an empty dial tone mailbox database can be created on a new server, enabling users to send and receive e-mail while recovery is underway. A backup of
the mailbox database can then be recovered into the dial tone database even though the original database in the backup was created on a different server.
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5. Anti-spam and Antivirus
| Feature |
Description |
| Edge Transport Server Role |
This server role is for perimeter network deployment. It supports Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) routing, provides anti-spam filtering technologies and support for antivirus extensibility.
Edge Transport server can leverage Active Directory for recipient filtering by using Active Directory Application Mode (ADAM). EdgeSync publishes pertinent organization information,
encrypted, to the Edge Transport server for use in robust recipient filtering and respects Microsoft Outlook safe sender lists on the Edge. Communications between the Edge Transport server
and the internal network in an Exchange organization are encrypted by default. Edge Transport includes anti-spam technologies that protect at many layers.
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| Anti-spam: Connection Filtering |
Exchange Server 2010 provides an integrated, IP based block-and-allow list based on sender reputation. Lists are automatically updated as new versions become available. Administrators
can establish additional IP allow-or-deny lists as needed.
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| Anti-spam: Sender and Recipient Filtering |
Sender reputation is dynamically analyzed and updated. When the Edge Transport server spots specific trends from a given domain, it can impose certain actions to either quarantine or \
reject incoming messages. Sender ID is also used to verify that each e-mail message originates from the Internet domain from which it claims to come from based on the sender's SMTP server
IP address. Once a Sender ID record has been verified, the results can be cross-referenced to past traffic patterns and sender reputation, creating an associate weight into the domain
reputation. Finally, recipients are validated, and administrators have the ability to block messages sent to non-existent user accounts or internal-only distribution lists.
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| Anti-spam: Safe Sender List Aggregation |
Via EdgeSync, the Edge Transport server respects Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2010 safe sender lists to help reduce false positives.
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| Anti-spam: Sender ID |
Exchange Server 2010 embeds support for Sender ID, an e-mail industry initiative designed to verify that each e-mail message originates from the Internet domain from which it claims to
come based on the sender's SMTP server IP address. Sender ID helps prevent domain spoofing and protect legitimate senders' domain names and reputation and helps recipients more
effectively identify and filter junk e-mail and phishing scams.
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| Anti-spam: Content Filtering |
Content is analyzed using the Intelligent Message Filter (IMF), Exchange Server's implementation of Microsoft SmartScreen content filtering technology. SmartScreen is based on Microsoft
Research's patented machine-learning technology. Anti-phishing capabilities are also built-in to the IMF to help detect fraudulent links or spoofed domains and protect users from these
types of online scams. When used with Outlook 2010, a phishing warning or block appears in the user interface. Customers are protected from emerging spam attacks through the automatic
filter updates for Exchange Server 2010, which are published on a frequent basis. Should the administrator require additional control, the Edge Transport server enables customization, including
the ability to add words or phrases to the filter.
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| Anti-spam: Outlook E-Mail Postmark |
Exchange 2010 verifies Outlook E-mail Postmarks attached to messages sent from Outlook 2010. The Outlook E-mail Postmark can reduce false positives for messages from
legitimate senders that have little to no reputation.
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| Anti-spam: Spam Assessment |
In addition to scanning message content, the IMF consolidates guidance from Connection, Sender/Recipient, Sender Reputation, Sender ID verification, and Outlook E-mail Postmark
validation to apply a Spam Confidence Level (SCL) rating to a given message. Administrators can preconfigure actions on the message based on this SCL rating. Actions may include
deliver to the inbox or junk mail folder, deliver to the spam quarantine, or reject outright and no deliver.
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| Anti-spam: Service Resilience |
The Edge Transport server role controls the inbound SMTP message receipt rate for increased availability. This control, coupled with the ability to detect open proxy machines, can aid in
preventing denial of service attacks. Tar pitting is supported to slow the server response for certain SMTP communication patterns, minimizing exposure to directory harvest attacks.
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| Anti-spam: Anti-spam Stamp |
Messages filtered by the Edge Transport server role are stamped with information, including why the message was considered spam and which combination of filters and reputation
services (IP, domain, sender, recipient, content) determined its spam assessment. Administrators may use this information in an aggregate way to understand the effectiveness of filtering
across their multilayered approach and tune appropriately.
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| Anti-spam: Two-Tiered Spam Quarantine |
The Exchange Server 2010 environment enables two-tiered spam quarantine. First, administrators have access to a Spam Quarantine housed in the perimeter network. Using Outlook,
administrators can access the Spam Quarantine to search for messages, release to the recipient, or reject and delete. Messages with borderline SCL ratings (borderline definition configured
by the administrator) may be released to the end user's junk mail folder in Outlook, and are converted to plain text for further protection.
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| Anti-spam: Consolidated Management |
Management of the Edge Transport Server role and corresponding rules is consistent with the rest of the Exchange environment and can be performed using the Exchange Management
Console graphical interface or the Exchange Management Shell for automation. Finally, the administrator can leverage notifications through Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) or reports
within Exchange to analyze the effectiveness of their anti-spam filters.
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| Antivirus Extensibility: Attachment Filtering |
To effectively protect against worms delivered via e-mail, the administrator can strip attachments based on their size, content or file type. Zip file manifests can be examined as well for
offending file types.
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| Antivirus Extensibility: Edge Protocol Rules |
As a reactive defense mechanism, protocol rules provide a layer of protection before antivirus signature updates become available. Administrators can filter on known text patterns in malware
carriers and drop the connection.
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| Antivirus Extensibility: Antivirus Stamp |
Messages scanned in the Exchange environment can be assigned an antivirus stamp. This stamp identifies which engine did the scanning, which signature was used, and when the message
was last scanned.
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| Antivirus Extensibility: Deep Integration for Antivirus Scanning |
Antivirus solutions can be more tightly integrated in the Exchange Server 2010 environment. Antivirus solutions have access to the Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) parsers and
can scan the message stream in transport (on Edge Transport or Hub Transport servers). Catching viruses in transport helps prevent their delivery and storage in Exchange mailboxes.
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| Hosted Filtering Integration |
Exchange Server 2010 provides integration with Exchange Hosted Services, offering off-site protection against spam and viruses.
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Call us for a free Exchange 2010 Migration Checkup
We’ll review your current infrastructure and environment and devise a roadmap/plan specifically developed to meet your company's business and technology requirements.
The free checkup includes the following elements:
- A high level evaluation of your technology environment with the goal of migrating to Exchange Server 2010
- A high level evaluation of other issues that might affect your migration
- A discussion of your future goals and requirements
- Development of a high level roadmap/plan to meet requirements and achieve company goals
For more information contact Steve Miller at 281.774.4002 - email: steve.miller@insource.com.
 
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