In response to David's question
=========================
Seems you are big guy at Exchange. I'm not familar with it, but might will have a project for me seting up to monitor Exchange server. So any suggestions?

Answer
======

couple ways you can monitor your Exchange server.
1) you can do it via Exchange System Manager, open the properties of server object, Monitoring tab, define whatever as you wish
expand Tools, "monitoring and Status", right here you can view the status realtime and define the action you want your exchange server to take when something happen
2) you can also monitor your exchange services in "services.msc" snap-in.
that is more an OS functionality than Exchange's
3) you can monitory your free space/cpu usage etc via System Monitor, again, it's a OS function

Please come back and visit my blog as I will add posts from time to time.
But since I am so lazy, I will prefer answering questions to writing new topic.

Hope this helps.

ever confused with "discontinued networks" and "auto summary" command in Cisco routers?

If you read only Sybex's "CCNA study guide", which is so well known in the Cisco certification community, and you don't have too much experience, you most likely lost yourself. So this book is not that good as so many people say.

Refer to
http://www.oreilly.com/
catalog/iprouting/chapter/ch04.html#31695

for what is "discontinued networks"

Exchange 2000/2003 FE/BE topology step by step
======================================

Environment
----------------
AD domain: strongline.local
DNS domain: strongline.net
Exchange sites: site1 and site2
Exchange smtp domain: site1.com and site2.com
Users has either @site1.com or @site2.com email address

Objectives
----------
Users can access their emails by http://mail.site1.com or http://mail.site2.com
or http://mail.strongline.net/site1 or http://mail.strongline.net/site2

Steps
--------
1. Supposed that you have install all Exchange back-end servers ready
S1-Ex.strongline.local
S2-Ex.strongline.local

users can access their email internaly by Outlook, OWA (http://S1-Ex/Exchange or http://s2-ex)

2. Now install a new Exchange server (2000 Enterprise Edition or 2003 server) into either site1 or site2, it doesn't matter, check the box "it is a front-end server". In our example, the server will be named FE-Ex.strongline.local, it's public name will be mail.strongline.net

At this point, if all your users have a common email address, say @strongline.net, and @strongline.net is your default recipient policy, then
* internally, you can just type in http://FE-Ex to get your email. Of course you can create a CNAME record "mail" pointing to "FE-Ex" so you can just type in http://mail
* externally, you can type in http://mail.strongline.net
But remember in our example, users have either @site1.com or @site2.com address. So we will have to do a little more tweaking job

3. Create virtual directories for URL http://mail.strongline.net/site1 and http://mail.strongline.net/site2
- In Exchange System Manager, expand your FE server, Protocols, HTTP, right click, new virtual directory. Set Exchange Path to "Mailbox for site1.com" and "site2.com" respectively.
- Do the same on all back-end servers that contain mailboxes for site1.com/site2.com

Now you should be able to access your email via http://mail.strongline.net/site1 and http://mail.strongline.net/site2

4. Create HTTP virtual servers for URL http://mail.site1.com and http://mail.site2.com
- In Exchange System Manager, expand your FE server, Protocols, HTTP, right click, new virtual servers. Give it a proper name, select the correct IP address. Click on Advanced button, Add, Select IP address, type in "mail.site1.com" in Host Name box, OK. Select "mailboxes for site1.com".
- Create another HTTP virtual server for site2.com.
- Do the same on all back-end servers that contain mailboxes for site1.com/site2.com

Now you should be able to access your email via http://mail.site1.com and http://mail.site2.com

5. There are couple more things such as authentication, disabling un-neccessary services on FE server, and so on have to be done, please refer to http://www.microsoft.com/technet/
prodtechnol/exchange/2003/library/febetop.mspx
for more information.