Re: Exchange Deployment Services

2009-11-11 Thread Chipshead
This is an excellent question. I've been chasing multiple parties at MS for a 
week and a half now trying to find someone, as you say, knows their stuff and 
won't come on site and try to figure it out. I've talked to 4 people so far at 
MS and am no further along than when I began. Frustrating. Good luck. 
- Original Message - 
From: Brad Metzler   BMetzler @cu-portland. edu  
To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues  exchangelist @ lyris .sunbelt-software.com 
Sent: Tuesday, November 10, 2009 3:43:49 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern 
Subject: Exchange Deployment Services 




Gentlemen, 



We are looking to upgrade from E2k3 to E2k7 or possibly even 2010 immediately. 
I am looking for recommendations on providers, partners, or individuals in the 
Portland Oregon area that really know their stuff and wouldn ’t come out here 
trying to figure it out on site but who could do a complete and competent 
deployment of at E2k7. Our current servers are physical but we intend to do the 
new deployments to a virtual environment (VMWare) so I’d prefer people who are 
familiar with deploying to a virtual environment. Also we are running Antigen 
on our E2k3 servers and Forefront is by far the cheapest on-board antivir we 
can get as an academic user for running on E2k7 or 2010, so another preference 
would be someone who has experience with Forefront as well. 



What say ye? Any hot talent or reliable companies anyone can speak to out here 
that know E2k7 with Forefront in a virtual environment? Microsoft’s list of 
providers doesn’t really help figure out who actually knows what they’re doing. 



Thanks guys. 



Brad

Re: Exchange Deployment Services

2009-11-10 Thread Don Ely
1000 users, single MB server with a CAS in front of it...  Easy squeezy...
What kind of storage are you hooking the ESX hosts to?  What connection
method are you using (iSCSI, NFS, or Fiber)?

On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 12:57 PM, Brad Metzler bmetz...@cu-portland.eduwrote:

  Good question. The site is presently 2 Exchange servers, one for
 employees and instructors, one for students. The Employee/Instructor server
 is the priority with less than 1000 mailboxes, a mix of users and resource
 mailboxes for room scheduling. No public folders. The student server has
 about 5000 mailboxes and is scheduled to be decommissioned in the next 12-18
 months to be replaced by an outside service so we have no intention of
 upgrading it but it would need to continue to exist in the site until is it
 decommissioned.



 And my apologies to the ladies on the list, I’m sure you have brilliant
 recommendations as well, so let’s hear them!



 Brad



 *From:* Don Ely [mailto:don@gmail.com]
 *Sent:* Tuesday, November 10, 2009 12:50 PM
 *To:* MS-Exchange Admin Issues
 *Subject:* Re: Exchange Deployment Services



 How many users are we talking about?

 On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 12:43 PM, Brad Metzler bmetz...@cu-portland.edu
 wrote:

 Gentlemen,



 We are looking to upgrade from E2k3 to E2k7 or possibly even 2010
 immediately. I am looking for recommendations on providers, partners, or
 individuals in the Portland Oregon area that really know their stuff and
 wouldn’t come out here trying to figure it out on site but who could do a
 complete and competent deployment of at E2k7. Our current servers are
 physical but we intend to do the new deployments to a virtual environment
 (VMWare) so I’d prefer people who are familiar with deploying to a virtual
 environment. Also we are running Antigen on our E2k3 servers and Forefront
 is by far the cheapest on-board antivir we can get as an academic user for
 running on E2k7 or 2010, so another preference would be someone who has
 experience with Forefront as well.



 What say ye? Any hot talent or reliable companies anyone can speak to out
 here that know E2k7 with Forefront in a virtual environment? Microsoft’s
 list of providers doesn’t really help figure out who actually knows what
 they’re doing.



 Thanks guys.



 Brad





RE: Exchange Deployment Services

2009-11-10 Thread Brad Metzler
Don,

 

We are using iSCSI storage. The utilization on our Employee/Instructor
mail server is relatively low so I am not entirely concerned with the
I/O being an issue even in the virtual environment with the iSCSI. The
bigger issue is we already attempted an E2k7 install on W2k8 Server
earlier this year and did the requisite schema changes, however we were
never able to complete that installation successfully for reasons I do
not recall. My only admin right now is backlogged with a handful of
other projects for which he is better qualified than for Exchange, as am
I which is why we are looking to have an experienced party come in and
knock out the installation for us and ensure we don't missing anything
in the setup, routing, permissions, etc... Thanks

 

Brad

 

From: Don Ely [mailto:don@gmail.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, November 10, 2009 1:02 PM
To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues
Subject: Re: Exchange Deployment Services

 

1000 users, single MB server with a CAS in front of it...  Easy
squeezy...  What kind of storage are you hooking the ESX hosts to?  What
connection method are you using (iSCSI, NFS, or Fiber)?

On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 12:57 PM, Brad Metzler
bmetz...@cu-portland.edu wrote:

Good question. The site is presently 2 Exchange servers, one for
employees and instructors, one for students. The Employee/Instructor
server is the priority with less than 1000 mailboxes, a mix of users and
resource mailboxes for room scheduling. No public folders. The student
server has about 5000 mailboxes and is scheduled to be decommissioned in
the next 12-18 months to be replaced by an outside service so we have no
intention of upgrading it but it would need to continue to exist in the
site until is it decommissioned.

 

And my apologies to the ladies on the list, I'm sure you have brilliant
recommendations as well, so let's hear them!

 

Brad

 

From: Don Ely [mailto:don@gmail.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, November 10, 2009 12:50 PM
To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues
Subject: Re: Exchange Deployment Services

 

How many users are we talking about?

On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 12:43 PM, Brad Metzler
bmetz...@cu-portland.edu wrote:

Gentlemen,

 

We are looking to upgrade from E2k3 to E2k7 or possibly even 2010
immediately. I am looking for recommendations on providers, partners, or
individuals in the Portland Oregon area that really know their stuff and
wouldn't come out here trying to figure it out on site but who could do
a complete and competent deployment of at E2k7. Our current servers are
physical but we intend to do the new deployments to a virtual
environment (VMWare) so I'd prefer people who are familiar with
deploying to a virtual environment. Also we are running Antigen on our
E2k3 servers and Forefront is by far the cheapest on-board antivir we
can get as an academic user for running on E2k7 or 2010, so another
preference would be someone who has experience with Forefront as well.

 

What say ye? Any hot talent or reliable companies anyone can speak to
out here that know E2k7 with Forefront in a virtual environment?
Microsoft's list of providers doesn't really help figure out who
actually knows what they're doing.

 

Thanks guys.

 

Brad

 

 



Re: Exchange Deployment Services

2009-11-10 Thread Don Ely
H...  What kind of disks are in the SAN?  What kind of SAN is it?

On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 1:10 PM, Brad Metzler bmetz...@cu-portland.eduwrote:

  Don,



 We are using iSCSI storage. The utilization on our Employee/Instructor mail
 server is relatively low so I am not entirely concerned with the I/O being
 an issue even in the virtual environment with the iSCSI. The bigger issue is
 we already attempted an E2k7 install on W2k8 Server earlier this year and
 did the requisite schema changes, however we were never able to complete
 that installation successfully for reasons I do not recall. My only admin
 right now is backlogged with a handful of other projects for which he is
 better qualified than for Exchange, as am I which is why we are looking to
 have an experienced party come in and knock out the installation for us and
 ensure we don’t missing anything in the setup, routing, permissions, etc…
 Thanks



 Brad



 *From:* Don Ely [mailto:don@gmail.com]
 *Sent:* Tuesday, November 10, 2009 1:02 PM

 *To:* MS-Exchange Admin Issues
 *Subject:* Re: Exchange Deployment Services



 1000 users, single MB server with a CAS in front of it...  Easy squeezy...
 What kind of storage are you hooking the ESX hosts to?  What connection
 method are you using (iSCSI, NFS, or Fiber)?

