CHAPTER 4
PLANNING THE MICROSOFT
EXCHANGE SERVER
INSTALLATION
The installation of Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server on a single computer is not a very complex
task. You just did this to prepare your test environment. Unfortunately, many Exchange
environments begin their evolution this way.
Lesson 1: Deployment
Considerations
Exchange 2000 Server is enormously flexible and offers numerous mutually exclusive deployment
options. You have to decide what is best for your organization. Would you prefer centralized or
decentralized system administration?
Distributed Versus Centralized Management
Distributed configurations have a higher total cost of ownership than their centralized counterparts.
Directory services offer the ability to centralize administration and provide a simplified, faster, and
more coordinated organization. That is why Microsoft, Novell and Banyan have each developed
their own directory services.
Windows 2000 Permissions
In a standard Windows 2000 domain environment, only the administrator of the top-level domain
has the required permissions to install Exchange 2000 Server. In other words, no sublevel domain
administrator can just set up Exchange 2000.
To first install Exchange 2000 Server, you need to use and account that is a member of one of the
following Windows 2000 security groups:
NOTE: The installation must be updated with Windows 2000 Service Pack 1.
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Windows 2000 Server and Exchange 2000 Administration
If you are working in a single domain environment as the only administrator for both Windows 2000
Server and Exchange 2000 Server, you don’t need to delegate authority to any additional accounts.
If you are working in a more complex environment, however, consider the following aspects of
Windows 2000 before installing Exchange 2000 server:
simplify the environment.
administrators for user accounts and mailboxes and administrators for system configuration.
managing Active Directory.
Server.
Exercise Summary:
Exchange 2000 Server administration is bound to Windows 2000 administration because both use
Active Directory to store configuration and security-related information.
Exchange 2000 Hierarchy
Although desirable, it is not always practical to enforce a centralized administrative model, for
instance, if you are in charge of a large computer network with server resources in different
geographic locations.
NOTE: Exchange 2000 Server allows you to design the system administration independently of
physical network links and server arrangements and can be adapted to both centralized and
decentralized infrastructures.
Exchange 2000 Boundaries
There are three separate boundaries you need to take into consideration when planning your
Exchange 2000 infrastructure. These are:
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Exchange 2000 environment. Servers are set in routing groups, and routing groups are
typically collected into administrative groups, although you can split a routing group
across multiple administrative groups.
NOTE: The relationship between routing groups and administrative groups is not necessarily
hierarchical.
Namespace. The namespace represents the core of the Exchange 2000 hierarchy.
It exists in Active Directory in the form of a domain forest and contains directory
information about all of the Exchange 2000 resources, for instance, to map user
accounts to their corresponding mailboxes.
NOTE: All Exchange 2000 resources must exists in the same namespace (such
as the Active Directory forest). Consequently, Exchange 2000 organization
cannot span multiple namespace (such as multiple forests).
Administrative Groups. Administrative groups help to simplify system management,
for instance to define groups of administrators separately responsible for servers in
different departments.
Routing Groups. Similar to Windows 2000 sites, you should define routing groups
primarily to describe regions of high-speed connections within your network. Messages
sent between servers in the same routing group are transferred directly and immediately
using the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) transport service.
You can use the Routing Group Connector, X.400 connector, or an SMTP Connector
to provide a message path between Exchange 2000 routing groups.
Grouping of Servers. When installing the very first server, you are automatically
creating an administrative group and a routing group. You are not prompted for their
creation. However, when you install subsequent Exchange 2000 servers, you need to
specify an administrative and a routing group in which to add the server.
Exercise Summary:
all server resources, which may then be split across a number of routing groups.
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Mixed Mode and Native Mode
If you have administered previous versions of Exchange Server, you will find many of the structural
elements in Exchange 2000 server familiar, especially if you operate in mixed mode for backward
compatibility.
Mixed Mode. In mixed mode, administrative groups map directly to site in an Exchange
Server 5.5 organization. This means that Exchange Server sites replicated to Active
Directory appear as administrative groups and administrative groups replicated to the
Exchange Server directory appear as sites.
The following
limitations apply in mixed mode:
Although one administrative group may contain multiple routing groups, routing
groups cannot span multiple administrative groups.
NOTE: By default, Exchange 2000 Server operates in mixed mode to ensure maximal
interoperability with previous Exchange Server versions.
Native Mode. You can switch Exchange 2000 to native mode if you don’t plan
to use previous versions of Exchange Server or as soon as you have upgraded all
of your server.
NOTE: Keep in mind that switching to native mode is an irreversible process: you cannot go
back to mixed mode. It is likewise impossible in install earlier versions of Exchange Server into
a native mode organization.
Exercise Summary:
2000 Server organization as mixed mode or native mode. Using the ADSI Edit utility,
you can verify that your organization is operating in native mode.
msExchMixedMode attribute in ADSI Edit to avoid configuration inconsistencies.
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Order of Services to Start in the Event Viewer
Lesson 2:
Preparing the Server Installation
System requirements for successful server installation will vary. You will need to address
architectural services issues, server roles, requirements for system performance, and questions
regarding system maintenance.
