By Tony Redmond, Compaq's director of applied Microsoft technology group Exchange Server is on a roll, accumulating more than 5 million new seats every quarter. More than 30 million people now use Exchange for their e-mail system. Users, contacts and groups will become mail-enabled AD objects, taking the place of mailboxes, custom recipients and distribution lists. The AD will also hold all the configuration data about Exchange servers, routing groups and administrative groups where the DS holds information about servers and sites today. Configuration data held in the AD can be replicated only inside a forest, so an Exchange 2000 organization can span only a single Windows 2000 forest.
Major upgrades require comprehensive planning in order to succeed.
There are no upgrade paths for Exchange 5.0 or 4.0 servers or for Exchange 5.5 servers that haven't had the latest service packs applied. Whatever scenario your company chooses, the deployment of Exchange 2000 won't happen overnight. It's obvious that a link is required between the Exchange 5.5 DS and the AD to enable users attached to the different versions to communicate with one another. The ADC is an important tool for any Exchange administrator to master, as it will figure in all but green-field deployments. Two versions of the ADC are available.