The Active Server Components of Microsoft Exchange

Microsoft® Exchange Active Server components provide the technology for integrating Microsoft Exchange Server with Web applications. This integration provides Web access to Microsoft Exchange Server data using IIS and Active Server Pages (ASP).

With Microsoft Exchange Active Server components, developers create applications by combining scripting, HTML, and core Microsoft Exchange technologies such as messaging, calendaring, and groupware. The Microsoft Exchange Active Server components let developers leverage not only the services of Microsoft Exchange Server but also other Microsoft and third-party services using any Web browser as a front end.

Microsoft Exchange Server installs the Active Server components of Microsoft Exchange if the installation option Active Server Components is selected. This installation gives you:

• Microsoft Collaboration Data Objects, which includes the CDO Library and the CDO Rendering Library.
• Microsoft Outlook Web Access.

As indicated in the following illustration, Microsoft Exchange Server can be installed on the same computer as the Active Server components or on a different computer.

Other elements in this illustration are:

• Internet browsers Microsoft® Internet Explorer version 3.0 or Netscape Navigator version 3.0 is required to access Microsoft Exchange ASP-based applications.
• Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS), a Web server integrated into Windows NT Server. As shown in the illustration, IIS is required to access Microsoft Exchange ASP-based applications.
• Microsoft Active Server Pages
• Microsoft CDO libraries
• Microsoft Outlook Web Access
• Microsoft Exchange Server, a client/server messaging and workgroup system that offers a transparent connection to many different communications systems. The two key elements of Microsoft Exchange Server that are used by the CDO libraries are the information store (for accessing mailboxes and public folders) and the directory (for accessing the address book).

Note For information on installing the Microsoft Exchange Active Server components, see the release notes for Microsoft Exchange Server 5.0. For a thorough description of the use of Microsoft® Outlook™ Web Access, see the What's New guide for Microsoft Exchange Server 5.0.