Outlook 2010 rocks though! :) Getting Calendar reminders from multiple Exchange mailboxes is just plain awesome!!! Tim
From: Jim Majorowicz [mailto:jmajorow...@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, August 20, 2009 4:19 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Mail server software Essential Business Server. Essentially (pardon the pun) SBS for up to 300 desktops. If price is your one and only concern, regardless of features, functionality, administration, etc., then by all means discount even looking at exchange. To be fair, I'm a Small Business Specialist. For me and for my clients SBS is in a price point that makes it an easy sell. It's just too feature rich to really have to look at anything else in this market space. I imagine if I were back as the IT Manager of a mid-sized company with more than 75 desktops, I would be looking at other options. I would, however have to weigh my needs of certain features against the cost. I may have to review 2 or 3 different products in a test environment. Find out if any products cheaper than Exchange meet *all* of the requirements necessary. If it doesn't I'd have to weigh the value of the requirement against the price difference before making my recommendation, especially when Exchange 2007 CALs removed the Outlook component as part of the CAL to lower the CAL cost. That has to be part of the decision. Exchange 2010 is a different beast. The loss of Outlook in the CAL is no longer a strike against, as Exchange 2010 is fully functional from OWA, and in some cases is actually a better client than Outlook 2007. From: John Aldrich [mailto:jaldr...@blueridgecarpet.com] Sent: Thursday, August 20, 2009 5:49 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Mail server software EBS? Not familiar with that term. Can you explain? Still... considering the cost of some of the alternatives is *less* than half of Exchange it seems to me that Exchange is awfully expensive. I can get a fully functional mail server for less than $10k using an alternative email client that doesn't require an expensive "add-on" to back up the email database, and can run on a free O/S (or on Windows Server, for that matter.) Yes, it's true, you don't get any Outlook CALs, but if you already have Office, why do you need Outlook CALs, other than to get everyone on the same version of Outlook? [cid:image001.jpg@01CA21B5.EB926EC0][cid:image002....@01ca21b5.eb926ec0] From: Jim Majorowicz [mailto:jmajorow...@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, August 19, 2009 11:54 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Mail server software Your problem, John, is you've discounted, arguably, the best product on the market based on 10 year old technology with arguments you didn't articulate. Exchange can be backed up natively from NTBackup quite nicely and with a properly administered Deleted Items Retention policy you will never have to restore an individual mailbox. Every major Anti-Virus player has a version of their software that is "Exchange Aware" on install, even if you choose not to install their Exchange scanning product to protect your SMTP traffic. Even if cost is the only reason you want to discount Exchange you haven't mentioned what sweet spot is per user. Based on what you asked for in your original post, discounting your "not Exchange" requirement I still would say your best solution is Exchange. I happen to notice you mentioned 200 users, which puts you out of the range of SBS, but not EBS. Have you priced that as a solution? From: John Aldrich [mailto:jaldr...@blueridgecarpet.com] Sent: Monday, August 17, 2009 2:01 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Mail server software I agree, I did not articulate my requirements very well. However, I ass-u-med that any admin in their right mind would want to be able to back up their mail server. Maybe it's just me??? Same issue with Antivirus. Or maybe you run your mail server without antivirus? I have to admit my experience with Exchange is limited to Exchange 5.5 (I think it was) about 4 years ago... I just remember that we had some issues with viruses getting into the mail server and we couldn't scan the mail store as that would cause Exchange to die. Also had some problems when the antivirus (Symantec Corporate Edition at the time) "ate" a log file that Exchange was wanting and caused the system to crash. So, yeah, I'm anti-Exchange both from a cost perspective and a perspective of someone who's worked with an admittedly out-dated version. That being said, my understanding is that the above facts have not changed significantly since Ex 5.5. If they have, great, but that still leaves the fact that Exchange is horribly expensive. [cid:image001.jpg@01CA21B5.EB926EC0][cid:image002....@01ca21b5.eb926ec0] From: Jonathan Link [mailto:jonathan.l...@gmail.com] Sent: Monday, August 17, 2009 4:17 To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: Mail server software Maybe I'm being obtuse, but you didn't state all of your objectives clearly. The backup wasn't a requirement until later in your thread, as well as the anti-virus/backup plugin issue. You also left off a no-hosting requirement, because you were bringing it back in house. I get the impression that you don't know what you want, except that you don't want Exchange, for reasons that haven't been effectuviley articulated and seem to be poorly defined upfront to those trying to assist you. -Jonathan On Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 4:08 PM, John Aldrich <jaldr...