Exchange

[loopy]

i have been doing alot of testing so far and this is what i have come up with.

 

i have set up a test domain to mimic my main domain with users ad and so on. on the test server i have installed ex2k7 and useing poweshell have imported the mail boxes (not easy to do but once you get your head around powershell and with alot of help from the net is not to bad), becouse the exchange server will not be forward facing i have also set up a isa 2k6 server as the edge then configured all the security certificates and forwarders to access the outside world (that bit was a pain as there is very conflicting info out there on how to do it).

 

the outcome so far is that we have both owa and full outlook access from anywere over a secure conection with only the isa server exposed to the net. the learning curve has been quiet high but myself and my colegues both have a good background knowledge on the systems.

 

the original question about the pro's and con's for slt is to get a general idea and thoughts and to make sure there wasnt anything i had missed.

 

If we do decide to go forward with it and it is cleared by slt my intention is to do a staged migration (staff first then year by year)

 

just to finish i would like to thank everyone involved in the discusion and to say your points will be put into the document to go forward to slt.

 

Loopy

[johnymac]

In primary schools we use a hosted exchange solution called Primary Email.

 

Its an ideal solution for Primary schools who don't want to host their own email, Usual full exchange features such as :

Lesson plans

video guides

text guides

simplified login interface

automatic update from mis

bullying/abuse filtering

spam filtering

pupil games

....

 

you get the idea....

[ajbritton]

I've recently found out that of local broadband consortium (LGfL) will be providing an enhanced email service based on Exchange, providing full Outlook access, OWA and even secure email.

[m2d2]

I've recently found out that of local broadband consortium (LGfL) will be providing an enhanced email service based on Exchange, providing full Outlook access, OWA and even secure email.

 

How's that gonna work I wonder? Will they provide MAPI access within the firewall but only OWA outside? Will it require domain integration?

 

The most important question is will this be a replacement for the current ISP hosted email system or chargeable extra?

[ajbritton]

You can do MAPI access using RPC over HTTP. This allows you to connect the full Outlook client over the Internet using HTTP.

 

It's obviously nice to have domain integration but by no means a necessity. When Outlook is launched, it would simply prompt for logon details.

[johnymac]

yeah primaryemail has rpc over https / activsync / owa / oma etc.

 

ajbritton, lgfl should look at primary email for a framework, it was designed for ngfl - url for primary email is www.primaryemail.co.uk

 

Regards

[djm968]

CON: It's expensive. Initial cost + CALs

 

E2K7 Standard Edition. You get a lot for your £140, you dont need Enterprise unless you want UM and the CAL's are £3.00 each.

 

CON: If it doesn't do something you want OOTB, third-party tools to do the job will probably cost (if it's even possible to do said task).

 

E2K7 with Windows PowerShell Windows PowerShell if you can build a nix box, you can write a PowerShell scripts to do all the things that you may have needed third party tools for with E2K3

 

CON: It's properietary - if you choose to migrate to a better platform in the future things could get tricky. Also some of it's "standards" implementations are broken.

 

What?

 

CON: It breaks. A lot. This forum is full of issues.

 

I say again....... What?

 

Taking those into consideration - Zimbra, Scalix and Open-Xchange are more than up to the job of being MSExchange replacements; but have none of the mentioned pitfalls that MSexchange does, have better features and cost a lot less (eg. no software cost, no CALs).

 

Exchange 2007 at £140 is a steal, I have just finished an install at a School and it is a peach. What most people fail to mention is that M$ throw huge amounts of money at R&D, their products are now secure OOTB and normally only hardware or user error will break them.

[johnymac]

"E2K7 Standard Edition. You get a lot for your £140, you dont need Enterprise unless you want UM and the CAL's are £3.00 each. "

 

There is other features Enterprise gets you, I suggest reading on microsoft.com if you are interested.

 

I don't think 2k7 gives you much more than 2k3 though, its great value for schools though.

 

I actualy think 2k7 is a bit more time consuming to manage, but I'm a 2k3 geek.

[djm968]

There is other features Enterprise gets you, I suggest reading on microsoft.com if you are interested.

 

I did read Microsoft.com and did my homework and I think you must be refering to these features?

 

http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/evaluation/editions.mspx

 

Not sure why any School would need 50 databases or 50 storage groups?

