Exchange Server 2007 for Exchange 2003 Admins, Part 2

Executive Summary: Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 has new management tools that replace the familiar Exchange System Manager (ESM). Learn how to use Exchange Management Console to perform Exchange 2007 administration tasks such as viewing mailboxes and filtering recipient lists, creating storage groups, and managing public folders.

In "Exchange Server 2007 for Exchange 2003 Admins, Part 1," May 2008 InstantDoc ID 98698), I explained that Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 uses completely different management tools than Exchange Server 2003 did, which means the techniques for performing even the most basic administrative functions have changed completely. I also demonstrated how to perform various common administrative tasks using the new management tools. In this article, I show you more of these new techniques, such as viewing mailboxes, filtering recipient lists, and more.

As I discussed in part 1 of this series, Exchange Management Console (EMC) was built on top of Exchange Management Shell (EMS), and any action you can perform through the EMC GUI you can also perform from the command line. However, although the command shell is more powerful and more flexible than the GUI, the commands themselves can be long, complicated, and difficult to remember if you’re just getting used to the new version of Exchange. To keep things simple, I stick to using the GUI for the remainder of this article series.

Filtering the Recipient List
In part 1, I showed you the different types of mailboxes you can create using Exchange 2007. You might notice that all the mailboxes are listed in one place in Exchange 2007. In Exchange 2003, however, recipients are listed by store. To see a list of all mailboxes in a particular store in Exchange 2003 or earlier, you navigate through Exchange System Manager (ESM) to Administrative Groups, your administrative group, Servers, your server, First Storage Group, Mailbox Store, Mailboxes.

When you first move to Exchange 2007, it can be really disorienting to have all the mailboxes listed in one place. This layout isn't much of a problem in smaller organizations, but it can quickly turn into a nuisance in larger organizations with many mailboxes. Fortunately, Exchange 2007 lets you filter the recipient list so that you can view the mailboxes within a specific store. To do so, open EMC and navigate through the console tree to Recipient Configuration, Mailbox. When you do, the details pane displays every mailbox in the entire Exchange organization.

To see how the filtering process works, click the Create Filter icon, as Figure 1 shows. You might see a message indicating that various mailboxes have been corrupted and are in an inconsistent state. Although I haven’t seen any official Microsoft documentation about this error message, in my experience, the error message is bogus; it will appear for any mailbox that resides on a legacy Exchange server. Click OK to clear the error message. You can now use the various drop-down lists at the top of the details pane to build your filter. You can filter by any of several different criteria, but for now let's look at how to filter by server.

The actual mechanics of the filter are fairly simple. The first drop-down list contains an attribute, and the second drop-down list contains an action. There’s also a field where you can enter a value. Therefore, if you wanted to filter the list of recipients by server, you’d choose Server from the first drop-down list, then choose Equals from the second drop-down list. You’d then enter the server name in the text box and click Apply Filter to see the results of the filter that you created, as Figure 2 shows.

Also in Figure 2, note the Add Expression icon. You can use this icon to build filters that include multiple criteria. By creating a multi-tiered filter, you can drill down and create very specific recipient lists. Clicking the Remove Filter icon returns you to the unabridged list of mailboxes residing in your organization.

Creating Storage Groups and Stores
When you install Exchange 2007 with the Mailbox server role, Setup automatically creates one storage group (SG) and one mailbox store. Although this number might be sufficient for smaller organizations, larger organizations typically need to create additional SGs or stores. Even smaller organizations might find themselves needing a public folder store.  Exchange Server 2007 Enterprise Edition lets you create up to 50 storage groups, and up to 50 stores. Although a single store group can handle multiple stores, it is usually advisable to maintain a one to one ration of storage groups to stores. . . .