In-line typo corrections. Other than that, this is just a repeat, primarily for the sake of having a clean copy in the archives.
-----Original Message----- From: Dupler, Craig Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 3:41 PM To: Exchange Discussions Subject: Messaging & Collaboration II This is Data Dump #2 in response to Leonard's question about UM and Collaboration. Subtitle: What is Exchange? When Exchange 4.0 (Touchdown) was under development in building 16 (roughly 1993-1996 but it goes back to 1990 if you count the preliminary work that was done on the MTA in project "Spitfire"), they used to have these all hands meetings on Friday afternoons. They were as much pep rallies as anything else. There were six customer companies that were so called TR-0 testers (test release 0, as in extremely pre-beta, TR-3 became Beta 1). I was there. On the last Friday before 4.0 went gold, Brian invited me over to become an honorary 4.0 team member and asked me to say few words to the team. I think they thought I was crazy, because I rattled on about how important this thing they were building really was, and how it was really a telephone system. Perhaps even 12 months ago that kind of commentary would have left people thinking that maybe I had done a wee too much of the dewie dew. Most people that are into Exchange are aware that IM introduced a concept of "presence." Messaging for some users has become a secondary tool for interacting with their "first tier" of correspondents. IM and presence awareness have moved into the primary role for these users. Exchange is not about messaging. Rather, it is about communications generally, and enabling electronic communications specifically. Messaging is only a component in that. Even in the MTA, perhaps as pure a messaging component as there is, some of the key functions are about "policy enforcement," thus making the MTA into a PEP (policy enforcement point), which is about as far removed from basic SMTP and MAPI as you can get. Generally, it is a good idea to know what business you are in. It helps when you are doing things like planning your future. In the technology business, if you are not in constant planning mode and getting ready for the next thing, well you're road kill. We are in a constant state in which dozens of entrepreneurs are scheming to come up with the "next thing" that will obsolete whatever it is that is paying the rent today. The best defense in this environment is to make sure that you define the business that you are in to a sufficient level of abstraction that you can both "see" what is coming, and get ready for it. Moore's Law is insidious. It never stops. Sometimes, even for fairly significant periods, we can defer its implications, but all that does is build up water behind a dam that is going to burst with even greater fury. Let's walk through a little math. Since 1964 when Moore first made his observation, computing power as measured by chip density and the cost of a given number of transistors, has kept to the pace of density doubling and the price point halving every 18 months. This means that an application that required a given amount of computing power at the end of 1983, can run on a machine that costs about .0002 times as much 19.5 years or 13 periods later (i.e. right now). So if an application (say your payroll) required a $1 million dollar machine in 1983, today it can be done on a machine that costs about $250 (roughly the value of a used P400 server). And that's about right. If you don't believe me, look up the historical TPM (transaction per minute) and cost per thousand TPM data. The comparative database performance data will verify the math. But chances are that there are almost no companies that have kept pace with these cost savings. That is not a technology problem that gets solved by anything other than strategic retirements and outsourcing (let a bureau do it on a machine that does the same job for dozens of clients, on the exact same machine). Generally, technology's most frequent victims are technology experts (maybe a little Toffler is appropriate at this point?). Some people think that the PC is immune to Moore's Law. There is even some evidence that many people at Microsoft think like this. Look at your cell phone for a moment. In terms of processing power, what is it? Express its computing power in terms of something you know really well. How much of a PC is in your average current model low end cell phone (regardless of radio frequency and encoding standards)? I think that if you say that it is roughly equivalent to a 486-66 with 16 megs or so of memory that this will be a fairly reasonable estimate - yes? When we were writing the specifications for the first Exchange clients (shipped in 95 and 96), the minimum target machine was a Win95 machine. That is why it (the Exchange client) was code named "Capone." Capone lived in Chicago, and "Chicago" was the code name for Windows 95. Any way, Win95, and the first Exchange client would run quite nicely on a 386-25 with 16 megs. On a 486-66 it ran very well indeed. And on any kind of Pentium, it was a scream machine (our beta test Exchange 4.0 servers tended to be P90 and P120 machines with maybe 2 gigs of disk and 250 megs of memory). So if Exchange is, in the abstract, primarily about communications services, and if you believe in Moore's Law, then what is your primary (not secondary or supplemental, but PRIMARY) client going to look like very very soon? Hint: It is NOT a desktop PC. Exchange is a phone system. Ok, when you get over swallowing that, let's talk about what a well designed Exchange system should look like. First, what kind of a creature is it? As a phone system, it has a lot more in common with networking that it does with the kinds of things that ASPs sell, even though there are several good ASPs in the Exchange business. But a well implemented and forward looking installation of Exchange is not a creature of server rooms. It is a creature of switch rooms. It is best thought of as a PEP and a kind of specialty router that is an adjunct to your switching and routing infrastructure. [Funny, voice people have always installed voice mail servers like that, and all a voice mail server is, is a specialized SMTP host with the world's worst MTA in it.] What does good Exchange Server hardware look like? Ideally it's just a blade in a switch chassis, but a 1U "blade in a box" right under it can work too. Uh oh. This sure doesn't look like Kansas any more . . . Maybe we should take a break before going any further. I'll come back with another installment sometime, but trust me, all of this stuff is in the archives. _________________________________________________________________ List posting FAQ: http://www.swinc.com/resource/exch_faq.htm Archives: http://www.swynk.com/sitesearch/search.asp To unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Exchange List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _________________________________________________________________ List posting FAQ: http://www.swinc.com/resource/exch_faq.htm Archives: http://www.swynk.com/sitesearch/search.asp To unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Exchange List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
