Synchronizing GAL in an Exchange 2007 Environment
As I mentioned previously, GAL synchronization in pure Exchange 2007 environments wasn't supported until the release of Identity Lifecycle Manager 2007 Feature Pack 1.
If you're thinking on implementing that specific synchronization mechanism, Microsoft has just released a great technical document: Synchronizing a Global Address List in an Exchange 2007 Environment.
Brief Description ILM 2007 FP1 provides a solution to synchronize the global address list (GAL) between two Active Directory forests in a Microsoft® Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1(SP1) infrastructure. The goal of a GAL synchronization solution is to synchronize users, groups, and contacts from one forest with contact objects to another forest. What This Document Covers
This document outlines the necessary steps to implement a simple GAL synchronization solution between two forests in an Exchange 2007 environment. This document guides you to:
- Populate the initial Active Directory and Exchange 2007 SP1 infrastructures for both forests using scripts provided in the Appendix.
- Assign the necessary permissions to the accounts used in the management agents for GAL synchronization,
- Configure ILM 2007 FP1 to perform GAL synchronization between the two forests.
- Verify that the contacts have successfully synchronized between the two forests.