Security is a huge concern when it comes to email. Email is the primary communication mechanism for many businesses and sensitive information is passed both externally and internally via email everyday. Since we cannot leave it to chance that a hacker might intercept an email, we use Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificates to encrypt the data that is transmitted internally between servers and Transport Layer Security (TLS) to encrypt the data that is transported over SMTP traffic both internally and externally.

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There are many reasons why I love Microsoft Exchange, but Exchange Activesync with Direct Push is possibly my favorite feature. Microsoft Exchange Activesync was introduced with Exchange 2003 and for the first time Windows CE devices were able to synchronize directly with an Exchange server. Before Microsoft Activesync some form of middleware was required to have mobile phones sync with Exchange, and most notably RIM’s Blackberry Enterprise Server was the way to achieve this, but only with Blackberry devices.

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If you want to move your organizations 2000/2003 Exchange Server to 2007 then you’ll have to read up on Microsoft’s transition process. This is pretty much the method for moving to Exchange 2007. Part of the beauty in Exchange 2007′s separate roles is that Exchange 2000/2003 and 2007 can be installed in coexistence. Once an organization has both an Exchange 2007 and Exchange 2000/2003 server installed on the same domain, it is fairly straightforward to move the mailboxes between the two servers in the same forest.

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With Exchange 2003 and Small Business Server 2003 moving from IMAP to Exchange used to be fairly simple task. With Exchange 2007 though, Microsoft left out the Exchange Migration Tool that had the capabilities of downloading IMAP folders directly into the Exchange Mailboxes. Fortunately enough for those of us that want to move from IMAP to Exchange 2007 we still have options left because of Exchange 2003′s Migration Tool. Microsoft may add a migration tool into Exchange 2007 with SP1/2, but it is looking like they may never get around to adding IMAP because of the vast amount of other features being added into Exchange.

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I still run across businesses every few months that to my amazement are running Exchange 5.5 even though it was released almost 10 years ago in November of 1997. For these businesses I cannot think of a better way to celebrate their mail servers 10th anniversary than throwing it in the dumpster out back. Honestly though, if your business is still running Exchange 5.5 it is time to upgrade for many reasons including:

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