In-house Exchange: worth it?

[pran]

Our group manages 150 or so mailboxes, mainly for staff/distribution lists, on an Exchange 2003 Standard Edition. The school plans to expand in the next couple of years and I'm guessing the number of mailboxes would hit 250-300 in about 2 years. I am also thinking of suggesting to move away from Exchange and use Google Apps instead (which is free for educational institutions).

 

What are your thoughts on this?

[qcomer]

Personally, if its for staff - I prefer Exchange.

 

You have a pretty darn small database so managing it shouldnt be an issue.

 

Then again, its all up to you.

[ZeroHour]

I would have exchange myself, but also consider Office 365 which is free in email form for schools which is basically cloud exchange servers.

[netadmin]

I'd recommend Office365/Live@EDU as well. This gets you nearly all the benefits of in-house exchange, but eliminates the hardware and licensing expenses, along with much of the maintenance. Microsoft also provides free support for Office365/Live@EDU customers as well.

 

We migrated to Live@EDU about one year ago and have been very pleased so far. We had looked into both Google Apps and Live@EDU at the time, but our SMT found the Exchange interface through Live@EDU to be the easiest to use.

[teejay]

We use both, internal for staff, external cloud for students. There is no way I'd move to external for staff, it's too much of a mission critical service for us and the cloud + internet connection are just too unreliable.

[dhicks]

In-house Exchange: worth it?

 

No. If you don't want your data on outside servers then simply set up your own free, non-Exchange internal email server, otherwise use an externally hosted service. There are other hosted Exchange providors other than Office 365.

[cpjitservices]

We use Exchange, although it's a bit of A monster at times but prefer it than any other for the staff. Our Exchange server is hosted on site and we built & maintain the server, once it's up & running it's A good system but it can be heavy on the server.

[glennda]

Yes exchange is very good. When it works you can't fault it as it is exceptionally good. I've not used it apart from being hosted on site - when it goes wrong though.... its a pain in the backside to get it running again!

[cpjitservices]

Yes it is A monster when it goes down, we backup the exchange server twice A day just in case.

[sukh]

I'd go for Exchange in house, depends on the functionality you require. There are restrictions on what you can do on O365/Live@edu, where as on-prem is more flexinle and you have control. Depends on cost ie, managing Exch in house or having it managed/hardward/maintence etc...

[featured_spectre]

Pretty much has been covered by others but in house over external exchange and use OWA.