Hi All, looking for MS best practices to plan Exchange messaging service for all employees including: Company employees, Contractors, Venders, etc.. How such Hierarchical can be bet designed? For instance, by creating domains/sub domains levels etc.. BR Raid,

That is a consultation question more than a forum question. It all depends: 1. version of exchange 2. how many mailboxes you're supporting 3. how many sites 4. what type of load balancing and\or high availability you want to account for 5. Will you need to a reverse proxy such as TMG As far as AD design, num of domains, subdomains that depends on your organizational needs and not Exchange. What organizational justfications do you have to support multiple domains? And if you need multiple domains should you create child domains or tree domains etc. That depends on factors such as namespace planning and such. James Chong MCITP | EA | EMA; MCSE | M+, S+ Security+, Project+, ITIL msexchangetips.blogspot.com

looking for MS best practices to plan Exchange messaging service for all employees including: Company employees, Contractors, Venders, etc.. * Are Contractors and Vendors considered company employees (are they paid salaries, do they receive benefits)? * Otherwise, here's some perspectives on how you might classify your different types of staff and associated staff: Employees would typically have a mailbox - and thus an Active Directory user account -> User Mailbox Contractors may (or perhaps may not) need to logon to your network but probably do not need to have email provided by your company (they can use their own company's email) -> Mail User Vendors are typically not employees of one's own organization, have their email elsewhere and do not need to connect to your network -> Mail Contact Here's a more detailed description of your different options - it's for Exchange 2010 but most information is valid for 2007: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb201680.aspxPlease mark as helpful if you find my contribution useful or as an answer if it does answer your question. That will encourage me - and others - to take time out to help you.

looking for MS best practices to plan Exchange messaging service for all employees including: Company employees, Contractors, Venders, etc.. * Are Contractors and Vendors considered company employees (are they paid salaries, do they receive benefits)? * Otherwise, here's some perspectives on how you might classify your different types of staff and associated staff: Employees would typically have a mailbox - and thus an Active Directory user account -> User Mailbox Contractors may (or perhaps may not) need to logon to your network but probably do not need to have email provided by your company (they can use their own company's email) -> Mail User Vendors are typically not employees of one's own organization, have their email elsewhere and do not need to connect to your network -> Mail Contact Here's a more detailed description of your different options - it's for Exchange 2010 but most information is valid for 2007: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb201680.aspxPlease mark as helpful if you find my contribution useful or as an answer if it does answer your question. That will encourage me - and others - to take time out to help you.

Hello, I think your need to explain your requirements in detail. If you no need to create mailboxes for vendors and Contractors, you can follow Le's suggestion, only create mail user for these users. Thanks, EvanEvan Liu TechNet Community Support

Thanks Le. That helps. br Raid,