Recipient Update Service
When creating new mailbox enabled or mail enabled recipient objects or when
updating existing email addresses, there may be a delay before the addresses
are displayed correctly. The Recipient Update Service, an internal process of
the System Attendant, handles the process of updating in the background. The
Recipient Update Service is also responsible for updating the address lists
in Active Directory.
In the Exchange System Manager, open the Recipients container, and then
select Recipient Update Services. At least two update service objects exist.
One is for updating information in the naming context (NC) of the domain and
the other for the configuration NC of AD. For global administration, Exchange
2000 stores the majority of its information in the configuration NC, but
recipient objects are maintained in the domain. You can adjust the settings
of a particular update service object when right clicking it and selecting
Properties. The domain cannot be changed, but different Exchange Server and
Windows 2000 DC settings may be applied. In addition, you can customize the
update interval. For fastest updates, ensure that Always Run is selected.
To immediately update recipient addresses or rebuild the address list
memberships and email addresses after a recipient policy is changed, right
click the corresponding update service object, and, from the shortcut menu,
select either Update Now or the Rebuild command.
Because a particular Recipient Update Service keeps only a particular domain
posted, you need to configure an individual update service object for each
domain in your organization that holds recipient objects. If you install at
least one Exchange 2000 server in all of your domains, the required objects
are created automatically. If domains without an Exchange 2000 server exist,
you need to perform this task manually.
If mailbox enabled or mail enabled recipient objects exist in a domain where
the Recipient Update Service is not configured, corresponding email addresses
will not be generated. Recipient objects without email addresses are not
displayed in the address book.
To manually create a Recipient Update Service reference, run the Exchange
2000 setup program in the target domain with the DomainPrep option. After
that, in Exchange System Manager, right click Recipient Update Services,
point to New, and select Recipient Update Service command. In the New Object
- Recipient Update Service dialog box, click Browse to select the desired
domain, then click OK, and then click Next to continue. In the second dialog
box, click Browse to select an appropriate Exchange 2000 server. This will
be the server that runs the Recipient Update Service. The DC that will update
the recipients in the domain is chosen automatically in the next dialog box,
click Finish.
If you want to update a particual domain through a customized recipient
policy, create a filter that checks the ending of the user's logon name. To
give an example, if the domain you want to update is acp-inc.co.uk, create
a filter that checks a condition that ends with co.uk.
Notes
Mail enabled contact objects reference recipients outside the organization.
They don't possess mailboxes on an Exchange 2000 server. Instead, mail
enabled contacts are wrappers around an underlying email address, which
points to the actual recipient somewhere outside.
To hide an account from the address lists, click on the Exchange Advanced
tab of the desired mailbox in AD Users and Computers and select the Hide
The Account From Exchange Address Lists check box.
Managing Storage Groups
Storage groups define the boundaries for mailbox and public store databases.
Within a single storage group, all stores share a common set of transaction
log files. The transaction log location is a storage group's most important
configuration parameter.
To prevent the creation of public folders on mailbox servers, you might want
to delete their public stores. On a dedicated public folder server, you can
remove the mailbox store to prevent accidental creation of mailboxes.
If you plan to concentrate thousands of mailboxes and public folders on a
very larger server, consider multiple information stores and storage groups.
It would not be advisable to place all resources in a single mailbox or
public store because the size of the database file could group beyond
reasonable limits. At a minimum, distribute large numbers of mailboxes across
multiple mailbox stores in one storage group. You can mount and dismount
individual databases independently; in other words, you can back them up and
recover them seperately without affecting others.
Typically you will include all databases of a single storage group along
with their corresponding transaction log files in one backup. If you would
like to implement different backup schedules for different repositories,
consider the configuration of multiple storage groups. It is necessary to
configure multiple storage groups if you want to create more than five
information stores on a server.
Multiple inforation stores can bring a performance gain, provided that the
transaction logs and database files are on a sperate physical disk system.
Note that the single instance storage feature is not available across
multiple databases.
To avoid the possible loss of user data, mailboxes must be moved to a new
home server and public folders must be replicated to another public store
before congfiguring dedicated servers. After a store has been removed
successfully, you need to delete the corresponding database files manually.
You can determine the path to the databases and their names when displaying
the Database property sheet of the affected store prior to its deletion. The
creation of new storage groups and inforamtion stores, on the other hand, is
uncomplicated. At a minimum, you need to specify a name for new resources. As
soon as you have created and mounted a new mailbox store, you can move
mailboxes into it using the AD Users and Computers snapin.
Full-Text Indexing
Full-Text indexes and catalogs are stored in the
\exchsrvr\ExchangeServer_(name)\projects directory and managed by the
Microsoft Search service (loaded by Exchange 2000). They consume
approximately 20% disk space of the corresponding information store size.
Full-text indexing can be enabled per individual mailbox or public store.
To create a Full-text index for a mailbox store, right click the store and
from the menu, select Create Full-Text Index. Once the catalog is created,
right click the store again and select Start Full Population. When population
is complete, expand the store and select Full-Text Indexing. You can also
click the Start Full Population command if you want to purge and rebuild an
existing index.
Once you have created and populated the full-text index, you need to include
it in full-text searches. Right click the store and select properties, click
on the Full-Text Indexing tab, and select the This Index Is Currently
Available For Searching By Clients check box. Click OK.
You can add Exchange 2000 servers to an administrative group only during
the setup process. It is not possible to move servers between administrative
groups, and it is impossible to move mailboxes conveniently across
administrative boundaries. Consequently, design your administrative group
topology carefully before installing Exchange 2000.
As long as only one administrative group exists, the Setup program will not
prompt you for administrative group information. It adds the new server
automatically to the default group. To add a server to another group, you
need to create the group before launching Setup and then select it during
the installation. After a new group has been created, you can add servers
and other resources, such as system policies. With the exception of server
resources, configuration objects can be moved or copied between
administrative groups in Exchange System Manager.
You can remove an Exchange 2000 server from AD and an organization, the best
is to use the Setup program, on the Component Selection wizard, select the
Remove action. The other method is within the Exchange System Manager,
pointing to All Tasks, and clicking Remove Server. If the Exchange 2000
server is still on the network, you will receive an error message. Only
unavailable servers can be removed with this method. This case would be when
the operating system has failed or the server has been removed from the
network.
Using the Search Dialog template within the Details Templates container, you
can modify the Search dialog box for Outlook 2000. You can associate new
controls with additional attributes. If you want to include a new attribute
in searches, you must make sure the attribute is replicated to the GC.
Otherwise, users cannot find recipients. Using the AD Schema snapin, you can
verify whether the desired attributes are included in GC replication. Because
the AD schema is flexible, you can add your own set of attributes and use
them instead of extensionAttribute1 - 15. It is not possible to rename the
Exchange Custom Attributes.
If you have configured or made changes to an address list but the changes
have not been displayed in the client's address books, you can trigger an
immediate address list update by right clicking on the Recipient Update
service for your domain, and then choosing Rebuild. A Rebuild Address Lists
And Recipient Policies dialog box will appear, informing you that the
settings for all recipients are recalculated on the next scheduled update
interval. To overrule the update interval by triggering an immediate update,
right click the update service object again, and select the Update Now
command.