Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server architecture utilises the Microsoft Windows 2000 operating system, in particular the Active Directory service and Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) native transport, to provide a scaleable and efficient messaging system.

The Exchange 2000 client-side architecture efficiently manages messaging and publishing information, and you can use real-time collaboration architecture to transfer dynamic data and information on demand.

Exchange 2000 Server architecture provides users with a scaleable messaging and data retrieval and sharing system. It allows for greater versatility in network design because it integrates with

• Windows 2000 Active Directory,
• Microsoft Internet Information Service (IIS), and
• Web Storage System.

• Network News Transport Protocol (NNTP),
• Post Office Protocol version 3 (POP3), and
• Internet Message Access Protocol version 4 (IMAP4)

Exchange 2000 supports multimedia formats, making information storage and retrieval fast and efficient. It stores native content, including Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) content, directly in an .stm file. Also, with the installable file system (IFS), you can use Exchange as a file repository for any application. IFS makes it possible to map Exchange folders and mailboxes as shared network drives.

Finally, Exchange supports multiple public folder hierarchies; each hierarchy (or tree) is stored in a public folder store. The default server installation includes one public folder store that contains one public folder hierarchy. The figure below shows a graphical representation of the Exchange 2000 architecture, including

• the Extensible Storage Engine,
• Web Storage System,
• Exchange Interprocess Communication Layer (ExIPC), and
• IIS,