As a Microsoft Certified Partner, we have always developed our software using standard Microsoft tools and programming interfaces in order to assure our customers that we are always accessing and processing information in a secure method and that they are not locked into a proprietary method of accessing their data. One example of this is in our Email Management Server product. In this product we use the Microsoft Extended MAPI (Messaging Application Programming Interface) for accessing, processing and archiving Exchange mailboxes, public folders and Personal Folder Files.
MAPI has been used to access email since Microsoft Mail (MSMAIL) and through all versions of Microsoft Exchange. Before Microsoft Exchange 2010 was released, MAPI client software would access the Microsoft Exchange Server directly. This changed in Microsoft Exchange 2010. While MAPI is still supposed by Microsoft Exchange 2010, it no longer accesses the server directly and instead MAPI requests are processed by the RPC Client Access Service.
As more companies demand higher quality software for their servers we began to face a significant challenge in accessing and processing mailboxes during the transition from moving our software from unmanaged native code to “safe managed” code using Microsoft .NET technologies. As other Microsoft technologies have been incorporated into Microsoft’s .NET framework, MAPI is one that has never been and most likely will never be included in .NET. By using MAPI in a software product it means that the released product could not be considered “safe managed” code.
One alternative to using MAPI to access mailboxes using .NET is with the “Exchange Web Services” that Microsoft included with Microsoft Exchange 2007 and Microsoft Exchange 2010. The web services provide a way of accessing mailboxes using .NET objects. While it is not a direct replacement for MAPI, it allows you to perform many of the same complex email processing and access the same information from email that you can perform with MAPI. The web services also have several advantages over MAPI. The web services operate over an https protocol, allowing you to access mailboxes without having to be connected to the same network as the Microsoft Exchange Server. In addition to this, the web services allow the product code to be considered safe and managed. Future products released by MADSolutions will make use of this technology allowing our customers to benefit from the stability that safe managed code provides.