 On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 12:57 PM, Brad Metzler bmetz...@cu-portland.edu
 wrote:

 Good question. The site is presently 2 Exchange servers, one for employees
 and instructors, one for students. The Employee/Instructor server is the
 priority with less than 1000 mailboxes, a mix of users and resource
 mailboxes for room scheduling. No public folders. The student server has
 about 5000 mailboxes and is scheduled to be decommissioned in the next 12-18
 months to be replaced by an outside service so we have no intention of
 upgrading it but it would need to continue to exist in the site until is it
 decommissioned.



 And my apologies to the ladies on the list, I’m sure you have brilliant
 recommendations as well, so let’s hear them!



 Brad



 *From:* Don Ely [mailto:don@gmail.com]
 *Sent:* Tuesday, November 10, 2009 12:50 PM
 *To:* MS-Exchange Admin Issues
 *Subject:* Re: Exchange Deployment Services



 How many users are we talking about?

 On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 12:43 PM, Brad Metzler bmetz...@cu-portland.edu
 wrote:

 Gentlemen,



 We are looking to upgrade from E2k3 to E2k7 or possibly even 2010
 immediately. I am looking for recommendations on providers, partners, or
 individuals in the Portland Oregon area that really know their stuff and
 wouldn’t come out here trying to figure it out on site but who could do a
 complete and competent deployment of at E2k7. Our current servers are
 physical but we intend to do the new deployments to a virtual environment
 (VMWare) so I’d prefer people who are familiar with deploying to a virtual
 environment. Also we are running Antigen on our E2k3 servers and Forefront
 is by far the cheapest on-board antivir we can get as an academic user for
 running on E2k7 or 2010, so another preference would be someone who has
 experience with Forefront as well.



 What say ye? Any hot talent or reliable companies anyone can speak to out
 here that know E2k7 with Forefront in a virtual environment? Microsoft’s
 list of providers doesn’t really help figure out who actually knows what
 they’re doing.



 Thanks guys.



 Brad







RE: Exchange Deployment Services

2009-11-10 Thread Brad Metzler
Good question. The site is presently 2 Exchange servers, one for
employees and instructors, one for students. The Employee/Instructor
server is the priority with less than 1000 mailboxes, a mix of users and
resource mailboxes for room scheduling. No public folders. The student
server has about 5000 mailboxes and is scheduled to be decommissioned in
the next 12-18 months to be replaced by an outside service so we have no
intention of upgrading it but it would need to continue to exist in the
site until is it decommissioned.

 

And my apologies to the ladies on the list, I'm sure you have brilliant
recommendations as well, so let's hear them!

 

Brad

 

From: Don Ely [mailto:don@gmail.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, November 10, 2009 12:50 PM
To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues
Subject: Re: Exchange Deployment Services

 

How many users are we talking about?

On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 12:43 PM, Brad Metzler
bmetz...@cu-portland.edu wrote:

Gentlemen,

 

We are looking to upgrade from E2k3 to E2k7 or possibly even 2010
immediately. I am looking for recommendations on providers, partners, or
individuals in the Portland Oregon area that really know their stuff and
wouldn't come out here trying to figure it out on site but who could do
a complete and competent deployment of at E2k7. Our current servers are
physical but we intend to do the new deployments to a virtual
environment (VMWare) so I'd prefer people who are familiar with
deploying to a virtual environment. Also we are running Antigen on our
E2k3 servers and Forefront is by far the cheapest on-board antivir we
can get as an academic user for running on E2k7 or 2010, so another
preference would be someone who has experience with Forefront as well.

