Exchange 2003 Boosts Performance, Eases Administration

Many Exchange 2003 features won’t be apparent to end users but will be important to IT planners, developers, and administrators. Some of these changes enable them to capitalize on new functionality and enhanced performance in Windows Server 2003, but Exchange 2003 also has many new features that are independent of the new OS.

Improved virus and spam protection will benefit all customers, and large corporate customers and application service providers (ASPs) will particularly benefit from Exchange 2003’s improved scalability, availability, and manageability. However, existing Exchange 2000 customers will lose some previous features, such as instant messaging, if they upgrade.

Exchange 2003 Exploits Windows Server 2003

Although Exchange 2003 will run on Windows 2000 Server, many new features and improvements exploit new features in Windows Server 2003.

Improved Message Recovery with VSS

Exchange 2003 can use the new Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) feature in Windows Server 2003 to greatly reduce the time needed to back up or restore Exchange and to simplify recovery of data in individual user mailboxes, thereby improving availability and reducing management costs.