As I mentioned in my previous blog, everyone at Exchange Hosting business might have a top agenda in its action list to quickly analysis Apple’s new iPhone 2.0 software and integrate into its Exchange hosting infrastructure. There are already few hosters in the market started providing the services as soon as Apple announced the iPhone 2.0. For Steve Jobs, this will be a great test as his plans are to penetrate the both corporate IT and SMB market using iPhone being primary Mobile messaging platform in Exchange Server environment. If Jobs can achieve his success criteria, Apple will surely establish a strong footprint in the corporate IT as well as SMB market with this revolutionary iPhone.
As you aware, MS Exchange as SaaS is an emerging market. Hosting providers can seamlessly integrate iPhone capability to its users without substantial change in their Exchange Server & Active Directory Infrastructure (Refer Fig 1.1)
What are the requirements in network to allow Exchange ActiveSync?
SSL Port 443 must open at the firewall side. This is already open in the case of Exchange Hosting provider, as they already offer ActiveSync using other devices such as Windows Mobile, Blackberry, and Motorola’s Good Messaging etc. Also, this port is required for accessing Outlook Web Access.
Server certificate is another essential component at Client Access Server. Again, this must be an existing component at the Exchange Hosting provider’s infrastructure. Anyways, for new environment the server certificate must be installed and activate SSL for the Exchange ActiveSync virtual directory with basic SSL authentication. Server certificate is installed on Microsoft ISA 2006 Server (Internet Security and Acceleration Server) and update the DNS server in order to resolve incoming connections. The ISA 2006 Server should be configured to create a Web listener and publishing rule for an Exchange Web client access to enable Exchange ActiveSync. Lastly, Idle Session timeout is set to 30 minutes in the firewalls and other network appliances.
Exchange account setup
I want to wrap up this post by mentioning little bit on activating Exchange Activesync. This feature is enabled by default for all mobile devices at the organizational level on Exchange Server 2007. Active Directory is used to enable or disable specific users or groups. Alternatively, this can be done through Exchange Management Console (EMC) under Recipient Configuration in Exchange Server 2007. EMC can also be used to configure mobile features, policies, and device security settings using
Last but not the least, Remote Wipe is now can easily done via Outlook Web Access by the users or IT administrators can do the same through EMC.