Exchange 2007 hub working with Exchange 2010 edge

[Conrad]

Hi Folks,

Quick Exchange question, will an Exchange 2007 server with hub / mailbox / etc roles function fine using with Exchange 2010 as an edge server?
Or would I need to upgrade 2007 to 2010?

Cheers

Conrad

[sukh]

If you're going to subscribe it wont work. If you're going to manually create the connectors then it will.

[Conrad]

Cheers sukh, had a chat with a buddy of mine who mentioned that I could slap win 2008 r2 on the box and just the 2007 edge role without need for
an Exchange licence (or use of existing on)

[sukh]

no worries, technically it will work, but you will still need a licenses as you're using Edge, it's an Exch feature.

If however, you were using say IIS SMTP which is built into the OS, then you wouldn't need a licenses. As you're going to install Edge with the Exchange Media, you will need an Exch licenses.

[Conrad]

Many thanks again, after looking into the cost for M$ licenses to make this work and adding Forefront for AV filtering etc
it's going to get silly. Gonna slap in a 3rd party mail gateway from an exiting supplier of the software we currently use in the DMZ.

[sukh]

not sure what pricing you have but I thought for the education sector pricing was good?

[SYNACK]

For edu pricing on Exchange, at least in the UK is epic cheap and your right that it would need an exchange liscence. I would not use the old SMTP role as it does not integrate anywhere near the featureset of the edge role. You don't really need the edge role as you can pipe it right in to the hub role if you need to. It just means that you loose out on some security and have to config the connector to allow external mail. You can even run a powershell script to enable the antispam rules. If you have a VL agreement then you can also subscribe to the external filtering and AV solution (forefront online) and you don't even need the extra server as it can be done out of the organisation, there are other providers too like Websence which we use thanks to a good decision by the MoE in this country which is from experience a great service.

[Conrad]

Unfortunately not in education, but we deal a great deal with the educational sector.

Am going for plain 2008 R2 install and will sort the mail around it with 3rd party gateway instead of getting messy with trying to bend SBS to my will (I thinks I would lose badly).
The current 2007 hub already has the anti spam stuff enabled and piping from an existing mail server (being replaced by this new box coz it's old and pants).

Would of liked to have it all neatly using Exchange / Forefront etc, but after a lot of brain mashing research and help on here it's just not
gonna happen at a sensible cost for the company or my sanity!

Thanks for all the help folks!!