On 12/23/05, Dan Jenkins <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Issues with Exchange I can think of, off the top of my head:
a) The aforementioned backups - media usage, time, etc. If Engineering
gets lots of large documents, which most business folk typically don't
get, then the backup window shrinks and media costs & manage costs for
said backups could skyrocket. (At one client of mine, email disk space
used for a dozen business users was a 500 MB a year. The three engineer
accounts added 2 GB a week.)
If they're not backing up the engineering email server, then someone isn't taking the time to think about the email servers, which is what IT is for. It's real easy to not be diligent when it's not your job, and when that evil day comes, and you have to explain that those three engineers just lost 3 days worth of work becouse a server disk crashed.. You'll cry. I've been there, trust me.. ;-)
If the backups are being done, then the backup is really not that much harder. You're already backing up 'X' amount of data.
b) The additional licensing costs for Exchange for the additional
engineering seats
Possibly. It depends on the license, and how many are available. The real base buy it at BestBuy Exchange 2003 comes with only 5 CAL licences. In this case, you'd definatly have purchased some CAL upgrades. If not, it depends on how much of a 100k a year engineers time is being paid to do a job someone else is already paid to do.
c) Additional load on the Exchange server. Again, if engineering handles
skads of large attachments, that could kill the Exchange server, if it's
not capable enough. So factor in Exchange server upgrades, if needed.
... Again, one would assume that this scanning is already taking place. I mean, from a price perspective, you could just backup the existing user data, format the machine, and carry into the IT room and install exchange and have that very machine serving as a backup server, running exchange.
d) If Exchange is running antivirus too, there could be additional
licensing costs. The same load issues as in (c) (Virus scanning a 150 MB
email attachment can be a bit burdensome. ;-)
Yes, it can be. See above. It's should already be being done.
e) Same load & licensing issues for antispam measures running on
Exchange. Ditto for content filtering, compliance enforcement and other
email services.
*cough* And we all know that all of these aren't needed when using an IMAP server and just downloading them directly from the mail server onto... Wait a sec, now I'm talking out of my ass.. ;-) See above. Hell, I'd dare say many exchange spam scanners are faster them spamassasin can be if you've got some madass rules like Brian Chabot used to have on his boxes.
f) If the Exchange server is also providing other services, the extra
load might impact those services. If they are business critical
services...well...
Engineers aren't critital? ;-)
g) If the load issue is enough to justify a separate Exchange server,
then add another Windows Server licensing cost.
Unless, of course, someone has an MSDN subscription..
h) Depending on the version of Exchange, the default for converting MAPI
messages to MIME format is HTML. While this can be changed on a
user-by-user basis, if your clients don't do HTML, then they won't be
able to read MAPI messages.
.... *blink* I missed some contextual data here. If you're using IMAP and SMTP, what's MAPI have to do with anything? You can configure exchange to do pretty much whatever you want with em anyway..
i) I've heard of, though not encountered, about some IMAP client
incompatibilities with Exchange.
That, my friend, is what we call FUD when Microsoft says it.
j) Only MAPI email clients are Outlook and OWC, as far as I know. So,
Outlook or webmail via Internet Explorer. (I have had incompatibilities
with OWC and non-IE browsers.) This isn't an issue for IMAP-only usage,
of course, but no calendaring/workflow/etc. in that case.
True, but they don't have calendaring anyway right now. The only way to get that feature is WITH something like exchange. If you don't like that, then you can use Ximian to interface with OWC.
iCal sucks balls, it's just a way to store cals in a file, with no real way to interface or plan with them.
k) Directory (as in LDAP vs. Active Directory) additional maintenance.
This raises any authentication issues as well. This may be moot in your
case.
*blinkblink*
You do know that AD is basically LDAP.. Right?
Hope this helps.
I don't think it would, since all of these are moot points for the most part, for someone that doesn't care. And the higher up the manager tends to be.. The less he will really care. It doesn't really affect him. Tell him how it will save HIM money, and help HIM do his job better, and now you're cooking with gas. But say 'Well, exchange sux0rs, and IT is idiots', you're not going to get anywhere.
Sorry if this post sounds more direct, I'm not arguing, I'm just saying that none of what was listed answered real world things Paul asked. 'Why drive the hotrod, for 3 guys to go to the store' is the real question.. :-) If they already paid 100k for a god damned bus, 'becouse that bus cost too much' isn't going to fly.. ;-)
Thomas