 

What say ye? Any hot talent or reliable companies anyone can speak to
out here that know E2k7 with Forefront in a virtual environment?
Microsoft's list of providers doesn't really help figure out who
actually knows what they're doing.

 

Thanks guys.

 

Brad

 



Re: Exchange Deployment Services

2009-11-10 Thread Don Ely
How many users are we talking about?

On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 12:43 PM, Brad Metzler bmetz...@cu-portland.eduwrote:

  Gentlemen,



 We are looking to upgrade from E2k3 to E2k7 or possibly even 2010
 immediately. I am looking for recommendations on providers, partners, or
 individuals in the Portland Oregon area that really know their stuff and
 wouldn’t come out here trying to figure it out on site but who could do a
 complete and competent deployment of at E2k7. Our current servers are
 physical but we intend to do the new deployments to a virtual environment
 (VMWare) so I’d prefer people who are familiar with deploying to a virtual
 environment. Also we are running Antigen on our E2k3 servers and Forefront
 is by far the cheapest on-board antivir we can get as an academic user for
 running on E2k7 or 2010, so another preference would be someone who has
 experience with Forefront as well.



 What say ye? Any hot talent or reliable companies anyone can speak to out
 here that know E2k7 with Forefront in a virtual environment? Microsoft’s
 list of providers doesn’t really help figure out who actually knows what
 they’re doing.



 Thanks guys.



 Brad



Re: Exchange Deployment Services

2009-11-10 Thread Steve Ens
And we are thankful for that!

On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 2:48 PM, Sherry Abercrombie saber...@gmail.comwrote:

 There's more than just gentlemen here on this list, there's a few of us
 ladies also...


 On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 2:43 PM, Brad Metzler bmetz...@cu-portland.eduwrote:

  Gentlemen,



 We are looking to upgrade from E2k3 to E2k7 or possibly even 2010
 immediately. I am looking for recommendations on providers, partners, or
 individuals in the Portland Oregon area that really know their stuff and
 wouldn’t come out here trying to figure it out on site but who could do a
 complete and competent deployment of at E2k7. Our current servers are
 physical but we intend to do the new deployments to a virtual environment
 (VMWare) so I’d prefer people who are familiar with deploying to a virtual
 environment. Also we are running Antigen on our E2k3 servers and Forefront
 is by far the cheapest on-board antivir we can get as an academic user for
 running on E2k7 or 2010, so another preference would be someone who has
 experience with Forefront as well.



 What say ye? Any hot talent or reliable companies anyone can speak to out
 here that know E2k7 with Forefront in a virtual environment? Microsoft’s
 list of providers doesn’t really help figure out who actually knows what
 they’re doing.



 Thanks guys.



 Brad




 --
 Sherry Abercrombie

 Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
 Arthur C. Clarke



Re: Exchange Deployment Services

2009-11-10 Thread Sherry Abercrombie
There's more than just gentlemen here on this list, there's a few of us
ladies also...

On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 2:43 PM, Brad Metzler bmetz...@cu-portland.eduwrote:

  Gentlemen,



 We are looking to upgrade from E2k3 to E2k7 or possibly even 2010
 immediately. I am looking for recommendations on providers, partners, or
 individuals in the Portland Oregon area that really know their stuff and
 wouldn’t come out here trying to figure it out on site but who could do a
 complete and competent deployment of at E2k7. Our current servers are
 physical but we intend to do the new deployments to a virtual environment
 (VMWare) so I’d prefer people who are familiar with deploying to a virtual
 environment. Also we are running Antigen on our E2k3 servers and Forefront
 is by far the cheapest on-board antivir we can get as an academic user for
 running on E2k7 or 2010, so another preference would be someone who has
 experience with Forefront as well.



 What say ye? Any hot talent or reliable companies anyone can speak to out
 here that know E2k7 with Forefront in a virtual environment? Microsoft’s
 list of providers doesn’t really help figure out who actually knows what
 they’re doing.



 Thanks guys.



