Server Roles

Exchange Server 2007/2010/2013 SP1/2016 can be installed in different configurations determining the server operation modes and functionality. For this purpose, the server roles are specified during the deployment.

Exchange Server 2007/2010 and 2013 SP1 includes five server roles: Mailbox Server, Client Access Server, Hub Transport Server, Unified Messaging Server and Edge Transport Server. Exchange Server 2016 includes two server roles: Mailbox Server and Edge Transport Server.

The roles listed below support anti-virus and anti-spam scanning:

Mailbox Server provides the main services, hosts mailbox and public folder databases and allows to perform the anti-virus scanning via VSAPI.

Hub Transport Server routes mail within the Exchange organization, allows to apply security policies to the messages and check them for viruses and spam.

Edge Transport Server is a standalone server situated in the demilitarized zone (DMZ) that doesn't access to the internal organization resources (except one-way synchronization with Active Directory for the purposes of Hub Transport Servers topology registration), that allows to provide anti-virus and anti-spam protection.

Dr.Web can be installed on the server with any of these roles or their combinations.

Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 does not use the concept of server roles and is based on the Frontend–Backend architecture, so the anti-virus and anti-spam checks are always performed by the agents on the SMTP transport level.