History of Microsoft Exchange Server


The history of Microsoft Exchange Server begins with the first Microsoft Exchange Server product - Exchange Server 4.0 in March 1996 - and extends to the current day.
Microsoft had sold a number of email products before Exchange. Microsoft Mail v2.0 was replaced in 1991 by "Microsoft Mail for PC Networks v2.1", based on Network Courier, which Microsoft had acquired. When the original version of Exchange Server was sold to the public, it was positioned as an upgrade to Microsoft Mail 3.5.
Exchange Server was an entirely new X.400-based client–server mail system with a single database store that also supported X.500 directory services. During its development, Microsoft migrated their own internal email from a XENIX-based system to Exchange Server from April 1993, with all 32,000 Microsoft mailboxes on Exchange by late 1996.
The directory used by Exchange Server eventually became Microsoft's Active Directory service, an LDAP-compliant directory service. Active Directory was integrated into Windows 2000 as the foundation of Windows Server domains.

Exchange Server 4.0

The first release of Exchange outside of Microsoft was Exchange Server 4.0 in March 1996, with five service packs being released over the next two years.

Exchange Server 5.0

Initial release: May 23, 1997.
Introduced the new Exchange Administrator console, as well as opening up "integrated" access to SMTP-based networks for the first time. Unlike Microsoft Mail, Exchange Server 5.0 could, with the help of an add-in called the Internet Mail Connector, communicate directly with servers using SMTP. Version 5.0 also introduced a new Web-based e-mail interface called Exchange Web Access, which was rebranded as Outlook Web Access in a later service pack. Along with Exchange Server version 5.0, Microsoft released version 8.01 of Microsoft Outlook, version 5.0 of the Microsoft Exchange Client and version 7.5 of Microsoft Schedule+ to support the new features in the new version of Exchange Server.
Exchange Server 5.0 introduced a number of other new features including a new version of Outlook Web Access with calendar support, support for IMAP4 and LDAP v3 clients and the Deleted Item Recovery feature.

Exchange Server 5.5

Initial release: Nov. 5, 1997, released to manufacturing.
The last version of Exchange Server to have a separate directory, SMTP and NNTP services. There was no new version of Exchange Client and Schedule+ for version 5.5, instead version 8.03 of Microsoft Outlook was released to support the new features of Exchange Server 5.5.
It was sold in two editions: Standard and Enterprise. They differ in database store size, mail transport connectors, and clustering capabilities.
;Standard Edition: Had the same 16 GB database size limitation as earlier versions of Exchange Server. It included the Site Connector, MS Mail Connector, Internet Mail Service, and Internet News Service, as well as software to interoperate with, Lotus Notes and Novell GroupWise.
;Enterprise Edition: Had an increased limit of 16 TB. Adds an X.400 connector, and interoperability software with SNADS and PROFS. Introduced two node clustering capability.

Exchange Server 2000

Codenamed "Platinum", this version overcame many of the limitations of its predecessors. For example, it raised the maximum sizes of databases and increased the number of servers in a cluster from two to four. However, many customers were deterred from upgrading by the requirement for a full Microsoft Active Directory infrastructure to be in place, as unlike Exchange Server 5.5, Exchange 2000 Server had no built-in Directory Service, and had a dependency upon Active Directory. The migration process from Exchange Server 5.5 necessitated having the two systems online at the same time, with user-to-mailbox mapping and a temporary translation process between the two directories. Exchange 2000 Server also added support for instant messaging, but that capability was later spun off to Microsoft Office Live Communications Server.

Exchange Server 2003

Codenamed "Titanium", this version can be run on Windows 2000 Server and 32-bit Windows Server 2003, although some new features only work with the latter. Like Windows Server 2003, Exchange Server 2003 has many compatibility modes to allow users to slowly migrate to the new system. This is useful in large companies with distributed Exchange Server environments who cannot afford the downtime and expense that comes with a complete migration.
It made the migration from pre-2000 versions of Exchange significantly easier, and many users of Exchange Server 5.5 waited for the release of Exchange Server 2003 to upgrade. The upgrade process also required upgrading a company's servers to Windows 2000. Some customers opted to stay on a combination of Exchange Server 5.5 and Windows NT 4.0, both of which are no longer supported by Microsoft.
One of the new features in Exchange Server 2003 is enhanced disaster recovery, which allows administrators to bring the server online more quickly. This is done by allowing the server to send and receive mail while the message stores are being recovered from backup. Some features previously available in the Microsoft Mobile Information Server 2001/2002 products have been added to the core Exchange Server product, like Outlook Mobile Access and server-side Exchange ActiveSync, while the Mobile Information Server product itself has been dropped. Also new is the ability to drop inbound e-mail before being fully processed, thus preventing delays in the message routing system. There are also improved message and mailbox management tools, which allow administrators to execute common chores more quickly. Others, such as Instant Messaging and Exchange Conferencing Server have been extracted completely in order to form separate products. Microsoft now appears to be positioning a combination of Microsoft Office, Microsoft Office Live Communications Server, Live Meeting, and SharePoint as its collaboration software of choice. Exchange Server is now to be simply e-mail and calendaring.
Exchange Server 2003 added several basic filtering methods to Exchange Server. They are not sophisticated enough to eliminate spam, but they can protect against DoS and mailbox flooding attacks. Exchange Server 2000 supported the ability to block a sender's address, or e-mail domain by adding '*@domain.com', which is still supported in Exchange Server 2003.

New features

Added filtering methods in Exchange Server 2003 are:
It is included with both Windows Small Business Server 2003 Standard and Premium editions.

Editions

Standard Edition:
Enterprise Edition allows a 16 TB maximum database size, and supports up to four storage groups with 5 databases per storage group for a total of 20 databases per server.
Exchange 2003 mainstream support ended on April 14, 2009. Extended support ended on April 8, 2014.

Exchange Server 2007

Released to business customers as part of Microsoft's roll-out wave of new products. It includes new clustering options, x64 support for greater scalability, voice mail integration, better search and support for Web services, better filtering options, and a new Outlook Web Access interface. Exchange 2007 also dropped support for Exchange 5.5 migrations, routing groups, admin groups, Outlook Mobile Access, X.400, and some API interfaces, amongst other features.
Exchange Server 2007 runs only on x64 versions of Windows Server. This requirement applies to supported production environments only; a 32-bit trial version is available for download and testing. Hence, companies currently running Exchange Server on 32-bit hardware will be required to replace or migrate hardware if they wish to upgrade to the new version. Companies that are currently running Exchange Server on 64-bit capable hardware are still required to migrate from their existing Exchange 2000/2003 servers to a new 2007 server since in-place upgrades are not supported in 2007.
The first beta of Exchange Server 2007 was released in December 2005 to a very limited number of beta testers. A wider beta was made available via TechNet Plus and MSDN subscriptions in March 2006 according to the Microsoft Exchange team blog. On April 25, 2006, Microsoft announced that the next version of Exchange Server would be called "Exchange Server 2007".
Exchange Server 2007 is an integrated part of the Innovative Communications Alliance products.

New features

;Standard edition: Can have 5 databases in up to 5 storage groups. Supports LCR and SCR.
;Enterprise edition: This is extended to 50 databases in up to 50 storage groups. Supports LCR, SCR, SCC, and CCR.

Exchange Server 2010

Exchange Server 2010 was released to manufacturing in May 2009, and reached general availability on November 9, 2009.

New features

Several high-availability options have been consolidated into just one option for Exchange Server 2010, which is now offered in both the Standard and Enterprise editions. The capabilities of Local Continuous Replication, Standby Continuous Replication, and Cluster Continuous Replication are now unified into the Exchange 2010 Mailbox Resiliency capability. These capabilities enable a simplified approach to high availability and disaster recovery. The Standard Edition supports up to 5 databases with each database being limited to a maximum size of 16 TB. While the Enterprise Edition supports up to 100 databases with no size limit.
Storage group is discontinued in Exchange 2010 and onward.
In January 2011, Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 won InfoWorld's 2011 Technology of the Year Award for Best Mail Server.

Exchange Server 2013

Microsoft reached the RTM milestone for Exchange Server 2013 on October 11, 2012. A trial version of this product is available from Microsoft website.

New features

New features include:
On October 1, 2015, Microsoft announced the general availability of Exchange Server 2016.

New features

For more detail on new features, see the following Microsoft TechNet article:

Exchange Server 2019

Exchange Server 2019 was released in October 2018. Unlike other Office Server 2019 products such as SharePoint and Skype for Business, Exchange Server 2019 can only be deployed on Windows Server 2019. One of the key features of the new release is that Exchange Server can be deployed onto Windows Server Core for the first time, additionally Microsoft has retired the Unified Messaging feature of Exchange, meaning that Skype for Business on-premises customers will have to use alternative solutions for voicemail, such as Azure cloud voicemail. Unified Messaging continues to exist in Exchange Online requiring an Exchange Plan 2 license.
A pre-release was released on 25th July.

New Features

For more detail on new features, see the following Microsoft blog article: