Understanding RecipientsCentral to any messaging system are the people and resources that receive messages. An individual may receive a message from a coworker, or a public folder may receive a message from a participant in a particular discussion. Although messages are received by people, the term recipients refers to Microsoft Active Directory® directory service objects, not people. Recipients are Active Directory objects that have messaging capabilities. However, the object itself does not receive messages. The messages are not stored in Active Directory. Instead, they can reside in a mailbox on an Exchange server, in a public folder, or in another messaging system. People access messages that are sent to them by using a client application. Examples of client applications include Microsoft Outlook®, Outlook Web Access, and Outlook Mobile Access. Each of these clients receives notification when a new message arrives and receives pointers to the location of the message, so that the message can be opened and read. The following scenario explains the difference between the person who receives e-mail messages and Active Directory objects. Carole, a member of the marketing team, has a user account that prompts her to type her user name and password to log on to her computer and her company's network. After logging on, she has access to several network resources. One of these resources is her Exchange mailbox. Carole accesses her mailbox with an e-mail client, Outlook 2002. Outlook queries her Exchange mailbox and presents Carole a list of messages in her Outlook Inbox. When Carole opens one of these messages, Outlook retrieves the contents of the message from the message store on the Exchange server that houses her mailbox. As shown in the following figure, there is a recipient that is an Active Directory user object named carole. Mail that is addressed to carole is stored in an associated mailbox on an Exchange server. When the correct credentials are sent to the domain controller for user object carole, the contents of the mailbox become available to the e-mail client. Users authenticate to Active Directory and then use mail clients to access the contents of their Exchange mailbox In Exchange, the term recipient refers to an Active Directory object that is mailbox-enabled or mail-enabled. Mailbox-enabled recipients can send, receive, and store messages. Mail-enabled recipients can only receive messages. The following table describes the Active Directory objects that can be Exchange recipients.
Note Although public folders are recipients, they are different from the other recipient types mentioned here. For more information about public folders, see "Managing Mailbox Stores and Public Folder Stores." |