 Brad




-- 
Sherry Abercrombie

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Arthur C. Clarke


RE: Exchange Deployment Services

2009-11-10 Thread Brad Metzler
A Dell NX1950, which is just a Windows server acting as an iSCSI host
for a few shelves of disks. It's cheap and works shockingly well. The
VMFS volumes are run on RAID5 SAS 10k disk sets. Most of the rest of the
storage are in much larger and cheaper (but slower) near-line SAS
arrays.

 

Brad

 

From: Don Ely [mailto:don@gmail.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, November 10, 2009 1:16 PM
To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues
Subject: Re: Exchange Deployment Services

 

H...  What kind of disks are in the SAN?  What kind of SAN is it?

On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 1:10 PM, Brad Metzler bmetz...@cu-portland.edu
wrote:

Don,

 

We are using iSCSI storage. The utilization on our Employee/Instructor
mail server is relatively low so I am not entirely concerned with the
I/O being an issue even in the virtual environment with the iSCSI. The
bigger issue is we already attempted an E2k7 install on W2k8 Server
earlier this year and did the requisite schema changes, however we were
never able to complete that installation successfully for reasons I do
not recall. My only admin right now is backlogged with a handful of
other projects for which he is better qualified than for Exchange, as am
I which is why we are looking to have an experienced party come in and
knock out the installation for us and ensure we don't missing anything
in the setup, routing, permissions, etc... Thanks

 

Brad

 

From: Don Ely [mailto:don@gmail.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, November 10, 2009 1:02 PM 


To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues
Subject: Re: Exchange Deployment Services

 

1000 users, single MB server with a CAS in front of it...  Easy
squeezy...  What kind of storage are you hooking the ESX hosts to?  What
connection method are you using (iSCSI, NFS, or Fiber)?

On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 12:57 PM, Brad Metzler
bmetz...@cu-portland.edu wrote:

Good question. The site is presently 2 Exchange servers, one for
employees and instructors, one for students. The Employee/Instructor
server is the priority with less than 1000 mailboxes, a mix of users and
resource mailboxes for room scheduling. No public folders. The student
server has about 5000 mailboxes and is scheduled to be decommissioned in
the next 12-18 months to be replaced by an outside service so we have no
intention of upgrading it but it would need to continue to exist in the
site until is it decommissioned.

 

And my apologies to the ladies on the list, I'm sure you have brilliant
recommendations as well, so let's hear them!

 

Brad

 

From: Don Ely [mailto:don@gmail.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, November 10, 2009 12:50 PM
To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues
Subject: Re: Exchange Deployment Services

 

How many users are we talking about?

On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 12:43 PM, Brad Metzler
bmetz...@cu-portland.edu wrote:

Gentlemen,

 

We are looking to upgrade from E2k3 to E2k7 or possibly even 2010
immediately. I am looking for recommendations on providers, partners, or
individuals in the Portland Oregon area that really know their stuff and
wouldn't come out here trying to figure it out on site but who could do
a complete and competent deployment of at E2k7. Our current servers are
physical but we intend to do the new deployments to a virtual
environment (VMWare) so I'd prefer people who are familiar with
deploying to a virtual environment. Also we are running Antigen on our
E2k3 servers and Forefront is by far the cheapest on-board antivir we
can get as an academic user for running on E2k7 or 2010, so another
preference would be someone who has experience with Forefront as well.

 

What say ye? Any hot talent or reliable companies anyone can speak to
out here that know E2k7 with Forefront in a virtual environment?
Microsoft's list of providers doesn't really help figure out who
actually knows what they're doing.

 

Thanks guys.

 

Brad

 

 

 



Re: Exchange Deployment Services

2009-11-10 Thread Don Ely
How big are your databases now?  Any retention policies?  Any size limits?

