What is Exchange Server?

Microsoft Exchange Server is a mailing, calendaring, contact, scheduling, and collaboration platform. It runs on Windows Server operating systems. Microsoft designed Exchange Server to allow users to access messaging platform from desktops, mobile devices, and web-based systems. The first version was called Exchange Server 4.0. Exchange Server initially uses a protocol called MAPI but later on added support for POP3, IMAP, and EAS. The standard protocol SMTP is used to communicate with other internet mail servers.

Current Version

The current version of Microsoft Exchange Server is 2019 released on October 2018. One of the key features in the latest version is it can be deployed into Windows Server Core for the first time.

Understanding Exchange Server and its features

Exchange Server is known for its high availability features and offers many benefits for better management of emails, calendars, contacts, tasks, etc.

Provide support for up to 256 GB of memory
Enables installation on Windows Server core
It will inform you about your appointments and also about the emails in case you are out of office, as you can send an auto-generated reply.
Do not worry about the email address of employees. All the addresses are automatically updated in address book.
Maintain proper communication between employees by providing them access from office, home, away from the office. It simplifies the means of communication and helps in enhancing team productivity.
o Exchange Mail server reduces the cost of communication as it is quick and consumes less budget.
No leakage of the confidential database as Exchange Server offers security features like leakage protection, retention of sensitive information, etc.
It enables users to access the data from anywhere in the world.
Database Availability Groups (DAG) introduced in Exchange 2010, an important subsystem within Exchange. It automatically copies the database between members.
Active Manager (AM) runs in Exchange Replication service on all Exchange 2016 servers and is responsible for managing failover events within an Exchange environment.
DataCenter Activation Coordination (DAC) is designed to prevent situations in which an outage causes two copies of a database to live on two different servers. DAC is helpful when primary data fails completely and a backup data center is activated.

Know Exchange Server database storage capacity

Mailbox storage quotas– It is the calculation of complete storage space available for hosting an Exchange Server. For example, if you have 50 mailboxes or user accounts in Exchange Server and every mailbox is assigned minimum 250 MB of storage space, then you should at least 12.5 GN available space in database. It is like that the storage quota is 250 MB for every mailbox.

Database White space– The size of Exchange database is not managed according to defined space for each mailbox. Some user mailboxes have more space in their mailbox while some have reached that storage limit. In this case, the blank spaces are called database white space. It is managed by ongoing online defragmentation process.

Actual mailbox size– To know the actual mailbox size, the administrators have to plan for managing more spaces for data storage and they have to create another database or need to delete the mailbox data for saving space.

Mailbox database recoverable items– It belongs to the retention policy of any deleted item like emails and calendars from Exchange mailbox. The default time for email retention is 14 days and 120 days for calendars in Exchange Server 2010. All the soft-deleted items are stored in a dumpster, a kind of recycle bin.

Content Indexing– Content Indexing takes 10% of the mailboxes so administrators have to plan for this space too. It manages the content by creating the index table.

Offline database maintenance– When you compact data in offline, it needs 10 or more than 10% more storage space than the target database.

Recovery database– Creates to prevent the data from any accidental situation. The situation could be lost mailboxes, database corruption, not accessible mailboxes, and many more.

Database Growth overhead– It is not calculated within the important factors for storing the data. 20% additional space should be created in complete database size before deploying the database. This 20% space is needed to manage overhead situations.

Exchange Server and Outlook

Exchange Server and Outlook is really connected to each other and they are important for each other. To access emails in offline mode, you need to configure MS Outlook with Exchange Server. Different configuration and connection techniques are provided by Outlook with Exchange Server. Other than Outlook, no other client is used to access emails from Exchange Server.

Common problems or challenges with Exchange Server

Exchange Server shutdown error– Every change made to the database is tracked by transaction log file and any problem in this log file affects the smooth functioning of Exchange Server. In this case, the database fails to start and affect the server environment. To resolve this issue, make sure to backup log files and check the status of log files as “detached” and make sure all the log files are committed to database before the clean shutdown of the database.
Unable to mount database error– This error appears when the database is in an inconsistent state and is restored from backup. Missing a transaction log is the prime reason for showing the error “unable to mount database.” To resolve this issue, stop the Exchange information store as well as database existing with the storage group.
Unable to initialize Exchange information store– This error appears when the clock on the server system fails to sync with the clock on the system of the client. To resolve this error, restart the Exchange Active Directory Topology service.

Generally Asked Questions

Q – What is Exchange Server database and how does it work?

A – Microsoft Exchange Server database is an email and calendar management server that manages email processing, storage, calendar sharing, task management, etc. It comes with several features that have the facility to manage complete office or organization.

Q – Which is the current edition of Exchange Server and what is different or better in it from others?

A – The current or the latest edition of Exchange Server is 2019. Exchange Server 2019 can be deployed into Windows Server Core and supports running Exchange Server with up to 48 processor cores and 256 GB RAM.

Q – What is the retention policy in Exchange 2019, 2016, and 2013?

A – The retention policy in Exchange Server plays an important role. An Exchange administrator can add various policies for different mailboxes according to the mailbox value.

Q – What is Exchange Server Database file extension?

A – EDB is the database file extension in Exchange Server. Two types of EDB files are there in Exchange Server – private.edb and public.edb

Q – What is mailbox in Exchange Server?

A – For every user account, there is a mailbox that is created when a user profile is created in Exchange Database Server. Mailbox contains details like emails, contacts, calendars, etc.

Q – What is OWA in Exchange Server?

A – OWA or Outlook Web Access is used to access emails for Exchange Server through web browsers. All configurations are managed by Exchange Management Console or Exchange Admin Center.

Conclusion

The article focus on Exchange Server – its history, features, its connection with Outlook, and common problems faced by users. We have tried to discuss all the important things in this article that one should know about Exchange Server.