So I put my proposed solution to the test. I wanted to be confident while heading into development that my solution did in fact work. The way this was done? Writing a quick windows form application; not necessarily the solution that it will end up being, but suitable for rapid, repeated testing of my concept once some short amount of code was done.
Step 1: Choose a virtualization environment.
But before I could begin any of that, I had to set up a virtualized testing environment. To set up a virtualized testing environment, I had to ensure that my virtualized environment had the following features:
- allowed commercial usage,
- was free,
- could run a server environment (I was wanting to target server 08 / 08 r2).
My old faithful during study (VmWare Player) was not going to be suitable in this particular instance. I had heard about VirtualBox but had not used it much, but did fit the requirements above so I went with it.
Step 2: Choose and deploy a server environment
The server environment I chose to use was Server 08 R2. I didn’t want to be much earlier than that, nor did I want the most modern server environment. Just wanted the most average environment I could imagine and this seemed to fit the bill. The environment was 64bit and I dedicated 2GB of ram to it. I downloaded a trial and installed it – setting it up was pretty straightforward. I separated the network adapter from the rest of the network after remembering a mistake in my first year of net and server virtualization.
Step 3: Choose and deploy a Exchange server endpoint
I chose to go with Exchange Server 2007 as it was the earliest version of Exchange server I could see Nimbus wanting to support. Part of this was due to Exchange Web Services limitations and part of it is being future minded. I downloaded a trial and set it up, but before I could do so I had to install active directory domain services, make a active directory forest, and add myself to the enterprise, domain and schema admins group. I also had to install IIS.
Step 4: Install development software & develop proof of concept
I installed a good old version of Visual Studio 2008 that was readily available in the achieves of Nimbus. It could develop the solution I needed so it was what I chose to go with. I had enough research to develop a proof of concept and it went exactly as expected, getting and putting appointment items in a mailbox I had set up on Exchange. With this proof of concept I felt set to embark on development of a more full-scale solution.
Developer Reflection 