@blueridgecarpet.com<mailto:jaldr...@blueridgecarpet.com>> wrote: Yes, but you don't have any way to restore *just one message* with NTBackup. :-) Agree that I should have been a bit more specific... If you want to be able to back up mailbox by mailbox, etc. you have to "pay to play" with Exchange. Other email server software, no so much. :-) -----Original Message----- From: John Cook [mailto:john.c...@pfsf.org<mailto:john.c...@pfsf.org>] Sent: Monday, August 17, 2009 2:59 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Mail server software Not to discount what you know about Exchange but... 1. I don't think any DB should be scanned by an AV program that doesn't recognize it as such. Ninja is stellar at this. 2. I'm backing up my E2K7 DBs with the native windowsbackup, no extra cost to me. John W. Cook Systems Administrator Partnership For Strong Families 315 SE 2nd Ave Gainesville, Fl 32601 Office (352) 393-2741 x320 Cell (352) 215-6944 Fax (352) 393-2746 MCSE, MCTS, MCP+I, A+, N+, VSP4, VTSP4 -----Original Message----- From: John Aldrich [mailto:jaldr...@blueridgecarpet.com<mailto:jaldr...@blueridgecarpet.com>] Sent: Monday, August 17, 2009 2:43 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Mail server software Exactly! That's one of my concerns... Antivirus has to be told to overlook certain directories and you have to have an "exchange-aware" antivirus or buy a special "plugin" for the antivirus to allow it to scan the Exchange DB. AFAIK, most of the "alternatives" (at least Kerio) doesn't have this restriction. Not to mention having to buy special add-ons for your archiving solution just to back up the email store. Oh, and while it's not a problem now, up until the most recent version of Exchange, you couldn't have more than one message store and if it got too big, it would virtually implode from being so big. On the reasons why I don't like Outlook, the 2 GB PST file size is a biggie. :-) Although the main reason they get that big is that idiots like to send large files via email...and email is NOT a file transfer application. :-) -----Original Message----- From: Ben Scott [mailto:mailvor...@gmail.com<mailto:mailvor...@gmail.com>] Sent: Monday, August 17, 2009 1:44 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: Mail server software On Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 1:21 PM, Brian Desmond<br...@briandesmond.com<mailto:br...@briandesmond.com>> wrote: > What's the problem with the database engine? There's been a massive amount > of engineering work in that space - I don't expect it's going anywhere. I can't speak for the OP... but the fact that the Exchange IS is a giant binary blob, completely opaque for the most part, requiring special tools to work with it, has always made me somewhat uncomfortable. I worked with a Cyrus mail system once that was really sweet. It could handle many more users on much smaller hardware vs Exchange at the time, and all the mail was still stored in plain text files (one per message). You could analyze the message store with the "more" command if you had to. I don't think we ever had to, but it was nice to know you had the option. I like simple systems; they tend to be more robust. Exchange has always struck me as being more complex than it needed to be. In particular, Exchange is pretty fragile when you mistreat it. There's not much you can do to a Cryus mail server that will result in major data loss; you can reconstruct from basics if you have to. Exchange, sheesh, in 2000, all you had to do was run a file search against the "M: drive" and the server would implode. On my list of things to worry about, all this is pretty low down on my list, but it's not my ideal situation. -- Ben ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com<http://www.avg.com/> Version: 8.5.409 / Virus Database: 270.13.58/2309 - Release Date: 08/17/09 06:08:00 ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ CONFIDENTIALITY STATEMENT: The information transmitted, or contained or attached to or with this Notice is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain Protected Health Information (PHI), confidential and/or privileged material. Any review, transmission, dissemination, or other use of, and taking any action in reliance upon this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient without the express written consent of the sender are prohibited. This information may be protected by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), and other Federal and Florida laws. Improper or unauthorized use or disclosure of this information could result in civil and/or criminal penalties. Consider the environment. Please don't print this e-mail unless you really need to. ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com<http://www.avg.com/> Version: 8.5.409 / Virus Database: 270.13.58/2309 - Release Date: 08/17/09 06:08:00 ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com<http://www.avg.com> Version: 8.5.409 / Virus Database: 270.13.58/2309 - Release Date: 08/17/09 06:08:00 No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com<http://www.avg.com> Version: 8.5.409 / Virus Database: 270.13.62/2315 - Release Date: 08/20/09 06:05:00 ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
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