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Working with the Exchange Web Storage System

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This content is no longer actively maintained. It is provided as is, for anyone who may still be using these technologies, with no warranties or claims of accuracy with regard to the most recent product version or service release.

The Exchange Web Storage System is a database technology that you can use to store, share, and manage heterogeneous data, such as e-mail messages, Web pages, multimedia files, and Microsoft® Office XP documents. The Web Storage System is organized much like a traditional file system, in a hierarchy of folders. Each folder within the Web Storage System can contain any number of items, including other folders. You can access items in the Web Storage System using many protocols and application programming interfaces (API), including the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and WebDAV (HTTP/WebDAV), Microsoft® ActiveX® Data Objects Version 2.5 (ADO), OLE DB Version 2.5, Collaboration Data Object for Exchange 2000 (CDOEX), the Messaging API (MAPI), through the file system, and using several other industry-standard wire protocols.

The Web Storage System integrates knowledge sources by providing a single repository for managing e-mail messages, documents, Web pages, and other resources within one infrastructure. The Web Storage System supports remote client access, and support for a range of APIs. In addition, the Web Storage System serves as a platform for unified messaging, where knowledge workers can access personal information, such as their calendar and contacts, as well as e-mail and voice mail messages.

The Web Storage System provides enterprise-based application services in three key areas:

  • Ubiquitous Client Access — Clients, such as Office, can read and write to documents, as well as store streaming data, such as audio and video. The Web Storage System includes a data model that supports hierarchical collections (folders), as well as heterogeneous collections (folders that accept any file type).
  • Next-Generation Database — The Web Storage System provides next-generation database services to make it possible for multiple types of information to be stored in a single repository. The information contained in the Web Storage System database can be diverse types of data from OLE DB and ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) recordsets, to MIME messages and Extensible Markup Language (XML) data. The Web Storage System also provides database services, such as atomic updates, which make it possible for applications to present a consistent view to end users when updates involve more than one item in the Web Storage System.
  • Rich Development Platform — The Web Storage System supports messaging, contacts, calendaring, and workflow, as well as group and real-time collaboration.

See Also

Using Web Technologies with Office XP | Understanding HTML Elements | Working with the Office Web Components | Working with Office Web Discussions Client | Working with Data Access Pages | Working with Smart Tags