I'm starting to investigate hardware for our eventual (maybe by winter
break?) migration to Exchange 2000 from 5.5. Our current Exchange server is
running SSL OWA on the same server as Exchange. When we move to 2000, we
are looking at having a Server for Exchange, and a separate Win2k IIS5
server in the DMZ that runs OWA.
We already have an idea of what we'll be purchasing for the Exchange server,
but I'm looking for recommendations to spec out the server that will run
OWA. We have almost 1800 exchange accounts, probably 1600-1700 of which are
in use and might be accessed via OWA. Single server, single site (although
we'd have 2 up during the migration, we will end up with one again). This
IIS server would only run OWA and not other major services such as www/ftp
sites, dns, etc.
We have a few older "generic" server boxes that are currently being taken
out of service and reassigned as we consolidate domains, and I'm wondering
if one of these would serve this purpose. One is a PII 266 w/96 ram,
Adaptec Ultra2 4GB and 9GB hds, 100MB Intel server NIC. We would probably
consider buying a hardware raid controller, more memory, some larger hard
drives, and possibly a gigabit NIC, if you think the processor could handle
the requests and it would cost sufficiently less. If this wouldn't work,
our current contracted vendor is Dell, so we would be looking at something
from them.
Thanks for your input, comments, corrections, flames ;)-I'll gladly provide
more info as needed. I really don't have any idea at this point as I'm
diving headfirst into Exchange while still in the midst of our Win2k
migration (mostly completed at the server level). I've done some
preliminary white-paper reading, but have not yet been to any E2k training.
(Believe me, I plan on it before we migrate though!)
-Bonnie M.
List Charter and FAQ at:
http://www.sunbelt-software.com/exchange_list_charter.htm
