Exchange and Active Directory
AD DS stores most Exchange Server configuration information
An Exchange Server organization and an Active Directory forest have a one-to-one relationship, only one exchange server organization per forest
Installation
Partitions:
- Schema Partition - the Exchange Server 2016 installation process modifies the schema partition to enable the creation of Exchange Server-specific objects.
- Configuration Partition - The configuration partition stores configuration information for the Exchange Server 2016 organization and replicates among all domain controllers, configuration of the Exchange Server 2016 organization replicates throughout the forest
- Domain Partition - The domain partition holds information about recipient objects. This includes mailbox-enabled users, and mail-enabled users, groups, and contacts.
- Global Catalog - Email attributes for mail-enabled and mailbox-enabled objects created in Exchange are replicated to the global catalog server. The global address list (GAL) is generated from the recipients list in the Active Directory forest’s global catalog server. Exchange Server 2016 transport services access the global catalog server to find the location of a recipient mailbox when delivering messages. Client Access services access the global catalog server to locate a user’s Mailbox server and to display the GAL in Outlook, Outlook on the web, and Exchange ActiveSync clients.
Core Driver - Active Directory Driver
he Active Directory driver is the core Microsoft Exchange component that allows Exchange services to create, modify, delete, and query for AD DS data. In Exchange 2013 and later, all access to Active Directory is done using the Active Directory driver itself. In previous versions of Exchange, DSAccess provided directory lookup services for components such as SMTP, message transfer agent (MTA), and the Exchange store.
The Active Directory driver also uses Microsoft Exchange Active Directory Topology (MSExchangeADTopology), which allows the Active Directory driver to use Directory Service Access (DSAccess) topology data. This data includes the list of available domain controllers and global catalog servers available to handle Exchange requests.
Exchange and DNS
Exchange server must use Domain Name System (DNS) to locate AD DS and the global catalog servers. By default, each time a domain controller starts the Netlogon service, it updates DNS with service (SRV) records that describe the server as a domain controller and global catalog server, if applicable.
Important DNS Records
- Service (SRV) Resource Records - DNS records that identify servers that provide specific services on the network, eg domain controller
- Host (A) Records - "A" records provide host name to IP address mapping
- Mail Exchanger (MX) Records - An MX record is a resource record that allows servers to locate other servers to deliver Internet email by using the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP). An MX record identifies the SMTP server that will accept inbound messages for a specific DNS domain.
- Sender Policy Framework (SPF) records - support Sender ID spam filtering.