Our blogoversary is coming up - have any questions on Exchange 12?

I was thinking about re-creating single instance storage...

Assuming a server's got capacity to spare (regarding local resources anyway - CPU, RAM, disk i/o)... if the .edb were to contain an additional [hash] table, attachments could be given a hash value (not necessarily requiring a full scan either, perhaps only based on first 20 bytes, as you'll see in a moment)... the table would also include the location for each attachment. Doing this, if ever a user needed to be moved (between servers/storage groups/etc), or exmerge imported, a quick hash table could be used to determine LIKELY matches for single instance storage.

Clearly a unique identifier can't be used across all orgs/servers/etc, as the bandwidth in multiple-server environments would be overwhelming on such menial traffic... but using the contents as a base for the hash, with a lookup table for likely matches, if a match is found exch can scan each file completely to determine true SIS status or not.

I say this if for no other reason than to stress the importance of this. I maintain the exchange server at my company of 50 employees. Because of the nature of our email, we do not have quotas defined for any of our users. (To reduce wasted space i have an outlook GPO to always "ask user to remove anything from 'deleted items' upon exit"). As we look at upgrading to exchange 2003, I will be forced to look at our 10gb database with SIS ratio of 6 (AFTER upgrading from our 6gb exch5.5 store via exmerge, and loosing first round of SIS).

I've looked at archive copies, multiple servers, blah blah... our email is critical... it's going to take space on our servers (as opposed to workstations/laptops) anyway, and going to be part of our nightly offsite tape backup, and i'd rather it stay in a single-instance-storage container such as Exchange.

I would imagine such a scan would be easy to allow as an option, allowing administrators to choose whether it's a task worth burdoning on their servers... heck, if i had the option i might ONLY turn it on if i ever had to import data (via move mailbox wizard, or exmerge, or outlook importing via PST).

Thanks again,
-Scott

One more thing I little tidbit I'd love to see if you've done different. Some corporations like to limit some users to OWA only any changes to how to do this. Currently the only way to do so is to disable Client versions of MAPI server wide. ANy chance of this happening on an per-user basis? or chaning this way this is done so I don't have to devote a whole server to OWA only access?

Thanks,
M@

Have you the security and push function like blackbery devices in E12

Would be nice to have a feature which lets us restrict the "out of office" assistant to users or groups - not only mail-domains...

2 features I would like to see in the next version of Exchange:

1- Exhance the anti-virus API so I can get the whole internet header in quanrantined messages.
All anti-virus 3rd party told me that this was a limitation of the current exchange API

2- Allow some EASY way to customize default system messages. I live in canada and I need to give email service in 2 languages. So far there is no easy way expect hacking some dll or deploying separate servers.
I hope we will exentually see some xml config files for that.

How about more info on the unified messaging? What will the API look like? How about the end user functionality out of the box?

I'm very interested in non-shared storage based clustering/failover. Possibly via log shipping?

Also, how about multiple public folder roots? how about NOT being forced to always open "all public folders"? (linking directly)... i know these are somewhat contradictory in nature, but the concept is still the same... i want multiple "roots" (either skipping the all pf's, or allowing multiple roots) easily accessible.

Also, on the note of PF... how about disabling the newsgroup pf?

how about custom outlook forms in OWA?

lastly, any way to maintain SIS when moving users to new server (since slipstreams aren't exactly supported... and upgrading isn't my favorite thing to do on a production server)?

Thanks a ton,
-Scott

Will there be a new release of MAPI that comes in a redistributable package and that is 100% backwards compatible with all previous versions of Exchange MAPI and Outlook MAPI (well, at least those versions that are still supported by Microsoft)? Please? Pretty please?

I'm very interested in Exchange High Availability. There are very few Microsoft endorsed options here. I'm hoping E12 will provide more solutions.

I´d like to see a unified messaging fuction in E12 (facsimile, voice,...). Something like Tobit David or Ferrari electronic Officemaster.

regards
Marcel