Planning your Exchange 2000 deployment is directly related to the disaster recovery strategy you decide to implement. Whether your company is a small organization with the messaging and collaboration service needs for only a few hundred users or a large organization that serves thousands of users, the deployment choices you make directly affect your Exchange 2000 backup and restore options.

Note Although the Exchange 2000 deployment strategy you implement directly affects the disaster recovery strategy you select, the detailed discussion of specific deployment strategies is outside the scope of this document. For more information about Exchange 2000 deployment strategies and their impact on disaster recovery strategies, see Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server Resource Kit and Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Resource Kit. It is important to consider the following factors when developing an Exchange 2000 deployment strategy:

• Acceptable downtime
• Hardware needs for backup and restore processes
• Administration
• Single points of failure

The information in this article applies to:

• Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Enterprise Edition
• Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Standard Edition
• Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003, Premium Edition
• Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003, Standard Edition
• Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server