Special Edition Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5

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Leveraging Your Investment in the Exchange Platform



By now, we have discussed all the core functions of Exchange provided in the shipped version. Although Microsoft has an extensive array of features built into the application, it cannot deliver all the features that end users need in their environment.

Companies today are looking to derive greater benefit from their investments in messaging infrastructures. As the global market becomes a reality, organizations must find ways of reducing or maintaining operational costs and total cost of ownership (of the IT infrastructure) while improving productivity and customer satisfaction. One way to accomplish this is to provide business solutions that leverage current infrastructure investments. Exchange Server is an application that also serves the role of a platform. That is, Exchange must be leveraged as a platform on top of which organizations can deploy third-party or in-house applications and services. This will ensure that organizations obtain a solid return on investment (ROI) on their investment in Exchange Server.

Third-party developers are essential resources in the deployment of Exchange in your environment. You saw that Exchange is more than just a messaging system. Exchange is an application framework. Third-party developers can extend the framework to provide a wide array of solutions on top of your core Exchange architecture.

Using Workflow Technologies to Extend Exchange

The segment of groupware that automates business processes is called workflow. Workflow is an enabling technology that lets businesses streamline their processes for greater efficiencies. The lack of reliable, cost-efficient solutions built on pervasive infrastructures has stifled adoption of workflow technologies. Workflow is a sequence of actions or steps used in business processes. Automated workflow applies technology (in this case, messaging technology) to the workflow process. Reliable messaging connectivity between all participants and interested parties is a fundamental prerequisite to a robust and reliable workflow infrastructure.

Workflow is defined differently by different people. For many, the terms groupware and workflow are interchangeable. The distinction is fuzzy at best. One must view groupware as an umbrella term that encompasses a broad range of group productivity applications such as group scheduling, information sharing, bulletin boards, discussion forums, and so on. Workflow applications are a segment of groupware applications.

Workflow applications can be classified into five segments:

Messaging serves as an ideal infrastructure for the first four of these segments. Highly repetitive, high-throughput, production workflow applications can leverage messaging for backboning and exception processing.

Exchange has the following capabilities, which makes it the ideal infrastructure to deploy workflow applications:

Additionally, workflow is composed of several other key technologies: e-mail, imaging, document management, and databases. The end result is that workflow should streamline business processes and reduce system costs by using workflow servers to perform tasks based on the business model (see Figure 32.1). These applications will be integrated with the Exchange client and will provide an agent running on the Exchange Server to process and manage the workflow.

FIG. 32.1 Workflow framework and technologies.

The following is a list of workflow technology solutions. Each product mentioned has a description of the components, as well as integration with Exchange. The products include Exchange client software integration and data routing to external database sources (see Figure 32.2).

http://www.keyfile.com

http://www.actiontech.com

http://www.filenet.com

FIG. 32.2 Workflow business process.

Document Imaging and Management with Exchange

An important component for the development of workflow and collaborative systems and solutions is the capability to capture and manage the documents associated with a business process.

Document imaging is the capability to take an object, scan it, and store the image for later use on the computer system.

Document management is the capability to manage existing data or a newly created document in a variety of formats, including scanned images, audio and video files, word processing documents, spreadsheets, and so on. After the system has stored the object, the object is cataloged and managed for later use. This includes user-defined fields, object-file type conversions, version control, object indexing, and security permissions.

Both of these technologies are complementary and separate. Document imaging involves capturing the object from an external source: paper, fax, and so on. The image must be processed and stored. You then would store the image into a document management system, which could contain many different types of data objects (see Figure 32.3).

FIG. 32.3 Document imaging and document management with Exchange.

The following sections describe several document imaging and document management technology solutions. Each product mentioned has a description of the components as well as integration with Exchange. The products include Exchange client software integration and server connections to external image repositories.

http://www.filenet.com/watermark

http://www.FrontOfficeTech.com

Information Sharing

Information sharing is the capability to have group discussion forums with threaded conversations about a document, topic, or project. This capability is similar to an Internet News Group. Information sharing is one of the technologies that facilitates the implementation of groupware throughout organizations. The term groupware can encompass many technologies and human interaction paradigms. The information-sharing paradigm is defined as human interaction from one to many. In this way, a user can write to one place, and then many people can access and comment on the information. Exchange Server features permit organizations to easily implement groupware solutions (see Figure 32.4).

FIG. 32.4 Groupware: one-to-many communication.

http://www.mesa.com

http://www.verity.com

Understanding Information Providers

Information providers leverage the content-driven focus of Exchange Server. Exchange can be leveraged as the foundation of an information retrieval and distribution system within organizations. This technology demonstrates the power of this client-server application framework.

Several companies provide intelligent agents running on the Exchange Server or client to retrieve information on a given subject (see Figure 32.5). This technology can parallel what is known as a "web crawler" on the Internet. These agents are given a specific topic and poll their respective information feeds.

This function is configured in a manner similar to other server-based rules on Exchange. The end user accesses the rules policy from the client workstation with the Exchange client and tells the agent what information to gather. At this point, the agent on the server (or client) executes the request and is not dependent on the client being connected. The agent returns the information and resources to the user.

http://www.lexis-nexis.com

FIG. 32.5 Information providers for Exchange Server.

Communications Gateways and Connectors for Exchange

Connectors and gateways provide ways to integrate Exchange with legacy systems or to provide new functionality. These products provide wireless access to Exchange mail servers, connectivity to third-party messaging systems, integration with telephony functionality, faxing services, and paging services.

