Many organizations that implement Microsoft Outlook Web Access (OWA) based on Exchange Server 2003 or Exchange 2000 Server don't connect client browsers directly to the Exchange server on which the user's mailbox is located. Rather, a front-end Exchange server accepts the OWA connection from a client, then proxies the connection to the back-end server on which the user's mailbox resides. The front-end model offers the advantage of letting all users specify the same URL to access their mailboxes.
However, the traditional front-end model also has disadvantages, especially with regard to authentication. Let's look at how the traditional front-end server model works and examine the limitations of that model's authentication method. Then, I outline an alternative mechanism for using a variant of the front-end server configuration to implement a normalized namespace with OWA. This alternative approach avoids the drawbacks of Basic authentication while letting all users enter the same URL to access their email. . . .
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