Microsoft Exchange 2003 & Contingency Planning

Availability management is the process of ensuring that any IT service consistently and cost-effectively delivers the level of availability required by the customer. Availability management is not concerned only with minimizing loss of service, but also with ensuring that appropriate action is taken if service is lost. In an Exchange Server 2003 environment, you may be concerned about whether the Exchange store service is available, whether an SMTP connector is functioning, and so on. An SLA defines what frequency and length of outages are acceptable, allowing for certain periods when the system is unavailable for planned maintenance and unexpected failures. 

Sometimes you must introduce changes to your IT environment, such as new technologies, systems, applications, hardware, tools, and processes, and also changes in roles and responsibilities. An effective change management system lets you introduce changes to your IT environment quickly and with minimal service disruption. A change management system brings together the teams involved in modifying a system. An example is the introduction of Microsoft Office Outlook Web Access. Outlook Web Access is an integrated component of Exchange Server 2003 that uses a Web browser and an Internet or intranet connection to enable you to read your corporate e-mail messages, schedules, and other information that is stored on an Exchange server.