Communication Support for Exchange

Communications gateways and service providers for Exchange provide a mechanism for accessing the Exchange message stores by way of wireless networking protocols from a client PC or the technology to enable standards-based transmission of Exchange messages over X.400 and X.500 (see Figure 32.6).

FIG. 32.6 Wireless Networking Services for Exchange Server.

The process follows this scenario: A request is made from the mobile user on its PC with the Exchange inbox. The request is encapsulated in a message and transferred by way of the wireless network to a server-based agent. The agent then de-encapsulates the messages and performs the action dictated in the message. At this point, it communicates with the Exchange Server to send or retrieve mail, change a server-based rule, or perform another Exchange task.

The key standards for wireless technology are ARDIS, CDPD, GSM, and Inmarsat. The following list breaks down the technologies and service providers for wireless communication.

FIG. 32.7 Wireless networking technology by Inmarsat.

http://www.attws.com/nohost/data

http://www.sprint.com

Besides Sprint, several other value-added networking providers are working on supporting Exchange backbones. Services will provide companies with links from Exchange into legacy systems, Profs, All-in-One, and Officevision; into other LAN mail systems such as Lotus and cc:Mail; and into other forms of messaging--EDI, fax, telex, CompuServe, X.400, and the Internet. A good way to think about these public and private networks is as a way to out-source gateways and address/message conversion processes. By supporting native Exchange formats, the providers can allow easy integration from the corporate LANs into trading and business partners.

Gateway Support for Exchange

Gateways and connectors are used to extend Exchange into existing LAN-based mail systems or legacy host systems (see Figure 32.8). They also can provide new types of functionality, such as faxing and paging, to enhance messaging within the organization. With Exchange you can implement Exchange-specific connectors as well as leverage existing MS Mail gateways.

FIG. 32.8 The MS Mail gateways for Exchange Server.

The following is a list of gateways and connectors that can be used with Exchange:

FIG. 32.9 ZIP! Office gateways for Exchange Server.


NOTE: Due to message formats on the host systems, only one attachment can be sent in the body of a message. If multiple attachments must be sent to a host recipient, multiple messages must be used. 

http://www.fenestrae.com

http://www.ikon.net/wms

FIG. 32.10 Sample office configuration--Octel Voice-Mail gateway for Exchange Server.

http://www.octel.com

This section described many of the gateways, connectors, and communication protocols supported by third parties for the Exchange client and server.

Content Indexing, Searching, and Retrieval

The Fulcrum Knowledge Network is a high-performance text-indexing and retrieval engine offering rapid access to vast amounts of corporate information stored in documents or databases. Fulcrum Knowledge Network provides users with a suite of advanced information retrieval features for searching and retrieving the information they need to build knowledge. Some key features include search-term highlighting and navigation to pinpoint information within documents, statistical relevance ranking, natural language searching, and support for major European and Asian languages.

The Fulcrum Knowledge Network can dramatically improve the way your organization manages its information resources. The Fulcrum Knowledge Network enables users to conduct single, unified searches across various information sources, including Exchange Server, web sites, and more.

Visit this site for more information:

http://www.fulcrum.com

Virus Protection Products

With the rapid pace at which new computer viruses are being created and spread, organizations must implement virus detection and cleaning tools. Virus infections, especially macro viruses, are particularly hard to eradicate because viruses can hide in old message attachments and public folders. The following section presents a subset of third-party products that provide this functionality for Exchange Server.

Various ISV Solutions

Several companies have developed third-party enhancements to Exchange. These enhancements include electronic forms, Visual Basic reporting, directory service providers, security, and more. The following products continue to describe additional ways to leverage an investment in Exchange.

http://www.delrina.com

http://www.img.seagatesoftware.com/crystalreports/

http://www.entrust.com

http://www.casahl.com

We mentioned several third-party solutions for Exchange, But this list is by no means complete. Please contact Microsoft for continued updates to the list of ISV's developing third-party applications for Exchange at the following web page:

http://www.microsoft.com/exchange

For additional information on third-party products that leverage the Exchange infrastructure, visit the following web page:

http://www.amrein.com/eworld.htm

Consulting Solutions

Microsoft Consulting Services (MCS) is committed to assisting large customers to effectively design, deploy, and maintain all types of Exchange organizations. MCS also partners with Software Spectrum to conduct an Exchange Planning Workshop (EPW). More information on the EPW is presented in the following list.

In addition to Exchange consulting, MCS also offers:

For more information on Microsoft Consulting Services, visit this site:

http://microsoft.com

Software Spectrum-TSG has extensive experience in the implementation of messaging, collaborative, and workflow systems. We have performed these kinds of services for our Fortune 1000 customers throughout the world. By implementing our proven methodology, we ensure the successful completion of projects in a timely and cost-effective manner. The areas where we can assist our customers in regards to messaging and collaborative solutions include the following:

Software Spectrum also offers consulting worldwide in the following focus technologies: networking, application development, Internet/Intranet Services, enterprise management (Microsoft's Systems Management Server), and of course, enterprise messaging.

For more information on the Exchange Planning Workshop, contact this site:

http://www.softwarespectrum.com

Phone: (800) 624-2033

For more information on consulting, contact the following site:

http://www.softwarespectrum.com

Phone: (800) 753-3266


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