 

IMHO Enterprise 2007 is overkill unless you are hosting multiple companies.

[djm968]

Not tempted? bring on your *nix

 

http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/code/OWA/index.html

[CyberNerd]

Not tempted? bring on your *nix

 

 

holy crap - it looks just like zimbra (free) it even has similar functionality !

[djm968]

holy crap - it looks just like zimbra (free) it even has similar functionality !

 

Zimbra does look impressive however I think it would probably take a little longer to Migrate Exchange 2003 to Zimbra than it would to Exchange 2007.

 

Both versions can also co-exist so you can have the E2K7 as say the Client Access and Hub Transport server and keep your mailboxes on the E2k7 box untill you are ready to migrate.

[CyberNerd]

no, theres a built in migration function from exchange.

 

The difference between 2007 and zimbra is that I've had the functionality live for the last year and am still getting new features. You'll be stuck on 2007 for the next 4-5 yrs whilst MS play catchup. Zimbra really is as good as they say it is - and why powershell when you can Bash

[djm968]

All true Cyber...... to Bash or not to Bash that is the question!

[zag]

no, theres a built in migration function from exchange.

 

The difference between 2007 and zimbra is that I've had the functionality live for the last year and am still getting new features. You'll be stuck on 2007 for the next 4-5 yrs whilst MS play catchup. Zimbra really is as good as they say it is - and why powershell when you can Bash

 

Not really true, Exchange 2007 SP1 is due any day now with some awesome new features. One of which is the ability to have a shadow server running in the background that will immediately take over from the primary server in case of hardware failure. This kind of new feature could revolutionise our jobs and peace of mind

[djm968]

Good Point.

 

Standby Continuous Replication will be available with E2K7 SP1 providing relplication for individual storage groups and the "warm spare" target server can even be located at a remote site unaffected by power or other transient conditions affecting the production server.

 

In other word E2K7 with SP1 and SCR on a remote warm spare would have kept RM EasyMail running when the "power failed"

[CyberNerd]

.... sounds similar to a feature in redhat 5.1 that already available

http://www.redhatmagazine.com/2007/08/23/automated-failover-and-recovery-of-virtualized-guests-in-advanced-platform

[johnymac]

in zimbra you need an "add on" for outlook to connect to the exchange server with true mapi over rpc/https. A lot of our users wont want to install that third party app.

[CyberNerd]

in zimbra you need an "add on" for outlook to connect to the exchange server with true mapi over rpc/https. A lot of our users wont want to install that third party app.

 

you got me there.

[djm968]

.... sounds similar to a feature in redhat 5.1 that already available

http://www.redhatmagazine.com/2007/08/23/automated-failover-and-recovery-of-virtualized-guests-in-advanced-platform

 

Nothing like it.

 

With SCR are replicating only the storage groups. These could on an entire E2K7 Cluster or a single maiblox server (virtualised or physical) and relicated to a warm target cluster or spare server at a remote site.

[CyberNerd]

Nothing like it.

 

looks like a clustered failover to me

[Geoff]

in zimbra you need an "add on" for outlook to connect to the exchange server with true mapi over rpc/https. A lot of our users wont want to install that third party app.

 

Why install anything, what's wrong with the web interface?

[CyberNerd]

in zimbra you need an "add on" for outlook to connect to the exchange server with true mapi over rpc/https. A lot of our users wont want to install that third party app.

 

Why install anything, what's wrong with the web interface?

 

AFAIK you can't send emails on behalf of other users with the web interface until version5. other than that its just that people don't like change. The beta version of the offline client is quite good though.

[djm968]

Yes..... a clustered failover it is indeed but what exactly is clustered?

 

Yes that right.... the entire Virtual Guest.

 

So lets see, you migrate Exchange server 2003 to a Zebra running as a pair of virtual guest servers on a Red Hat Enterprise Linux cluster......

 

or how about this you buy M$ E2K7 install it as the Client Access and Hub Transport server co-existing with you current E2K3 mailbox server. Get E2K7 SP1 when then move the mailbox roll to the new server.

 

And wait...... for a while

 

When the E2K7 server falls over which it is “bound to do because its M$ and therefore not reliable” install E2K7 on the old server (spec permitting) and the configure SCR