bits & bytes - Ping! Zine Web Tech Magazine

HOSTING GURUS
gives the appearance of) more hardware
deployment options. However, with this
agnosticism comes a lack of capacity
planning documentation on the part of
hardware vendors. This means that while
the platform was more scalable and
feature-rich, it has to make more generic
recommendations about how to scale and
improve performance.
Overall, the Microsoft Solution for
Hosted Exchange 2003 provided a
comprehensive solution for Service
Providers to deploy a service for small
business looking to outsource their
Outlook 2003 clients.
Hosted Exchange 2003.1
A few months after HE2003 came
to market, a new interim release was
shipped. The goal of this release was to
overcome some of the scalability issues
found in HE2003. The HE2003.1 release
provided the ability to scale beyond
the 1000 organization limitation in all
previous Hosted Exchange solutions.
This was done by providing some new
tools as a part of the solution which made
modifications to Active Directory (http://
weblogs.asp.net/conrad/archive/2005/0
6/03/410238.aspx) and by developing a
workaround that allowed for more than
1000 Offline Address Books (OAB)
within a single Exchange Organization.
These improvements allowed Service
Providers to feel comfortable in deploying
an environment that would scale out and
provide some platform longevity.
34 Ping! Zine Web Hosting Magazine
Hosted Messaging & Collaboration 3.0
The “Microsoft Solution for Messaging
& Collaboration 3.0” (HMC3) shipped
in the first half of 2005, and leverages
the components found in the HE2003.1
solution while adding new hosted services.
HMC3 includes Windows Sharepoint
Services (WSS) and Live Communication
Server 2005 (LCS). There are also a few
new tools included within the solution for
additional Hosted Exchange functionality.
One of the more interesting and underpublicized
Hosted Exchange additions
is the inclusion of a new MPS “Import”
namespace. The “Import” namespace
is much needed if you have an existing
Exchange environment with production
customers, users, and mailboxes and want
to import these into an HMC3 Hosted
Exchange architecture. This allows
Exchange Hosters to leverage their current
deployment environment and move/
migrate/import those users into the new
HMC-specific deployment. The solution
also provides an MPF Provider and an
MPF Namespace to provision Windows
Sharepoint Services. Planning and
Deployment documentation is provided in
the solution for WSS as well.
Provisioning of LCS services is provided
via an MPF Namespace of its own. This
namespace is leveraged within the Hosted
Exchange namespace to provision LCS
Services (e.g. a SIP Address) for all new
organizations and users when a user is
given an Exchange mailbox. For more
information read (http://weblogs.asp.net/
conrad/archive/2005/05/16/406890.aspx).
At the time this article was written,
Microsoft is focussed on the next version
of HMC. The core of the next release
will include support for Windows Server
2003 Service Pack 1, and a few additional
features. In addition, Microsoft is working
on future versions of the solution that
will leverage the mobility features of
Exchange 2003 SP2. This should serve as
evidence to the Service Provider industry
to demonstrate Microsoft’s commitment
and investment to shipping solutions that
meet their customer’s requirements.
Conclusion
Microsoft continues to invest a great deal
of time and money in the development,
testing, and release of these hosted products
and solutions. Over the past five years,
Microsoft has consistently delivered new
versions of Hosted Exchange solutions that
give Service Providers the added features
they need to host a rich mail platform for
small to medium size businesses.
P!
PING! ZINE WRITER BIO
Conrad Agramont is a Senior Architect for
eQuest, a division of Planet Technologies
Inc., a firm specializing in architecting
automated solutions for Microsoft products
and technologies. Previously, Conrad worked
for Microsoft as a Program Manager for the
Microsoft Provisioning System 1.0, Service
Provisioning component in Microsoft Solution
for Hosted Messaging & Collaboration, Hosted
Exchange 2003, Hosted Exchange 2003.1,
and Windows based Hosting 3.0. Paul Edlund
also deserves an honorable mention, as he
provided a great deal of editing and additions
to the article.