how do exchange roles communicate
hello i am in the process of documenting my new exchange 2007 environment and want to make sure my diagram depicts the correct protocols used when server roles communicate, etc . my understanding of the process is as follows : when an outlook 03/07 client connects to a mailbox it connects directly to mailbox role using mapi when a message is sent / received from outlook 03/07 it is done so via mapi / rpc via the hub role when users connect via owa the connection is established using https via the cas role when users connect via mobile device (i.e activesync) the connection is established using https via cas role did i miss anything ? is this accurate ?? i would appreciate the clarification , thanks !!!!!
April 6th, 2010 12:05am

Everything looks accurate except sending receiving via Outlook. I believe Outlook connected to a mailbox server via RPC will send/receive directly from the mailbox server. If it was conntecting the the Hub server for that, I wouldn't think there would be an need for a submit queue on the mailbox server, and you wouldn't see messages sumbitted from mailbox servers in the HT tracking logs.
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April 6th, 2010 12:47am

ahhhhh right. but when the message leaves the submit queue it then hits the hub transport server, correct ??
April 6th, 2010 12:57am

and thank you for the response.
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April 6th, 2010 12:58am

You are almost correct. In Exchange 2007, Outlook within the network connects directly to the appropriate mailbox server on which the user's mailbox is hosted. (This changed in 2010 so MAPI connections from Outlook also pass via the Client Access role) If Outlook is outside the network and Outlook Anywhere is in use, the connection is made directly to the Client Access Server using RPC encapsulated in an HTTPS session. The Client Access Server is then responsible for passing requests to the back-end Mailbox Server. When a message is submitted via Outlook, the Microsoft Exchange Mail Submission service on the Mailbox Server notifies a Hub Transport server that a message is awaiting for collection in a user's mailbox. The Hub Transport server retrieves the message for processing from the mailbox using RPC and the Store driver moves the message to the user's Sent Items folder. If you have multiple Hub Transport servers, the submission service attempts to use all of them to give some load balancing. Matt
April 6th, 2010 1:05am

ahhhhh right. but when the message leaves the submit queue it then hits the hub transport server, correct ?? As I noted in my reply just a moment ago, the Mail Submission service notifies a Hub Transport server a message is awaiting for collection. The Hub Transport server retrieves the message from the user's mailbox and places it into the Submission queue, at which point it has entered the transport pipeline to be processed for compliance and ultimately, delivery. Matt
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April 6th, 2010 1:08am

You can see more details in the Exchange Server 2007 Component Architecture diagram http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=FDCDF6E5-DE47-4B58-8086-282101BCDDE9&displaylang=en Santhosh Sivarajan | MCTS, MCSE (W2K3/W2K/NT4), MCSA (W2K3/W2K/MSG), CCNA, Network+ Houston, TX http://blogs.sivarajan.com/ http://publications.sivarajan.com/ This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
April 6th, 2010 4:53am

appreciate the clarification .. i was confusing Exchange 2010 CAS behaviour with / Exchange 2007 !!
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April 8th, 2010 12:14am

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