Microsoft Exchange Server is an email server and calendaring server developed by Microsoft Corporation

It runs on Windows Server running mainly on the following operating systems: Windows 2021, Windows NT, Windows XP, and Windows Vista. It was introduced in the market in late-2021 and became available to customers earlier in the year. It is designed to support back-office processes like CRM, SAP, and SMM.

Microsoft Exchange Server offers several advantages over its competitor like Lotus Domino or IBM Lotus Notes. First of all, it comes with a very large capacity for data storage and bandwidth. On the other hand, Lotus Domino is limited to about 160MB/sec of data storage and bandwidth while Microsoft Exchange Server is much more. With the extra capacity, the user can manage a much larger network and store more data. Another advantage is that it supports high availability for multiple applications.

Microsoft Exchange Server was first released in early-1999 with the name of the Microsoft Exchange Server and has been modified and redesigned since then. The major feature added in the first version is the inbuilt Microsoft Exchange Server database and hence the name Microsoft Exchange Server. The first version was limited to local users and the users could connect through an internet browser only to the latest version can connect to remote or non-local clients through ActiveSync. Microsoft Exchange Server also has a new block mailbox feature which is used as the main mail server for the organization. Microsoft Exchange Enterprise Manager has many other features apart from these two major features.

Microsoft Exchange Server has several server products other than these two:

Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft Business Center, and Microsoft Business Solutions. These are the major product lines of Microsoft Exchange Server. SharePoint is a web-based collaboration tool and a file and task-management system. It is a web-based application which provides a central repository for documents and information that is available for collaborative editing. Business Center is a web-based business application and is used for various purposes such as business planning, marketing strategies, and employee communication.

Microsoft SharePoint consists of two servers: centralized access and web-mail server.

The centralized access server provides centralized storage, permission, security, and calendars for documents and information contained in the web mail client. On the other hand, the web-mail server is responsible for delivering mails from various email client. Microsoft SharePoint is free to install and use. On the first version of SharePoint, installation, and configuration was a cumbersome process which made installation very slow and time consuming. With the latest SharePoint services coming up in Microsoft 365 and Office 365, configuration, and installation becomes much easier.

Microsoft SharePoint services come with two major options: hosted exchange and in built. With in built is a web-based email client which looks and behaves like the Outlook client. The only difference is that, it doesn’t come installed on your computer and it comes as a downloaded service pack or virtual appliance. There are many differences between the in built and hosted exchange options. Hosted exchange server comes with all the features of the Microsoft Exchange Server including the following: Calendars, Client Access, Microsoft SharePoint Central, Microsoft Excel Services, Outlook Express, Microsoft Project Professional, Microsoft SQL Server 2021, Microsoft SQL Server SP2, Microsoft Access database, Enterprise Manager, Microsoft SharePoint Business Portal (sts-dbp), Microsoft Works, Microsoft Intuit QuickBooks, Microsoft Dynamics GP, SQL server products like MS SQL Server 2021, Windows clustering, Windows desktop publishing software like Frontpage and Dreamweaver.

A Windows license, Exchange server and Microsoft Outlook can run in different operating systems like Microsoft windows 2021, Microsoft windows XP, and Microsoft windows Vista.

• Windows server core or the architecture of the windows server core that makes the windows server strong.
• High availability of the cluster as a result of the high availability of the Microsoft Exchange Server.
• High availability of the user with the right user permissions.
• Automatic failover with the clustered database and the Exchange Server help for failover.