Exchange 2000 Requirements
During the setup of the first server, you need to define the organization names. This name
cannot be changed later.
Hardware Requirements
The actual hardware requirements for Exchange 2000 Server are difficult to ascertain.
Microsoft recommends the following equipment for a typical computer running Exchange
2000 Servers:
Software Requirements
Exchange 2000 Server can be installed on Microsoft Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000
Advanced Server, or Windows2000 Datacenter Server with Service Pack 1. Not service
pack 2 & patch (don’t work)
During the installation of Windows 2000, you will need to add the NNTP service manually.
The SMTP service is part of the default installation.
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NOTE: You need to install Exchange 2000 Server on an NT file system (NTFS) partition.
Exchange 2000 Server supports Windows 2000 clustering. To benefit from such a
configuration, however, you need to install the Advanced Server or Data Centre Server
edition of Windows 2000.
Active Directory Dependencies
You need to prepare Active Directory and the underlying Windows 2000 domain structure
of your organization.
Licensing
Licensing is an important issue, but Microsoft’s licensing agreements are not always easy to
understand.
Installation Preparation
If you are planning to install Exchange 2000 Server in an environment with multiple domains
in a forest, it might be advantageous to import the Exchange-specific schema extensions prior
to the actual installation.
Preparing the
If you are responsible for messaging administration and have forestwide permissions to manage
Active Directory, no special preparation is required.
NOTE: You need to install the first instance of Exchange 2000 Server into the domain where
the schema master resides. By default, this is the first Windows 2000 Domain controllers
installed in your forest. Only one domain controller in the forest can be the schema master.
Exchange 2000 installation CD using the command setup /ForestPrep.
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Preparing Windows 2000 Domains
Run Setup with the option /DomainPrep in each domain including the domain where you ran
ForestPrep to add further Exchange-specific configuration information to Active Directory.
Setup /DomainPrep
NOTE: When installing Exchange 2000 at a later time, you should install it on the server where
DomainPrep was performed.
Exchange 2000 Roles and Permissions
By default, only the administrator who has installed the first server or was specified during the
preparation of the domain forest receives explicit administrative privileges at the Exchange level.
The Exchange System Manager includes a tool called the Exchange Administration Delegation
Wizard that simplifies permission management. Similar to its Windows 2000 counterpart,
used to delegate administrative control for OUs to individual administrators, the Exchange
Administration Delegation Wizard simplifies permission management for Exchange administrators.
Using the Administration Delegation Wizard, you can assign the following roles to your Exchange
2000 Server administrators (and security groups):
NOTE:
Only Administrator will remain fully capable of managing the Exchange 2000 organization due to
permission inherited from the Enterprise Admins or Domain Admins security groups.
Exercise Summary:
domain where the schema master resides.
Servers and a domain local security group called Exchange Enterprise Servers.
connections and fewer function as back end servers hosting the actual mailboxes are only
interesting if you plan to support Internet-based client programs, such as IMAP4 messaging
clients or Outlook Web access.
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Back End Server Configuration
Back end servers are ordinarily Exchange 2000 Servers hosting mailboxes and public folders.
Front End Server Configuration
Front end servers are servers that proxy incoming client connections to the back end systems,
which actually contain the users’ mailboxes.
Advantages of Front End/Back End Architectures
The main advantage of a front end/back end (FE/BE) architecture is the concentration of
incoming client connections through front end servers.
Front end servers are able to retrieve information about the location of a particular mailbox,
or the home server attribute, from Active Directory.
Internet Security Issues
In an FE/BE configuration, you have the option to enforce encrypted connections between
front end servers and Internet-based client programs using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL),
whereas the server themselves can communicate nonencrypted over the backbone without
any SSL overhead.
Exercise Summary:
It is relatively easy to configure a front end server to proxy HTTP, IMAP4, and POP3
traffic to a back end server that actually contains the user’s mailbox.
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Installing Exchange 2000 Server in a Clustered Environment
The Advanced Server and Datacenter editions of Windows 2000 support the cluster
technology, which can be used to bind multiple servers so tightly together that they will
act as one logical unit.
Clustering can thus significantly improve the reliability of your server-based applications,
such as Microsoft SQL Server or Exchange 2000 server.
Configuration Requirements
The purpose of a cluster is to provide multiple servers to the network as one virtual server.
Hence, a cluster required a LAN-like connection for client access, and the protocol used
in the LAN must be TCP/IP.
NOTE: Use of identical hardware platforms and configurations for all nodes of a particular
cluster server is recommended.
The hardware requirements for a cluster server configuration are as follows:
Chapter Summary:
Administrative groups can be used to subdivide the management of resources. It’s often
applicable to define your administrative topology according to departments or divisions
independent of physical resource arrangements.
to ask the Active Directory administrator to prepare the forest for you by launching
numbers of Internet-based client.
through numerous front end servers, thus reducing the processing overhead on the back
end system.