On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 1:21 PM, Brad Metzler bmetz...@cu-portland.eduwrote:

  A Dell NX1950, which is just a Windows server acting as an iSCSI host for
 a few shelves of disks. It’s cheap and works shockingly well. The VMFS
 volumes are run on RAID5 SAS 10k disk sets. Most of the rest of the storage
 are in much larger and cheaper (but slower) near-line SAS arrays.



 Brad



 *From:* Don Ely [mailto:don@gmail.com]
 *Sent:* Tuesday, November 10, 2009 1:16 PM

 *To:* MS-Exchange Admin Issues
 *Subject:* Re: Exchange Deployment Services



 H...  What kind of disks are in the SAN?  What kind of SAN is it?

 On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 1:10 PM, Brad Metzler bmetz...@cu-portland.edu
 wrote:

 Don,



 We are using iSCSI storage. The utilization on our Employee/Instructor mail
 server is relatively low so I am not entirely concerned with the I/O being
 an issue even in the virtual environment with the iSCSI. The bigger issue is
 we already attempted an E2k7 install on W2k8 Server earlier this year and
 did the requisite schema changes, however we were never able to complete
 that installation successfully for reasons I do not recall. My only admin
 right now is backlogged with a handful of other projects for which he is
 better qualified than for Exchange, as am I which is why we are looking to
 have an experienced party come in and knock out the installation for us and
 ensure we don’t missing anything in the setup, routing, permissions, etc…
 Thanks



 Brad



 *From:* Don Ely [mailto:don@gmail.com]
 *Sent:* Tuesday, November 10, 2009 1:02 PM


 *To:* MS-Exchange Admin Issues
 *Subject:* Re: Exchange Deployment Services



 1000 users, single MB server with a CAS in front of it...  Easy squeezy...
 What kind of storage are you hooking the ESX hosts to?  What connection
 method are you using (iSCSI, NFS, or Fiber)?

 On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 12:57 PM, Brad Metzler bmetz...@cu-portland.edu
 wrote:

 Good question. The site is presently 2 Exchange servers, one for employees
 and instructors, one for students. The Employee/Instructor server is the
 priority with less than 1000 mailboxes, a mix of users and resource
 mailboxes for room scheduling. No public folders. The student server has
 about 5000 mailboxes and is scheduled to be decommissioned in the next 12-18
 months to be replaced by an outside service so we have no intention of
 upgrading it but it would need to continue to exist in the site until is it
 decommissioned.



 And my apologies to the ladies on the list, I’m sure you have brilliant
 recommendations as well, so let’s hear them!



 Brad



 *From:* Don Ely [mailto:don@gmail.com]
 *Sent:* Tuesday, November 10, 2009 12:50 PM
 *To:* MS-Exchange Admin Issues
 *Subject:* Re: Exchange Deployment Services



 How many users are we talking about?

 On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 12:43 PM, Brad Metzler bmetz...@cu-portland.edu
 wrote:

 Gentlemen,



 We are looking to upgrade from E2k3 to E2k7 or possibly even 2010
 immediately. I am looking for recommendations on providers, partners, or
 individuals in the Portland Oregon area that really know their stuff and
 wouldn’t come out here trying to figure it out on site but who could do a
 complete and competent deployment of at E2k7. Our current servers are
 physical but we intend to do the new deployments to a virtual environment
 (VMWare) so I’d prefer people who are familiar with deploying to a virtual
 environment. Also we are running Antigen on our E2k3 servers and Forefront
 is by far the cheapest on-board antivir we can get as an academic user for
 running on E2k7 or 2010, so another preference would be someone who has
 experience with Forefront as well.



 What say ye? Any hot talent or reliable companies anyone can speak to out
 here that know E2k7 with Forefront in a virtual environment? Microsoft’s
 list of providers doesn’t really help figure out who actually knows what
 they’re doing.



 Thanks guys.



 Brad









RE: Exchange Deployment Services

2009-11-10 Thread Brad Metzler
2GB limits on all the mailboxes right now. For the convenience of being
able to take down individual stores without killing everyone the
mailboxes are distributed across 9 stores on the server, presently about
180GB in total. 

