Trade Association Simplifies IT Management with Next-Generation Messaging System

Microsoft Windows Server System Customer Solution Case Study

Overview “When I told our executives that they could listen to Country or Region: United States their e-mail along with their voice-mail messages Industry: Manufacturing within Exchange Server 2007, they were thrilled.” Customer Profile Steve Gould, Network Administrator, APA–The Engineered Wood Association APA–The Engineered Wood Association is a nonprofit trade association for the engineered wood industry. APA has 115 employees and is based in Tacoma, APA–The Engineered Wood Association helps the North Washington. American engineered wood industry create structural wood Business Situation products of exceptional strength, versatility, and reliability Over the years, the company’s messaging system has become an through applied research, testing, quality assurance, and market indispensable part of its business. APA is development. Seeking new ways of using technology to improve looking at new ways to use technology to support communication and its processes and keep its employees connected, APA joined collaboration. the beta-testing program for the upcoming release of Microsoft®

Solution Exchange Server 2007. The simplified user interface of the The APA network administrator installed communication and collaboration server enables the network and tested the beta version of Microsoft® Exchange Server 2007 with Microsoft administrator to perform large management tasks in seconds. Office Outlook® 2007. When Exchange Server 2007 is released, APA plans to take

Benefits advantage of new features such as unified messaging to give  Quick and easy installation APA employees unfettered access to messaging services, even  Simplified management  Better communication and compliance where an Internet connection isn’t available. tools  Enhanced mobility, 64-bit support Situation just beginning to deploy mobile devices APA–The Engineered Wood Association is such as smartphones. a nonprofit trade association for the engineered wood industry in the United States Gould says that messaging services have and Canada. Based in Tacoma, become the single most important tool for Washington, APA has approximately 115 doing business at APA. “Five years ago, employees and runs a 37,000-square-foot half of the employees didn’t have e-mail, research center at its central location. With and a week was considered an acceptable more than 400 publications, extensive amount of time for the e-mail system to be research and technical reports, and down,” he recalls. “Today, it’s an comprehensive market studies to its credit, emergency if e-mail is unavailable for 30 APA is a leading resource for information minutes.” about engineered wood products, including plywood, oriented strand board, wood I- Solution joists, glued laminated timber, and In December 2005, Gould accepted an laminated veneer lumber. invitation to test the beta version of Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, the next Steve Gould, the Network Administrator at planned release of Exchange Server. He’d APA, is one of two IT professionals who seen some of its features demonstrated support the association’s computing and and looked forward to a chance to use it communications environment. “APA has himself. “It looked like a fantastic transition only recently begun to investigate the from Exchange Server 2003,” he says. “I potential of technology to aid its business,” was really impressed with the unified he says. “In the past, all of our processes messaging, as well as improved access for were manual. We still have filing cabinets mobile devices.” filled with documentation, photos, and testing results that we’re converting into A Microsoft product group joined Gould digital formats. So we’re still working on at APA headquarters in April 2006 to help discovering what technologies will help our with the installation and discuss the expe- employees become more proficient and rience with him. Prior to the product group’s efficient.” arrival, Gould set up a test environment consisting of two server computers running The company’s messaging environment is Windows Server 2003. One server would built on Microsoft’s line of server software. host Exchange Server 2007. The other The Microsoft® Exchange Server 2003 acted as a domain controller and ran the communication and collaboration server Active Directory® service, populated with a runs on the Microsoft Windows Server™ small number of test user accounts. 2003 Standard Edition operating system. Users receive and send messages using “Installation was very simple,” says Gould. the Microsoft Office Outlook® 2003 “The entire process, from the moment I messaging and collaboration client. The launched the installer to the point where I computer hardware at APA is evenly could log on, probably took half an hour.” divided between workstations and portable computers, with the latter used by Gould is testing the new messaging system employees in the field and a few Tacoma- using Microsoft Office Outlook 2007. “I’ve based users who travel extensively. APA is mainly been sending messaging traffic back and forth between our main production forest and the test forest, and When Gould deployed Exchange Server sending outbound e-mail to the Internet,” 2003 at APA, he spent three months says Gould. “The only difficulties I had reading documentation and preparing, and were in creating the send and receive the installation required him to perform connectors. However, once I realized that I many manual actions. Installing Exchange would need to create an Internet connector Server 2007 was easier because it was a to enable e-mail access to the Internet, it single process instead of many separate only took a few seconds to set up.” processes. The program automatically made all of the necessary changes to the Next, Gould plans to test the new server Active Directory schema. roles in Exchange Server 2007. “I’m going to test the Edge Transport Server role first Simplified Management —set up the Intelligent Message Filter, and Gould quickly adapted to the new then run all of my e-mail through the Edge administrative GUI for Exchange Server Transport Server to test the antispam and 2007. “I really like the management sender-based filtering capabilities.” console layout. Once you get comfortable with the differences between it and Benefits Exchange Server 2003, you see that it’s APA is impressed with the results that it organized so that the tasks that you want to has achieved in testing Exchange Server perform are all grouped together with 2007 and looks forward to putting it into similar tasks.” production once the final release becomes available. Exchange Server 2007 has Furthermore, common tasks that Gould proven to be easy to install, with an intuitive performs in Exchange Server 2003 are graphical user interface (GUI) that much faster in Exchange Server 2007. combines with a powerful command-line “Managing the databases in my storage interface to make management easier and groups is incredibly simple in Exchange more effective. Exchange Server 2007 will Server 2007,” he says. “It only takes a few give users at APA a richer Microsoft Office seconds to create a new storage group, or Outlook Web Access, unified messaging, to move a mailbox database from one and mobile access, and will support storage group to the other, or to put users company policies through centralized in different storage groups. There’s just management. nothing to it at all.”

Quick and Easy Installation The Exchange Management Shell, built on Gould found that the installation went much Windows® PowerShell technology, also faster and more easily than he’d imagined. impressed Gould. “I’m very familiar with the “Out of all the Microsoft products I’ve ever command-line environment and felt installed, this was by far the easiest. It comfortable going in. Once I started using seemed like a lot of thought and effort had the Exchange Management Shell, I found gone into the program—it was smooth, that it was much simpler and easier to use simple, and intuitive. Every step of the than I expected.” installation was laid out for me. It was always obvious what was going on, and it One of the things that makes using the installed flawlessly. That was much more Exchange Management Shell easy is its than I expected from a beta product.” integration with the graphical administrative interface. When an administrator performs various tasks in the GUI console, the users are complying with company console shows what the equivalent guidelines. The first is the ability to create command is in the shell environment. signatures for e-mail messages and deploy Gould used this feature to create incoming them at the server level, so that and outgoing mail connectors. That administrators can append a legal function wasn’t yet accessible through the disclaimer at the end of all outgoing e-mail GUI console, but the console provided messages. Gould with the commands that he then used to quickly set up mail connectors and The other policy-related feature that APA is modify them using a shell script. considering is e-mail lifecycle management. “E-mail retention periods are Simpler processes, coupled with the user- a major concern for many corporations,” friendly administrative interface, will help says Gould. “One way you can address this make the APA IT department more is to set policies regarding how long effective. Gould’s manager, whose employees can keep e-mail messages in expertise doesn’t normally cover Exchange their mailboxes. I think it would be nice if Server administration, can now step in and we could implement a companywide e-mail manage the system when Gould is away or lifecycle, so that we don’t have to depend unavailable. on individuals to regularly clean out their old messages.” Better Communication and Compliance Tools Enhanced Mobility, 64-Bit Support Exchange Server 2007 comes with many APA is in the process of deploying mobile new features, as well as improvements to devices on a wider scale than ever before. existing features, that will enable APA to Exchange Server 2007 will help pave the create a messaging environment that way for that effort. “Some of the mobility supports the company’s business goals aspects of Exchange Server 2007—being and policies more effectively. able to push messages from the mail server to the devices rather than having the APA is enthusiastic about the unified devices synchronize, being able to do messaging feature in Exchange Server remote password wipes and device wipes 2007, which brings voice mail, fax, and e- —those are features that I’m really mail together into one employee inbox. interested in using. I think that they will be One component, Outlook Voice Access, even more effective and useful in enables users to hear their e-mail Exchange Server 2007.” messages read aloud to them over the phone. Gould says, “When I told our Another benefit for APA users who are executives that they could listen to their e- working away from the office will be the mail along with their voice-mail messages improved Office Outlook Web Access, within Exchange Server 2007, they were which closely resembles Office Outlook thrilled.” 2007. “The Global Address List in the latest Outlook Web Access is just phenomenal. Like many companies, APA finds some It’s really easy to get names from the list, policies hard to implement because they instead of typing them from memory,” says depend on individuals following them Gould. Users can check the availability of correctly. Two features in Exchange Server people in the address list, and can see a 2007 will help APA to ensure that e-mail For More Information hierarchical view of their place in the Microsoft Windows Server System For more information about Microsoft organization. Microsoft Windows Server System™ is a products and services, call the Microsoft line of integrated and manageable server Sales Information Center at (800) 426- When the final release of Exchange Server software designed to reduce the complexity 9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft 2007 becomes available, APA will follow its and cost of IT. Windows Server System Canada Information Centre at (877) 568- standard procedure and purchase a new enables you to spend less time and budget 2495. Customers who are deaf or hard- server to house it. Gould is creating a list of on managing your systems so that you can of-hearing can reach Microsoft text hardware specifications, and he plans to focus your resources on other priorities for telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) deploy Exchange Server 2007 on an HP you and your business. 892-5234 in the United States or (905) server computer with an AMD64 Opteron 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 processor running Windows Server 2003 For more information about Windows United States and Canada, please Standard x64 Edition. This, the company’s Server System, go to: contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. first move into 64-bit computing, will enable www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem To access information using the World APA to increase the performance of its mail Wide Web, go to: www.microsoft.com system and host more users with larger mailboxes. For more information about APA–The Engineered Wood Association products and services, call (253) 565-6600 or visit the Web site at: www.apawood.org

Software and Services  Microsoft Office  Microsoft Servers − Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 − Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition  Technologies − Microsoft Windows Server 2003 − Active Directory Standard x64 Edition − Microsoft Office Outlook Web Access − Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Hardware  HP server computers © 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.  AMD64 Opteron processor This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. Microsoft, Active Directory, Outlook, Windows, the Windows logo, Windows Server, and Windows Server System are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

Document published May 2006