Introducing CDO for Exchange Management Objects

Collaboration Data Objects (CDO) is a generic set of components that you can use to build rich collaborative applications. Administrators have long used this client-side tool to build applications in Exchange Server 5.5. Microsoft has taken CDO one step further in Exchange 2000 Server by introducing three new server-side CDO components:

• Collaboration Data Objects for Exchange 2000 Server. CDOEX provides fundamental collaboration tools that let you manage messages, appointments, calendar items, and contacts.
• Collaboration Data Objects Workflow Objects for Exchange. CDOWF provides tools that let you use the Microsoft Web Storage System (WSS) to write and manage workflow.
• Collaboration Data Objects for Exchange Management. CDOEXM provides tools that let you manage the mail attributes associated with Active Directory (AD) objects. CDOEXM also provides tools that let you manage Exchange public and private Information Stores (ISs).

You can use CDOEX, CDOWF, and CDOEXM only with Exchange 2000 on a Windows 2000 platform. (Although Exchange Server 5.5 supports CDO, you can't use these new CDO components with that version of Exchange.) Although all three CDO components are useful, CDOEXM especially can make your job as an Exchange administrator easier. With CDOEXM, you can easily manage Exchange 2000 mailbox stores and the users who access them. Before I show you how to make your job easier with CDOEXM, let's take a brief look at the management tools you get out of the box with Exchange 2000 and their shortcomings. (For more information about the other two CDO components, see the sidebar "A Bit About CDOEX and CDOWF.") . . .