OT:Exchange good? (Was:Re: new hotness?)

[Craig White]

On Fri, 2009-02-20 at 09:45 -0700, Bryan O'Neal wrote:
>  I disagree... Mostly.
> > - Tough to backup
> Like any database it needs to be shut down for standard file backups to work
> properly.  This can be done via a simple script and is not a real issue.
> However the use of back up programs like BackupExec make it a breeze to back
> up and restore.  However I will agree that if you never had to deal with it
> before and you don't have much space and you don't have something like
> Backup Exec it can be daunting to figure out how to get regular backups
> working.  That said I also like to run all the clients so they keep a copy
> of all activity locally.  Not only does this speed up the clients but it
> also ensures that if the server suddenly went belly up and the last backup I
> had was 10 or 12 hours old (if I was using a file backup system) I could
> restore everything up to the minuet for people who had their clients
> running.  If I thought it was worth the time I would have liked to
> virtualizes the exchange server and take regular snap shots of it throughout
> the day. However other projects provided a greater return for the time
> invested so I never got around to it.
----
this is absurd - once you have used cyrus-imapd and all of the e-mails
are separate files you realize how antiquated and stupid the concept of
an Exchange mail store is. Oh, you can buy programs with Exchange
'agents' to allow you to back up live or you can use some routine to
shut down Exchange to allow a backup but it's clearly a hostile
environment, much like backing up any database.
----
> > - Costly to integrate spyware, anti-virus and other content scanning
> I never had any issues and must totally disagree. I have always used the
> scanning built into exchange. This has been quite a nice feature since
> Exchange 2003 SP2 which is quite good at controlling spam, viruses, and
> generally enforcing corporate policies.  However, for less then $500 a year
> you can get a third party to spam scan all of your email before it ever hits
> your server.  If nothing else this pays for it's self in saved bandwidth.
> If you are a medium size company initial spam scanning should be done by a
> third party, after that Exchange can be tweaked quite easily to help enforce
> corporate policies.  In addition integration with products like Avast make
> it easy to offer AV/Threat scanning.  After that exchange is easy to set up
> for limiting the kinds of files that can be sent or received, how big a
> email can be, and even who emails can be sent or received from.  And while I
> never did it, I am fairly certain you can do key word scanning as well.
> Most of this this can be customized on a per user basses.
----
I think you just made my point...buying specialized software add-ons to
perform scanning - and of course, the 'Exchange Server' options.
----
> - Specialized client software (Outlook)
> You can chose what ever client you want, but some features may not be
> limited or not available. A fairly good webmail client is provided. You can
> use POP and IMAP for any client with regards to your email. With some server
> side add-ons colanders can be made available as well and global contacts can
> be driven via ldap.  While it is true if you want to use the advanced
> features you have to use outlook, but again, I have not found any other
> client/sere pair that provides these features, so it is not surprising that
> other clients can not use them when connecting to the server.
----
good webmail is easily implemented as are LDAP client applications. OWA
is adequate.
----
> - Requires AD
> Yes.  However this is like saying that it requires an MS server to run so I
> really don't see your point.  I can integrate my Linux servers and clients
> seamlessly into AD using krb and some people indicate the opposite is also
> true.  It is an enterprise mail system designed around collaboration.  If
> you don't have an enterprise to collaborate with you probably are not
> looking at outlook.  If you believe it ads additional expense look at the
> small business edition.  The price for a fully integrated MS environment is
> very cheep these days.
----
My point seemed to be rather obvious. You're in for the penny, you're in
for the pound. The issue isn't about whether Linux or Macintosh can
integrate into an AD environment...of course they can.

The issue was about buying in and having AD dictate everything from user
accounts to machine access and all resource management. To use Exchange,
you have no choice other than to go the whole hog...there was no other
options after Exchange 5.5

The simple truth is that Microsoft didn't create the Enterprise
environment nor do they possess the only logical implementation. They
have the marketing muscle and the foresight to create artificial
dependencies to use software to dictate implementation.

Start tossing in curveballs such as IP Telephony integration and it
becomes a major clusterf**k. 

The ultimate issue is that the only decent client for Exchange is
Outlook and thus the only decent OS to use is Windows and thus the
vendor lock-in is full circle.

Clearly as businesses tighten their belts, the costs of license 6 or
just generally the various licenses necessary to be purchased for client
access, whether to files or to Exchange Server or to MS-SQL server get
to be absurd. As few businesses have embraced the move to Vista, Linux
options for the desktop continue to improve and Exchange Server will see
its value declining.

Craig