Configuring Message Routing

Address Space Configuration

Exchange connectors are paths for messages sent outside a routing group. These paths identify the recipient addresses and address types and are represented by an address space. An SMTP or X.400 connector must have at least one address space.

When you use multiple connectors, you can use address spaces to balance the messaging load; for example, if you have two SMTP connectors for mail transfer to the Internet, you can designate one to process messages destined for domains A and B and the other to process messages destined for domain C. However, if you use two SMTP connectors to handle a large volume of messages to a single domain, you can configure both connectors to process the same addresses for equal load balancing.

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As shown in the illustration, the type of the address space and connector is SMTP, and the address is *.com. As a result, the connector accepts and processes only SMTP messages addressed to recipients with the .com domain identifier.

Important   An asterisk (*) can only be used in an address space by itself, or when immediately followed by a period. Therefore, the example *.winery-co.co is valid, but *winery-co.co is not valid.

In another scenario, you might have a computer running Exchange 2000 connected to a computer running Exchange 5.5. To transfer messages between the two servers, you might specify an X.400 connector and at least one X.400 address space.

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As shown in the illustration, the type of the address space and connector is X.400, and the address is o=NorthAmerica;p=Microsoft;a=<carrier>; c=US; therefore, the connector accepts and processes only X.400 messages with an organization (o) of NorthAmerica, a Private Management Domain (p) of "Microsoft," an Administrative Management Domain (a) equal to the X.400 carrier specified in the address space, and a country/region code (c) of "US."

The following connectors are available with Exchange 2000 Server:

Related Topics

SMTP Address Spaces X.400 Address Spaces