Programming Technologies

Topic Last Modified: 2007-11-09

Applications that use Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 can access configuration settings and data by using many different programming technologies. The topics in this section describe how to apply these different technologies in Exchange 2007 collaborative applications.

The following table lists the programming technologies that you can use to access Exchange 2007 settings and data.

Programming technologies

Programming Technology Description

Microsoft ActiveX Data Objects (ADO)

Applications use ADO to access data in the Exchange store by using familiar database programming techniques.

Backup and Restore

The Exchange Storage Engine (ESE) manages the storage groups and databases that Exchange 2007 uses. To support better performance and better integration with failure recovery systems, the ESE includes an API for backup and restore.

Collaboration Data Objects (CDO)

The CDO group of Component Object Model (COM) objects is the primary way that applications access and control configuration settings, users, messages, and other information in Exchange 2007.

Exchange OLE DB (ExOLEDB) provider

Applications use the ExOLEDB provider on the local server to access the items in the Exchange store.

Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)

Exchange 2007 supports the programmatic access of data at is stored in Active Directory by using the Internet standard LDAP.

MAPI

Exchange 2007 supports e-mail and collaboration clients that use MAPI. MAPI uses remote procedure call (RPC) networking for client-to-server connections.

Microsoft.Exchange.Data Managed APIs

The Microsoft.Exchange.Data namespace provides a wide variety of types that facilitate tasks such as reading and writing Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) data, converting message bodies and other text from one encoding to another, reading and writing Transport Neutral Encapsulation Format (TNEF) data, reading and writing calendars and appointments, converting message formats, and extending the transport behavior of Exchange 2007.

Schema

The Exchange store holds both data items and properties that describe the items. Designing and managing the Exchange store schema is a significant part of creating an effective Exchange collaborative application.

Search

The Exchange 2007 content indexing and search functions support full-text and property search queries over information in the Exchange store.

Store Events

Collaboration and workflow applications can receive automatic notification when events occur in the Exchange store. You can register code that will be executed when the triggering event occurs.

Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS)

The Volume Shadow Copy Service feature in Windows Server 2003 can be used to create applications that back up and restore Exchange 2007. VSS provides an infrastructure that enables third-party storage management programs, business programs, and hardware providers to cooperate in creating and managing shadow copies. Solutions that are based on this infrastructure can use the shadow copies to back up and restore one or more Exchange 2007 databases.

Exchange Web Services

Applications that use Exchange Web Services can access data store items. The applications can access these items locally or remotely by using a SOAP version 1.1 or version 1.2 message.

WebDAV

Remote client applications can use the WebDAV protocol to access items and property information in the Exchange store.