Part 8: Collaboration and Mobility in Visual Basic .NET

Print QR-Code in Visual Basic .NET Part 8: Collaboration and Mobility

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Why Mobility Is Important. . . . . . . . . . 1059 Overview of Mobility Features in Exchange Server 2003 . . . . . . . . . . . . 1060 Configuring Exchange Server for Mobile Users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1061 Using Mobility Features . . . . . . . . . . . 1065 Synchronization Issues. . . . . . . . . . . . 1067

Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 is a very powerful collaboration and e-mail server, especially when combined with Microsoft Office Outlook 2003. Many applications, such as Exchange Server, were created when high-speed Internet connections to the home were uncommon and accessing office computer systems while working from home and on the road was also not common practice.

In modern offices the requirement for mobility has increased dramatically with the introduc tion of technologies such as high-speed broadband Internet connections to the home and the proliferation of wireless Internet connections in several forms. Employee expectations have changed with these technologies, especially among those who are frequently out of the office on business, such as sales teams and executives. These users expect that they will be able to access their e-mail and other collaboration information no matter where they are currently located. Along with the expectation that they can access their mail, mobile users are looking for more functionality while on the road than simple mail access. With Outlook 2003 and Exchange 2003 providing full collaboration functionality as outlined elsewhere in this book, simple Web mail is not enough to satisfy their requirements. Most mobile users now want full access to all of these features from outside the office, too. Mobility features are important for a number of reasons. However, the driving force behind the implementation of all mobility features and products is that they increase the speed of doing business. Most businesses are in existence to provide some kind of product to custom ers, and in many cases there are competing businesses trying to win the same customers over to their product. A business that can respond quickly to customer requests and demands has a huge advantage and that advantage can win customers. Mobility solutions, especially those integrated with collaboration products such as Outlook and Exchange, provide this speed and allow employees to conduct business from disparate locations.

Exchange Server 2003 has been redesigned to vastly improve mobility features over earlier versions of Microsoft Exchange. Features that were included with a separate product, Mobile Information Server, in Exchange 2000 Server are now included with Exchange Server 2003. A number of new features have been added to Exchange Server 2003, and features existing in earlier versions have been improved. Mobility features in Exchange 2003 fit into four main categories:

Outlook has the ability to work in offline mode. Offline mode pro vides the ability to work within Outlook when not connected to your home Exchange Server. This allows access to existing information within Outlook while users are trav eling or out of the office but does not allow new information to be updated from the server. Remote procedure calls (RPC) over HTTP is a method of providing access to your Exchange Server to remote clients without requiring any kind of virtual private network (VPN) connection. RPC over HTTP allows clients to connect using Outlook directly over the Internet using a publicly accessible port. The one caveat with RPC over HTTP is that the port is exposed on the Internet.

Microsoft has provided Outlook Web Access with several versions of Microsoft Exchange, but the main complaint has traditionally been that the Outlook Web Access interface does not match that of Microsoft Outlook, and that a number of Outlook features do not exist in Outlook Web Access. The version of Outlook Web Access included with Exchange Server 2003 addresses both of those concerns by more closely resembling the Outlook interface and including a number of important Outlook features. Mobile devices such as personal digital assistants (PDAs) with wireless network access and mobile phones with PDA-type interfaces have become somewhat ubiquitous in many organizations, especially among mobile staff. These devices provide portability because they are much smaller than laptop comput ers, and they provide much of the functionality of larger systems. Exchange Server 2003 provides a number of tools to integrate with Pocket PC and SmartPhone devices. Tra ditionally, handheld devices have only had the capacity to synchronize with an existing application, such as synchronizing mail from Outlook on a laptop or desktop with a PDA. Now Exchange Server 2003 has the capability to work with handheld devices in real time rather than relying on synchronization, using these features: