For anyone out there running a combination of Exchange 2003 and Outlook 2003 and who aren’t doing it already, you should really do your users a favor and configure Outlook 2003 for RPC over HTTP, especially if you already have Outlook Web Access enabled from outside your networks (so that your users can check e-mail from home, for example).
I set up RPC over HTTPS maybe a week or so ago at $work, and I have to say it is GREAT! Before, I would just leave a Firefox tab open to my organization’s OWA server and manually refresh it all the time. Now, I don’t have to!
For those of you who don’t know, enabling RPC over HTTPS (don’t use HTTP) allows your users to use the full, “thick” Outlook 2003 client from anywhere that your Outlook Web Access site is available. It works by encapsulating RPC packets (which Outlook uses to connect to the Exchange server) inside of HTTPS packets. HTTPS is a secure protocol for web communications. It is also referred to as SSL, and is the same technology that gives you the little padlock symbol when you’re logging on to your bank.
I am not aware of any outstanding security issues with using RPC over HTTPS, but would be happy to know if there are any. For now, just members of my department (the I.T. department) are using this “feature”, but we about to start opening it up to our “general” employees that often need to stay in touch from home, off-campus meetings, vacation, etc.
Anyways, to sum it up, it’s just excellent. I know leave the “thick” Outlook 2003 client running on my laptop wherever I’m at so that I can stay caught up on e-mail without having to constantly refresh my e-mail tab in the browser. I’d be interested to hear about other’s experiences with using RPC over HTTPS.
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