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Outlook Web Access Low-Bandwidth
Enhancements
In many low-bandwidth environments,
Outlook Web Access is an obvious
solution. With Exchange 2003, core
changes have been made to Outlook Web
Access that improve the performance of
the client. These changes include:
• Bandwidth reduction Changes
like removal of white space, shortening
variable names, and optimizing the data
needed for each line of views cut a
substantial number of bytes from a
typical user session.
• User interface redesign In
Exchange 2003, view updates are
requested 80% faster than they were in
Exchange 2000. This saves almost 24K bps
in wire traffic for each message moved
or deleted. The new folder list and
updates to the view technology save
almost 110K bps in wire traffic per
typical user session.
• Improved user performance With
forms-based-authentication, files that
Outlook Web Access needs download in the
background while the user types in
username and password, which improves
the process of painting the user
interface (UI) on screen. In addition,
some script downloads are deferred until
needed. These changes result in almost
10 seconds being shaved off of the
dial-up logon process.
• Network compression Outlook Web
Access supports gzip compression between
Internet Information Server (an
underlying component of Exchange Server
2003) and the browser client. Additional
changes now make the feature easier to
enable and manage with the Exchange
System Manager tool. For SSL-encrypted
network traffic, users will realize data
reduction on the order of 40% to 60%
(depending on individual user traffic).
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