Microsoft Exchange 2000

Windows 2000’s Killer App?

The next version of the Microsoft messaging server formerly code-named Platinum is now officially known as Microsoft Exchange 2000. The product represents a challenging upgrade in that it must be run on a Windows 2000 Server. The new operating system’s underpinnings provide a number of key services to Exchange 2000, including a system-wide Active Directory, clustering services, load balancing and more. Indeed, Exchange 2000 is probably the closest thing to a killer app for Windows 2000 right now.

 
Its predecessor was no slouch, either. Exchange is now the number one messaging server among the Fortune 1000, according to a recent survey by independent market research firm The Radicati Group. Exchange fostered literally hundreds of add-on products, providing additional features such as virus protection for email messages, file compression services, wireless connectivity options and much more. Exchange 2000, with its easy-to-configure “Digital Dashboard” front end and HTML/XML underpinnings, is likely to foster an even larger number of third-party opportunities. Exchange 2000, expected in Aug. or Sept. of 2000, provides plenty of opportunities for value-added resellers and solution developers to capitalize upon.

The Evolution of Exchange

The biggest change in the design of Exchange 2000 is the addition of a new repository for “semi-structured” data. Microsoft calls this the Web Store and its capabilities bear more than a passing resemblance to those of Lotus Domino – long a product with dual purposes, as a messaging platform and an application server. Using the Web Store and an email client such as Outlook or virtually any browser client, users can access documents from virtually anywhere. A built-in indexing and search tool provides full test searching, not only of messages, but also their attachments.

Exchange, Microsoft asserts, unifies document and data storage, bringing rich storage to web applications, especially those with some XML underpinnings, such as Office 2000. Happily, though, Microsoft is not completely Office-centric here. Exchange 2000 provides some features that, up until now, Office 2000 users have had pretty much to themselves, such as the ability to save and open files directly on the Web Store using native file open/save dialogs. This facility is now available to virtually all Windows applications, although Microsoft admits that Mac and Linux users won’t be able to take advantage of this Win32 API-specific feature.

Voice Mail in your Inbox

Exchange 2000 applies the same interface metaphor to messages, whether they are voice mail, email, faxes, or other media types. Thus, users have only a single metaphor to learn. Microsoft says the ability to integrate email, voice, faxes and pager data will be a part of the next service release upgrade for Office 2000, as well.

 
But not everything new in Exchange 2000 is so visible. Microsoft says the previous version of Exchange used about 50,000 lines of ASP (Active Server Page) code to derive its calendar, schedule and client functions. In Exchange 2000, the developers have put all that functionality into the Web Store as C++ code. The company claims this yields “massive” performance improvements. Although the company’s pre-release license restrictions don’t permit us to quote specific performance benchmarks, it appears that the company’s not just idly boasting.

 
Microsoft says this integration also makes it very easy to produce a “standalone” calendar or discussion group function with nothing more than a single URL.

 
Exchange 2000 will find that much work has been done to streamline the workflow process. Collaboration services include the ability to drag and drop items to the Web Store, where they display the author name, revision number and other status details. Using a feature known as Property Promotion, some items will be forwarded directly to the Web Store, while others will be automatically sent for approval or other required procedures.

 
One of the features the company’s apparently not sure will make it into the shrink-wrap box is particularly interesting to those designing document routing and workflow and tasks. It is a visual workflow designer that creates the routing scripts and properties automatically. Microsoft says the VWD may be made available for download – apparently an acknowledgement that a product capable of easily creating infinite loops might not be wisely made available to every customer.

 
You’ve Got Data
Along with the usual mail types – POP3, SMTP, IMAP and so on, Exchange 2000 integrates some technologies previously seen in Netshow Server and other videoconferencing apps, such as support for T.120 data conferencing and IP multicast audio and video.

 
Oddly, the H.323 (telephone) standard isn’t supported by Exchange 2000. The company says it is working on this, but concedes that an H.323 solution won’t ship with Exchange 2000, at least initially.

 
Also new in Exchange 2000 is an instant messaging facility, not dissimilar to that provided by America Online’s Instant Messenger (which was, in turn, based on Mirabilis’ ICQ technology). With Instant Messaging, Exchange 2000 users can be informed when other team members come online, and can create “buddy lists” for rapid discussions of issues that don’t need to be archived via a traditional email system’s document trail. Although the jury’s still out on whether Instant Chat services in an email system are a godsend or a colossal timewaster around most offices, it’s likely to gain some fans, at least among the impatient.

 
Currently, the integration of IM with other Exchange services isn’t as well implemented as we’d like. Microsoft says it is working on the integration of the messaging client list and the Outlook address list, but isn’t sure whether it will ship in the box or be made available shortly thereafter.

 
As always, there are likely to be migration issues for those architecting upgrades to the new system, expected to ship three to six months after Windows 2000, which Exchange 2000 requires, ships.

 
One notable caveat is the fact that moving forward has the potential to be a one-way street. If you want to preserve your ability to “roll back” to Exchange 5.5, Microsoft says you should install the latest Exchange 5.5 service pack, which provides support for Windows 2000 and then set up the Exchange 5.5 infrastructure to run under Windows 2000’s Active Directory, using the AD connector. That way, you could cut the cord, and the version 5.5 directory will still be available. Alternatively, of course, you could (and should!) back up the 5.5 database before moving up.

 
With Exchange 2000, says James Kobilus, an analyst with the Burton Group (tbg.com), Microsoft is moving toward a focus of serving web clients and very much putting an emphasis on application development. “HTTP is firewall friendly,” he says, “and that’s increasingly important to the enterprise.

 
The enterprise has to move toward TCP/IP and DNS, he asserts, but cautions: “There are a lot of complex integration issues. This is a complex upgrades. You’ve got to have IP. There’s the operating system; the Active directory names have to happen there. Another layer up, the messaging platform has to move forward. This is a long-term, multilevel project. This is not a forklift upgrade.”

 
Kobilus says both Microsoft and Lotus are focusing on XML as a way of revealing schemas of the underlying data. “The BizTalk schema,” he says, “uses the XML data framework. I think, in [the year] 2000, we’ll see the world standardize on XML schemas – the proprietary schemas will fall.

 
With Exchange 2000, he says, Microsoft is firmly onboard the open standards bandwagon. Proprietary protocols, Kobilus maintains, are on the run. So, we asked him, why then are Microsoft and AOL currently engaged in something of a standards war in the area of instant messaging?  “IM currently has to be a proprietary nature, as the working group hasn’t even published a paper standard yet.” But there is hope. At the Microsoft Exchange conference held in Atlanta in early October, Microsoft showed a version of its IM client that was compatible with AOL’s messenger. Whether they will still be compatible at the time of Exchange 2000’s release remains to be seen, but it is encouraging.

 
Kobilus maintains that IM has the potential to be one of the most significant functions of the product. While Exchange 2000’s workflow features are sequential and thus fundamentally asynchronous, chat, IM and live conferences provide fully synchronous interaction. MS, Lotus and Novell, he maintains, will take IM from a novelty to a business service. Although he acknowledges that its still got an image problem, at a certain point, Kobilus believes, “people will say, ‘I need this stuff.’”

 
“People still see this as a function that 12 year-olds use to cheat on their homework; it’s still got an image problem. MS and others want to provide the ability to find out if your colleagues or team members are available right now. The office receptionist, for example, could determine who’s online and available.

 
Presumably, it won’t be long until constantly watched users come up with something similar to the famous “AI” psychiatrist, Eliza, allowing Exchange IM users to appear and “interact” with other team members in absentia.