Exchange Server - Quick Question

[soveryapt]

Afternoon All

 

Right, I'm with a client at the moment, and having tried Google Apps, they want to go back to Exchange, so I'm pricing up 2013 for them.

 

The thing I'm wondering is I know that with 2007 and 2010, exchange seemed to hog resources and slow up the general operation of the server. I just wanted to know, for a small office (10 users, 8 machines) would Exchange be ok sat on the 2008R2 server that is in place already without destroying is resource wise, or is it best to look at a new server to go along with the exchange server?

 

I know best practice dictates separate server and such, but real world not a lot of money to throw about scenario here, so just wondering if it would get away with it.

 

Thanks

Andy T

[soveryapt]

Secondly (now I've read into it) how do I do a migration from SBS2003 to Server 2008R2 with Exchange 2007. I know, I'm on about 2013 above, but I can't go directly and I have a copy of Exchange 2007 that I could install temporarily to get around that.

[SYNACK]

For 10 users you could also look at office 365 as that is an exchange server. Migration is easy enough through a connector from 2003 to 2007 if you have a second server to run it on, 2k7 was way disk io heavy, 2010 is way space heavy and both eat stupid amounts of ram, I'd say 8gb min.

[soveryapt]

For 10 users you could also look at office 365 as that is an exchange server. Migration is easy enough through a connector from 2003 to 2007 if you have a second server to run it on, 2k7 was way disk io heavy, 2010 is way space heavy and both eat stupid amounts of ram, I'd say 8gb min.

 

Does Office 365 do the full transfer of things including all the shared bits and public folders (distribution lists, etc, etc)?

 

I realise that 2007 / 2010 were very heavy on resources, so 2007 would be on as briefly as possible just to get to 2013.

[SYNACK]

I think365 does that but someone like @jamesbmarshal would know, I'd put 2k7 in a VM as you'll need it to be on a separate os to the2013 install.

[soveryapt]

I think365 does that but someone like @jamesbmarshal would know, I'd put 2k7 in a VM as you'll need it to be on a separate os to the2013 install.

 

Good point! I wouldn't have done that then kicked myself! Thanks!

[ZeroHour]

Does Office 365 do the full transfer of things including all the shared bits and public folders (distribution lists, etc, etc)?

 

I realise that 2007 / 2010 were very heavy on resources, so 2007 would be on as briefly as possible just to get to 2013.

 

I have personally moved EduGeek from google apps to office 365 and it can be a bit of pain and there are a few migration gotchas but once done o365 works much like exchange when using outlook. You get distro lists, shared mailboxes but no public folders. Shared mailboxes are free but they cant be pulled via a mobile yet, only outlook or owa.

You also get sharepoint and skydrive pro for hosting files. Skydrive pro is like dropbox but hosted on office 365.

The other nice thing is they can license the latest version of office for x users while having basic mailbox/sharepoint for others too if they need to update. Office 2013 works very very well with o365 now especially when working with o365 sharepoint.

There is also a SLA covering outages which gives you a discount based on outage length so its a cash backed SLA too.

[soveryapt]

I have personally moved EduGeek from google apps to office 365 and it can be a bit of pain and there are a few migration gotchas but once done o365 works much like exchange when using outlook. You get distro lists, shared mailboxes but no public folders. Shared mailboxes are free but they cant be pulled via a mobile yet, only outlook or owa.

You also get sharepoint and skydrive pro for hosting files. Skydrive pro is like dropbox but hosted on office 365.

The other nice thing is they can license the latest version of office for x users while having basic mailbox/sharepoint for others too if they need to update. Office 2013 works very very well with o365 now especially when working with o365 sharepoint.

There is also a SLA covering outages which gives you a discount based on outage length so its a cash backed SLA too.

 

Thanks for that. Good to know the distro lists and what not are still in there. I would be going from either SBS2003 or Exchange 2007 depending on minimum requirements, as they've defaulted back to SBS2003 for now instead of Google Apps, but it sounds like it might do everything they need.

 

Thanks