Mastering Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 SP1

Access to e-mail away from the desktop is now very important to most users. Exchange 2007 provides more options than ever before for that access. The end user now has full access to their e-mail wherever and whenever they need it, and the security of the network is maintained.

Providing the necessary remote options for your users is important. In this chapter, we covered a couple of different ways that you can provide access to Exchange from anywhere.

Outlook Web Access provides much of the same functionality that you would get sitting at your desk and using regular Outlook, but through a Web browser. Exchange Server 2007 OWA has once again been improved to provide the user with more functionality than ever before.

For users that need a full-featured e-mail client even while traveling, Exchange Server 2007 provides Outlook Anywhere. Outlook Anywhere allows Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007 clients to connect to their Exchange server using RPC over HTTP or RPC over HTTPS and synchronize their e-mail without the complexity involved in connecting multiple RPC ports through your company firewall. All that is necessary is port 80 or port 443 (recommended).

Windows Mobile and ActiveSync users can be provide with access to their mailbox from their mobile device. They can synchronize their mailbox from anywhere they can get a cell phone or WiFi signal.

Finally, while in some organizations POP3 and IMAP4 clients have been replaced completely by web-browser-based clients or Outlook, many organizations still use POP3 and IMAP. Exchange continues to support these clients.

In the next chapter, we will look at some of the considerations necessary to ensure that these services are provided to authorized Internet users while at the same time ensuring that the data and server resources are properly secured.