I ran it integrated on the same machine as the AD server (which was duel core mid range Power Edge 1600 IIRC). Supposedly I should have run it on its own box because it slows down the AD controller but it met my needs and worked great. The only complaint I had was that exchange would act slow for a particular user when that user was doing something like searching for a specific string somewhere in the 120,000 message the user maintained their inbox. I could have solved this by turning on server side message indexing, but the resource cost was too high for the benefit it returned. To that note exchange can be a bit of a system hog but not bad. I ran three application servers and a BES off the same box. Exchange offered me a way to split the work load amongst several front and back end exchange servers that were dedicated to just exchange, but that was extreme overkill for 60-70 users. As for raw email, what do you mean? I could look as raw msg files including all the header and routing information for any item in any mail box. In fact I could do this either through their DB tools or in drive/file fashion where the mail boxes and sub folders are listed as directories and the individual mail items were simple message files. As for recovery, I can recover and mount any mail box I want, even duplicates (as long as the system identifiers were changed) on one box. However if you looking for recovery from a catastrophic failure I just needed a box. However, the down side was that it was heavily integrated with AD. Which was very, very nice for management. But if you lost your AD (all AD servers) you could only recover the individuals mail, calendar, contacts, task, and note items. The individuals processing rules, custom alerts, etc. are all tied to a system ID. But since I don't know any other system where users can set all this up on the server in a sand boxed format I did not see this as a drawback since other system did not offer this feature. In addition I backed up my AD the same as Exchange and everything else, so if I had a raw box I could recover everything no questions asked. I remember exchange back in the NT 4 days and it was a weird black art, but since 2003 Sp2 it is very nice. -----Original Message----- From: plug-discuss-bounces@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us [mailto:plug-discuss-bounces@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us] On Behalf Of Bob Elzer Sent: Friday, February 20, 2009 11:14 AM To: 'Main PLUG discussion list' Subject: RE: OT:Exchange good? (Was:Re: new hotness?) Well I haven't used the latest exchange and it's been a while, so maybe you can tell me if they worked around the issues I had with it. It requires it's own server. On a single core server, it bogged the system down so much, we couldn't run other apps. (granted it's probably best to do that, but when you don't have the budget for it, you have to do) There's no way to look at the raw email message on the server. Or go through all the mail boxes. Recovery requires a second machine. From what I remember it was convoluted, but you need a second box. -----Original Message----- From: plug-discuss-bounces@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us [mailto:plug-discuss-bounces@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us] On Behalf Of Bryan O'Neal Sent: Friday, February 20, 2009 9:45 AM To: 'Main PLUG discussion list' Subject: RE: OT:Exchange good? (Was:Re: new hotness?) 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. > - 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. - 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. - 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. - Quirky management interface Agreed. But then again I feel the same way about Mac OSX Server. Each flavor of server OS has it's quirks and MS is no different. However I will agree it is some what poorly documented and takes a bit to get used to. I did not find it too difficult to learn but it took some learning to perform a new task. Similarly if you have not done something in six months it may take you a bit of poking around to do it again. - Vender lock Yes if you don't use Outlook you lose features, but that is like saying if I don't use the Yugma or Skype client I lose features of their services. Sure I may be able to hook up a multi protocol chat client to different IM's but now I can't do multiple party video conferencing via the AOL IM server if I don't use the Mac AOL IM client! That vender lock! :) The argument is rather ridicules especially since exchange server comes with unlimited outlook client licenses (depends on version but basically you get one free client for every licensed user) - Outlook Training True, this is something that generally is believed to lower your TCO. However, the really advanced features are often unknown to most users. Despite the fact that my users often complained about not having "something" that could do X they never took the time to notice Outlook did X the whole time. Training should be required for every application I don't care what OS. And outlook is not as easy to understand as Evolution, but it is something that the business world is used to and thus requires less training. That said we used to do lunch hour training session regularly on almost everything IT from the email to the phones to the CRM package. We also trained on standard policies and procedures. -Best of Breed vs. Homogenous Enterprise Both purchasing the rite tool for the job and keeping