Technical Interview Questions – Exchange 2003

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• Tell me a bit about the capabilities of Exchange Server.
• What are the different Exchange 2003 versions?
• What's the main differences between Exchange 5.5 and Exchange 2000/2003?
• What are the major network infrastructure for installing Exchange 2003?
• What is the latest Exchange 2003 Service Pack? Name a few changes in functionality in that SP.
• What are the disk considerations when installing Exchange (RAID types, locations and so on).
• You got a new HP DL380 (2U) server, dual Xeon, 4GB of RAM, 7 SAS disks, 64-bit. What do you do next to install Exchange 2003? (you have AD in place)
• Why not install Exchange on the same machine as a DC?
• Are there any other installation considerations?
• How would you prepare the AD Schema in advance before installing Exchange?
• What type or permissions do you need in order to install the first Exchange server in a forest? In a domain?
• How would you verify that the schema was in fact updated?
• What type of memory optimization changes could you do for Exchange 2003?
• How would you check your Exchange configuration settings to see if they're right?
• What are the Exchange management tools? How and where can you install them?
• What types of permissions are configurable for Exchange?
• How can you grant access for an administrator to access all mailboxes on a specific server?
• What is the Send As permission?
• What other management tools are used to manage and control Exchange 2003? Name the tools you'd use.
• What are Exchange Recipient types? Name 5.
• You created a mailbox for a user, yet the mailbox does not appear in ESM. Why?
• You wanted to change mailbox access permissions for a mailbox, yet you see the SELF permission alone on the permissions list. Why?
• What are Query Based Distribution groups?
• What type of groups would you use when configuring distribution groups in a multiple domain forest?
• Name a few configuration options for Exchange recipients.
• What's the difference between Exchange 2003 Std. and Ent. editions when related to storage options and size?
• Name a few configuration options related to mailbox stores.
• What are System Public Folders? Where would you find them?
• How would you plan and configure Public Folder redundancy?
• How can you immediately stop PF replication?
• How can you prevent PF referral across slow WAN links?
• What types of PF management tools might you use?
• What are the differences between administrative permissions and client permissions in PF?
• How can you configure PF replication from the command prompt in Exchange 2003?
• What are the message hygiene options you can use natively in Exchange 2003?
• What are the configuration options in IMF?
• What are virtual servers? When would you use more than one?
• Name some of the SMTP Virtual Server configuration options.
• What is a Mail Relay? Name a few known mail relay software or hardware options.
• What is a Smart Host? Where would you configure it?
• What are Routing Groups? When would you use them?
• What are the types of Connectors you can use in Exchange?
• What is the cost option in Exchange connectors?
• What is the Link State Table? How would you view it?
• How would you configure mail transfer security between 2 routing groups?
• What is the Routing Group Master? Who holds that role?
• Explain the configuration steps required to allow Exchange 2003 to send and receive email from the Internet (consider a one-site multiple server scenario).
• What is DS2MB?
• What is Forms Based Authentication?
• How would you configure OWA's settings on an Exchange server?
• What is DSACCESS?
• What are Recipient Policies?
• How would you work with multiple recipient policies?
• What is the "issue" with trying to remove email addresses added by recipient policies? How would you fix that?
• What is the RUS?
• When would you need to manually create additional RUS?
• What are Address Lists?
• How would you modify the filter properties of one of the default address lists?
• How can you create multiple GALs and allow the users to only see the one related to them?
• What is a Front End server? In what scenarios would you use one?
• What type of authentication is used on the front end servers?
• When would you use NLB?
• How would you achieve incoming mail redundancy?
• What are the 4 types of Exchange backups?
• What is the Dial-Tone server scenario?
• When would you use offline backup?
• How do you re-install Exchange on a server that has crashed but with AD intact?
• What is the dumpster?
• What are the e00xxxxx.log files?
• What is the e00.chk file?
• What is circular logging? When would you use it?
• What's the difference between online and offline defrag?
• How would you know if it is time to perform an offline defrag of your Exchange stores?
• How would you plan for, and perform the offline defrag?
• What is the eseutil command?
• What is the isinteg command?
• How would you monitor Exchange's services and performance? Name 2 or 3 options.
• Name all the client connection options in Exchange 2003.
• What is Direct Push? What are the requirements to run it?
• How would you remote wipe a PPC?
• What are the issues with connecting Outlook from a remote computer to your mailbox?
• How would you solve those issues? Name 2 or 3 methods
• What is RPC over HTTP? What are the requirements to run it?
• What is Cached Mode in OL2003/2007?
• What are the benefits and "issues" when using cached mode? How would you tackle those issues?
• What is S/MIME? What are the usage scenarios for S/MIME?
• What are the IPSec usage scenarios for Exchange 2003?
• How do you enable SSL on OWA?
• What are the considerations for obtaining a digital certificate for SSL on Exchange?
• Name a few 3rd-party CAs.
• What do you need to consider when using a client-type AV software on an Exchange server?
• What are the different clustering options in Exchange 2003? Which one would you choose and why.