It goes without saying that robust and flexible e-mail systems are a central component of an efficient IT infrastructure. Your company needs to dig a little deeper to ensure that your e-mail system works to bring the greatest benefits to your business. Steve Blanche, senior network engineer, Ergo, argues that as your business moves forward, you will need to ensure that all company communications (e-mail, document transfers, etc.) are secured with encryption standards, digital certificates and the like. Add to that, the requirement for such communications while on the move, your business will need a flexible, secure and adaptable communications server such as Microsoft Exchange.

An Exchange server is more than just a database of mailboxes with the ability to send and receive e-mail. Blanche defines it as a complete information ‘exchange’. Good management of its database is critical, Blanche advises. Luckily, Exchange comes complete with its own full set of management tools.

Depending on the size of your organisation and the nature of the business, rigid mailbox size restrictions may be required as well limiting message sizes permitted - both incoming and outgoing.

Blanche makes the point that people often incorrectly believe that when many recipients are copied on an e-mail, that the Exchange database is then hosting multiple copies of that mail. This is not the case as Exchange being an intelligent database, only offers links to each recipient that corresponds to that mail.

Blanche advises, rather than storing large files in mailboxes, you should employ public folders and maintain Full Text Indexing. This will, in turn, provide a highly searchable data store and an effective and efficient file system.

Exchange provides a simple method of appointing access permissions to users or groups to the many data types that it supports. Exchange can be accessed by many client types from mobile phones receiving their mail via Pushmail, the usual Outlook client, to any web browser accessing exchange via Outlook Web access.

Exchange’s client is MS Outlook which offers enormous functionality from e-mail to personal organiser, and although Outlook Web access provides a cut down version of this client, the full functionality of Outlook can now be enjoyed remotely by using Outlook over HTTPS.