Next Major Update: Kodiak

Overcoming Exchange 2003 limitations will require Microsoft to make radical changes to Exchange’s architecture, and this is what’s planned for the next version of Exchange, code-named Kodiak. As Kodiak is not due until 2006, most information is still sketchy, but some details are known.

Based on SQL Server Yukon

Kodiak will use the new Yukon storage engine (shared with the next release of SQL Server), which will be able to store both structured (tabular) data and unstructured (text and digital media) data. Compared with the current Web Store, Exchange should benefit from Yukon in the following ways:

• More robust storage, with transaction-level roll-back or restoration
• Greater database scalability, including the option to use a 64-bit version of Yukon
• Better integration with other applications that will also use Yukon storage, such as future releases of SharePoint
• Database-level message replication to other servers or possibly even clients.

(For more background on why Kodiak will use the Yukon storage engine, see “Microsoft Rethinks Exchange Storage Architecture” on page 3 of the May 2001 Update.)