Planning for Hub Transport Servers
Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 will reach end of support on April 11, 2017. To stay supported, you will need to upgrade. For more information, see Resources to help you upgrade your Office 2007 servers and clients.
Applies to: Exchange Server 2007, Exchange Server 2007 SP1, Exchange Server 2007 SP2, Exchange Server 2007 SP3
This topic provides an overview of the planning process for Hub Transport server deployment. The Hub Transport server role is a required role in a Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 organization that provides routing within a single organizational network by using the Active Directory directory service site. Deployed inside the Active Directory forest, computers that have the Hub Transport server role installed handle all mail flow inside the organization, apply transport rules, apply journal rules, and deliver messages to recipients' mailboxes. Messages that are sent to the Internet are relayed by the Hub Transport server to the Edge Transport server role that is deployed in the perimeter network. Messages that are received from the Internet are processed by the Edge Transport server before they are relayed to the Hub Transport server. The Hub Transport server role stores all its configuration information in Active Directory. This information includes transport rules settings, journal rule settings, and connector configurations.
Planning for Hub Transport Server Deployment
When you plan to deploy the Hub Transport server role, you should consider the following topics:
Topology options Begin by planning where you will put your Hub Transport servers in the Exchange physical topology. When you have determined where the Hub Transport server will be located in the network relative to your other Exchange servers, you can plan for the connectors that you will require and for how they should be configured. For more information about how to plan for placement of the Hub Transport server, see Deployment Options for Hub Transport Servers.
Server capacity Planning for server capacity includes determining how you will conduct performance monitoring of the Hub Transport server. Performance monitoring will help you set a performance baseline for your servers. This information will help determine the capacity of your hardware configuration. For more information, see Planning Processor Configurations.
Transport features As part of your planning process, you should determine the transport features that you will enable at the Hub Transport server and how they will be configured. For more information about how to plan to use Exchange 2007 transport features, see Planning for Hub Transport Features.
Security The Hub Transport server role is deployed inside the Exchange organization. Planning for Hub Transport server security includes delegation of administrative roles and verification that IP connections are only enabled from authorized servers. Additionally, you should verify that no nonessential services are running and that no unnecessary ports are open. For more information, see Deployment Security Checklist
For More Information
For more information, see the following topics: