How to Host Exchange 2003 Server

By being able to tweak Active Directory and Exchange, hosting becomes possible and can save some money for your company. After setting this up you no longer need to worry about configuration and hidden user attributes that can sometimes disappear on you. Just add new users to their corresponding hosted domain Universal Group and you are ready to go. Exchange 2003 provides a compelling environment for shared hosting messaging services. Improvements in access using the Internet both using Internet Explorer and Exchange 2003 as well as built-in mobile services can provide state-of-the art service for customers who want to explore working on the Internet. This can be useful for companies where users work at home, move around a lot or just don't want to have an internal mail server. 

To fully implement hosting with Exchange 2003 you would need Windows 2003, Exchange 2003 SP1, Outlook 2003 and Windows XP SP2. This allows clients to connect using RPC over HTTP to the hosted environment. Originally I had tried to write this article early in 2004 when the latest service packs of Exchange 2003 and Windows XP were not yet out and some features did not work. I unofficially confirmed this with Microsoft. You can use ISA server to protect the hosted environment while allowing customers to connect using regular MAPI that is not encapsulated using HTTP. This means clients do not have to upgrade their operating systems and Outlook applications. However, please note that on most WAN connections RPC based MAPI is slow and suffers from time outs which can cause connections to fail. In any case Outlook 2003 is recommended seeing that it compresses information when working with Exchange 2003 and employs a useful Cache mode that works offline and synchronizes in the background with the server, better utilizing WAN lines.