 

Brad

 

From: Don Ely [mailto:don@gmail.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, November 10, 2009 1:32 PM
To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues
Subject: Re: Exchange Deployment Services

 

How big are your databases now?  Any retention policies?  Any size
limits?

On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 1:21 PM, Brad Metzler bmetz...@cu-portland.edu
wrote:

A Dell NX1950, which is just a Windows server acting as an iSCSI host
for a few shelves of disks. It's cheap and works shockingly well. The
VMFS volumes are run on RAID5 SAS 10k disk sets. Most of the rest of the
storage are in much larger and cheaper (but slower) near-line SAS
arrays.

 

Brad

 

From: Don Ely [mailto:don@gmail.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, November 10, 2009 1:16 PM 


To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues
Subject: Re: Exchange Deployment Services

 

H...  What kind of disks are in the SAN?  What kind of SAN is it?

On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 1:10 PM, Brad Metzler bmetz...@cu-portland.edu
wrote:

Don,

 

We are using iSCSI storage. The utilization on our Employee/Instructor
mail server is relatively low so I am not entirely concerned with the
I/O being an issue even in the virtual environment with the iSCSI. The
bigger issue is we already attempted an E2k7 install on W2k8 Server
earlier this year and did the requisite schema changes, however we were
never able to complete that installation successfully for reasons I do
not recall. My only admin right now is backlogged with a handful of
other projects for which he is better qualified than for Exchange, as am
I which is why we are looking to have an experienced party come in and
knock out the installation for us and ensure we don't missing anything
in the setup, routing, permissions, etc... Thanks

 

Brad

 

From: Don Ely [mailto:don@gmail.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, November 10, 2009 1:02 PM 


To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues
Subject: Re: Exchange Deployment Services

 

1000 users, single MB server with a CAS in front of it...  Easy
squeezy...  What kind of storage are you hooking the ESX hosts to?  What
connection method are you using (iSCSI, NFS, or Fiber)?

On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 12:57 PM, Brad Metzler
bmetz...@cu-portland.edu wrote:

Good question. The site is presently 2 Exchange servers, one for
employees and instructors, one for students. The Employee/Instructor
server is the priority with less than 1000 mailboxes, a mix of users and
resource mailboxes for room scheduling. No public folders. The student
server has about 5000 mailboxes and is scheduled to be decommissioned in
the next 12-18 months to be replaced by an outside service so we have no
intention of upgrading it but it would need to continue to exist in the
site until is it decommissioned.

 

And my apologies to the ladies on the list, I'm sure you have brilliant
recommendations as well, so let's hear them!

 

Brad

 

From: Don Ely [mailto:don@gmail.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, November 10, 2009 12:50 PM
To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues
Subject: Re: Exchange Deployment Services

 

How many users are we talking about?

On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 12:43 PM, Brad Metzler
bmetz...@cu-portland.edu wrote:

Gentlemen,

 

We are looking to upgrade from E2k3 to E2k7 or possibly even 2010
immediately. I am looking for recommendations on providers, partners, or
individuals in the Portland Oregon area that really know their stuff and
wouldn't come out here trying to figure it out on site but who could do
a complete and competent deployment of at E2k7. Our current servers are
physical but we intend to do the new deployments to a virtual
environment (VMWare) so I'd prefer people who are familiar with
deploying to a virtual environment. Also we are running Antigen on our
E2k3 servers and Forefront is by far the cheapest on-board antivir we
can get as an academic user for running on E2k7 or 2010, so another
preference would be someone who has experience with Forefront as well.

 

What say ye? Any hot talent or reliable companies anyone can speak to
out here that know E2k7 with Forefront in a virtual environment?
Microsoft's list of providers doesn't really help figure out who
actually knows what they're doing.

 

Thanks guys.

 

Brad