OT:Exchange good? - And the flame wars begin (Was:Re: new hotness?)

[JD Austin]

Why do you think TCO of an Asterisk system is HIGHER than shortel or Avaya?
--
JD Austin
Twin Geckos Technology Services LLC
jd at twingeckos.com
480.288.8195x201
http://www.twingeckos.com


P. J. O'Rourke  - "Everybody knows how to raise children, except the people
who have them."

On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 2:28 PM, Bryan O'Neal <boneal at cornerstonehome.com>wrote:

> Craig, I think you are missing the point.  So, not to call you out on the
> carpet here but have you ever managed a large enterprise?  If so could you
> please explain your ideal concept of how you manage to keep productivity
> high and cost low without use of any non-free or non-open products?  Take
> Asterisk for example.  I love it but the total cost of ownership is
> outrageously high in comparison to systems like Avaya and ShoreTel.  And
> that is without the incredible ease of integration of systems like ShoreTel
> have with outlook. You bag on Exchange but offer no comparative substitute.
> You complain about the fact it uses AD and how much it costs even though it
> is included free in several flavors of Exchange distribution.  You complain
> about mailbox implementation but seem to think it is the only DB your
> company would be running.  How do you back up your Oracle, MySQL, DB2, or
> Postges systems?  And again with the scanning, it provides it's own free
> scanning system, however it is idiotic to be dinging the bulk of your spam
> scanning on the mail server.  By the time it reaches your server the cost
> of
> resources expended to handle it far outweigh the cost of third party
> scanning.  And the fact that Third party AV scans can be integrated easily
> is not a bad thing, saying so is like saying postfix sucks because you can
> use spamassisen and calmav.  In fact I can use clamAV but it does not
> provide the same level of service for the same maintenance cost of better
> products like Avast.  That said you say the only client is outlook, so my
> question is what server/client system do you have that provides anywhere
> near as much to the party as exchange/outlook?  If you have one I would
> really, really, love to try it out!  But I have not found one.  Certainly
> Cyrus is not it.  And for cost I can put an exchange system in for a 70
> person office with all the clients and servers licensed from scratch with
> AD
> and everything, including the server and my time to set it up for less then
> $1500.  In addition each users outlook costs only $40 and that also
> includes
> all the other MS bundled stuff we have not talked about (Share point,
> etc.).
> And while there are far better solutions for nearly all of it (especially
> MS
> SQL Server) Tell me now.  Can you purchase a server, provide a integrated
> collaborative PIM suite in a single interface providing mail, contacts,
> basic CRM, takes, notes, and journal com tracking for the same price?  If
> so
> I really would like to see it because I have bee hunting for this for
> almost
> 10 years!  I hold fast that Exchange is one of very, very few MS products
> that has a very high ROI.  And, have you every had to integrate a BES with
> something other then Exchange?  Or are you some one who has never managed
> more then a handful of mobile devices.
>
> Now if you're a single person or a company of 5 it is stupid to implement
> exchange. Use Google.  If you're a fleet of sales people who never talk to
> each other and have an independent sales management application, then
> again,
> Exchange is not your option, but for most small campus based businesses
> that
> employ a group of average people who need to communicate easily with their
> teams exchange is your answer.  In the real world your business needs and
> the bottom line dictate the solution, not your personal feelings.  And time
> and time again, for medium business after medium business, Exchange has
> provided.  If you really want we can conger up an average small company
> prototype and each deliver a robust communications plan.  But I think your
> average CFP will pick the exchange plan every time.
>
> And yes one of my three home computers is MS, and yes I run outlook on it
> (Evolution and thunderbird on the other two)  But Outlook is my primary
> PIM.
>
> I find on lists like this I have the fringe voice of pay/proprietary
> software, just like in the business world I am the fringe voice of free and
> open source.  So, I get flamed from both sides.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: plug-discuss-bounces at lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
> [mailto:plug-discuss-bounces at lists.plug.phoenix.az.us] On Behalf Of Craig
> White
> Sent: Friday, February 20, 2009 10:24 AM
> To: Main PLUG discussion list
> Subject: RE: OT:Exchange good? (Was:Re: new hotness?)
>
> 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
>
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