Exchange Management Console   The Exchange Management Console, one of two new administrative interfaces for Microsoft® Exchange Server 2007, is based on MMC 3.0, and is required to install and manage Exchange 2007. The Exchange Management Console combines all of your management tasks into one user interface. By using the Exchange Management Console, you can manage all Exchange servers, recipients and organizational components within your Exchange Server 2007 organization.

Exchange Management Shell   The Exchange Management Shell is a new task-based command line shell and scripting language for system administration. The Exchange Management Shell performs every task that the Exchange Management Console can perform and additional tasks that cannot be performed in the Exchange Management Console.

Unified Messaging    Exchange 2007 includes support for Unified Messaging (UM). Unified Messaging combines multiple messaging infrastructures into a single messaging infrastructure. Therefore, Exchange 2007 UM-enabled users can receive all voice mail, e-mail, and fax messages in their Exchange 2007 mailboxes and can access their mailboxes from a variety of devices. These devices include mobile devices and cellular, analog, or digital telephones.

Performance improvements   Exchange 2007 supports deployment on a 64-bit architecture for improved performance and capacity. Because of the move from a 32-bit architecture to a 64-bit architecture, the Enterprise Edition of Exchange Server 2007 now supports a larger number of storage groups and databases per server. Exchange Server 2007 lets you create as many as 50 storage groups per server. Although a storage group can contain as many as 5 databases, there is a limit of 50 databases per server

Availability   When multiple Exchange 2007 computers that are running the Hub Transport server role are deployed in a site, mail flow between Hub Transport servers and Mailbox servers is automatically load balanced and does not require any additional configuration by the administrator. If a Hub Transport server (formerly known as a bridgehead server) is unavailable because of a failure or regularly scheduled maintenance, failover to the other Hub Transport servers is automatic.

High availability for Mailbox servers   Exchange Server 2007 includes three Inbox features that provide high availability for Mailbox servers: Local Continuous Replication (LCR), Cluster Continuous Replication (CCR), and Single Copy Clusters (SCC). The continuous replication features use log shipping to create a second copy of a production storage group. In an LCR environment, the second copy is located on the same server as the production storage group. In a CCR environment, the second copy is located on the passive node in the cluster.

Built on Active Directory   The complexity of the Exchange routing topology has been reduced by building on the existing Active Directory directory service site topology. Exchange 2007 is a site-aware application and uses Active Directory sites as a basis for selecting which servers to communicate with directly. This means that no additional routing configuration is required when you deploy a pure Exchange 2007 organization. Additional configuration is required during interim phases that require Exchange 2007 to communicate with and route to and from Exchange Server 2003.

Minimize traffic   Exchange 2007 automatically routes by using minimal hops. Each Active Directory site is considered a hop. Exchange 2007 chooses the most direct path between the source and the destination. If a Hub Transport server is unavailable in a site because of temporary network outages, mail is queued at the point of failure.

Recipient resolution   The Hub Transport server efficiently expands distribution lists and dynamic distribution lists (called query-based distribution lists in Exchange Server 2003), performs directory lookups, and resolves recipients against Active Directory. The Hub Transport server is site-aware and automatically chooses to communicate with the directory servers that are located in the same site. To handle large distribution lists efficiently, you can redirect expansion to a dedicated expansion server.

Message conversion   The Exchange 2007 Hub Transport server can perform message conversion based on the original mail’s content and intended destination. Mail that flows between Exchange 2007 Hub Transport servers, Exchange 2007 servers that are running the Mailbox server role, and the Internet is converted appropriately.

Autodiscover   To optimize bandwidth when a remote user connects to an Exchange 2007 computer that has the Client Access server role installed, the Client Access server that accepts the initial request locates the user's mailbox. After the user's Mailbox server is located, the client request is redirected to the Client Access server that is nearest to the user's Mailbox server.

Development Exchange 2007 includes a new set of Web Services that enable developers to interact with Exchange mailboxes and contents by using standard HTTP. Exchange Web Services provides access to the authenticated user's mailbox and the items in the mailbox.