to a single vender have merits. I personally believe in the best of breed method, however I have never found a substitute for Exchange/Outlook. There are few to no other options to what outlook provides an enterprise these days. Remember we are not talking straight single user email and calendar we are talking about something that provides collaboration. The ability to assign tasks, track those tasks, integrate all communication associated with those tasks, etc., etc. etc. for calendaring, contacts, tasks, etc. all in a single pim is a very nice thing. Have you every used the journal feature in outlook? Just because you have to pay for something does not mean the cost always outweighs the benefit. Once you have to start justifying your ROI on new projects and show a comprehensive TOC analysis on what you already have, you have to take a cold hard look at your products and emotions play no longer can play a role in decision making. All this said, I put SpeekBack.com on a combination of Google Aps and Postfix because they were the rite tools for the job. However for Cornerstone Homes (and ASU) Exchange was the rite tool for the job. Exchange is a very good tool to have in your IT bag of tricks when your job is to reduce cost and maximize productivity of an entire enterprise. Unless you have a real replacement, you should not bag on Exchange just because it is Microsoft. Indeed it is one of two evil empire products I often feel compelled to defend. Most others have their substitutes or are not commonly used. Some uncommon product like groove are also quite interesting with few real substitutes, but don't have the wide spread adoption to be used by most businesses. And while I use others MS products, like Visio, it is only because I already own it and know it, like using Photoshop vs. GIMP. I would never go purchase Photoshop, but I would not go out of my way to learn GIMP if I already had Photoshop and new how to use it. Basically what I am saying is don't hate a product because it is proprietary and you don't understand it. Now Hans can get away with hating something just because it is not open but he never says he hates it because it cant be integrated, he just says it's not open and that's enough :) -----Original Message----- From: plug-discuss-bounces@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us [mailto:plug-discuss-bounces@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us] On Behalf Of Craig White Sent: Thursday, February 19, 2009 11:14 PM To: Main PLUG discussion list Subject: Re: OT:Exchange good? (Was:Re: new hotness?) On Thu, 2009-02-19 at 19:37 -0700, Alan Dayley wrote: > On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 5:29 PM, Stephen wrote: > > I agree on exchange really > > If you need just email exchange is the wrong thing but if you are > > looking at all the other stuff I haven't seen anything close without > > some serious work and cobbling > > As a forced user of Exchange via Outlook I consider the combination > proof that MS is a monopoly. The number of UI odd-nesses, broken > metaphors, failures to schedule, etc. that I regularly suffer with > amaze me. If it was a tool competing in a fair market, it would have > been ridiculed and died. (Or our IT people are doing it wrong.) > > That said, I have not been an administrator of such a server nor have > I used other competing solutions, other than Google. But I am > saddened to think that Exchange and Outlook, as broken as they are, > represent the best enterprise PIM solution available. Sad indeed. ---- Exchange can be a nightmare... - Tough to backup - Costly to integrate spyware, anti-virus and other content scanning - Specialized client software (Outlook) - Requires AD - Quirky management interface Perhaps the most aggravating thing is that if you don't use Outlook, you lose features and it all just plays into vendor lock-in to support protocols and features that are simply not standardized. The main selling point to Exchange/Outlook is that management likes the simple interface of Outlook...it's something that they can almost use without much training and all of the nastiness is handled by others. Today's office needs to look beyond single source, proprietary software if they want to provide less costly, more standard options. Contact management - LDAP is a fairly well standardized commodity. IMAP is a well defined standard CalDAV is well on it's way to becoming a standard To combat this, Microsoft has apparently recently released documentation on MAPI protocols so that other applications can integrate into Exchange Server. Thus there is little reason to adopt Exchange/Outlook today because there are a lot of other options. On the other hand, you are staring at an entrenched beast and we all know that people purchase emotionally and defend rationally so it's a difficult proposition to change, especially when the typical pointy haired boss is comfortable with Outlook. All I can say is that the wisdom of this can be found in the fraternity initiation scene in Animal House...Thank you sir, may I have another. Craig --------------------------------------------------- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss --------------------------------------------------- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss --------------------------------------------------- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss --------------------------------------------------- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss