Exchange Server

Dean Tobler · Guest

I've got a small company with around 50 users located in 2 offices connected
by fractional T1. Main connectivity to the Internet is "business class"
cable connection (8Mbit down/1Mbit up). Currently have Exchange 5.5 sitting
on NT4 PDC with two other NT4 servers as BDCs and providing WINS, one in
each office. I should mention also that the Exchange box is also the
primary file server for the organization. Due to a number of factors
including my increasing loss of sleep and the age of the hardware, it's time
for a major upgrade. The existing servers have been cobbled together over
the years from second-hand sources on a shoestring budget.

Problem is, the company owner is fascinated with technology and often reads
articles about IT without an understanding of what he's reading but has
become somewhat convinced that he can outsource everything and get rid of
the headaches of hardware upkeep and any internal IT staffing. I currently
manage the network as best I can while also serving as the company's "go to"
guy for virtually anything that absolutely has to get done "right away".
I've been unsuccessful in attempting to convince management of the need for
an employee dedicated to IT to keep things running smoothly.

Focusing on the upgrade/replacement of the existing messaging platform, I've
priced a complete Exchange 2003 solution including 50 CALs at around $8,000
from Dell. Management's argument is that we can move to hosted Exchange for
around $10 to $15 a month per user and never have to worry about backups or
upgrades. Due to recent bad experience with a newly hosted
business-critical application, I am convinced this would be a huge mistake
for the company. My concerns are:

1) hosting costs would run between $6k to 9k per year
2) we lose some management capabilities
3) substanstial additional internet bandwidth would be required (at
signifcant cost) to sustain user productivity

How would you go about proposing the best solution to management?

Thanks!
--
Dean Tobler

Erwin van Workum · Guest

Dean,

This is a question which is very difficult to answer. If management does not
see the value of having local mail servers it can be a real fight. I don't
think it will be easy to convince them of upgrading the current servers. Keep
in mind support for NT4 will seize to excist at the end of this year and
Exchange 5.5 support will only be availible if a fee is paid and will seize
at the end of 2007.

I also provide a hosted Exchange environment and I never recieve any issues
with performance (dedicated 2mb SDSL). You have to think of the costs on the
long term and the TCO of all equipment.

Did you present management with any documentation with all the benefits AND
downsites of an owned environment??

With Kind regards,

Erwin van Workum
Alkum Solutions

Email : Erwin@alkum.nl

"Dean Tobler" wrote:

Asher_N · Guest

"=?Utf-8?B?RXJ3aW4gdmFuIFdvcmt1bQ==?="
<ErwinvanWorkum@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in
news:CC403ABA-1735-4E7B-92D6-BC61A2E0ECCB@microsoft.com:

I assume you looked at SBS. The biggest argument to be made against
hosted solution is the business criticaliry of the hosted data. How long
can your business go with no access to e-mail and/or any other hosted
data?

MSNEWS · Guest

Asher_N · Guest

"MSNEWS" <dlwest@gmail.com> wrote in
news:uvP7WkoyFHA.1256@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl:

The danger is with a comms failure. If your comms go down, you have no
access to your data at all. And remember the OP was also talking about
hosting data in addition to e-mail. It's all about risk assessment. Is it
less costly to pay for an outside consultant or hire a net admin to deal
with the in-house server as opposed to the cost of not having access to
your data for a number of hours/days. It's the same thinking that goes
along with the decision to use a business DSL/cable for $100/month, that
will give you 97% up time as opposed to $1,000/month for a T1 that
guarantees 99.9%. If my data is offsite, I got to pay the $1,000. OTOH,
if my data is in-house, I can probably get away with $100 and use the
$10K ifference towards an admin. We simply do not know enough about the
OPs business to make an intelligent call.

David L. West · Guest

Ah, that makes sense: I assumed that by "data" he meant email data. If it's
just Exchange, the mailbox is cached locally so the comm going down just
means new mail doesn't go in or out, but they can still get to their
existing data. Now if there were just a way to do for file-based data what
Exchange Cached Mode does for mailboxes. <g>

Erwin van Workum · Guest

Guys,

I Agree with the fact that if the WAN links goes down you will lose
functionality. But as I read in the initial question this has nothing to do
with the technical implementation of the mail environment but with total
costs of ownership. If Dean is capable of putting everything on paper of
both solutions (pros and cons) it will have a much better effect on
management level than trying te create a technical discussion over here.

Regards,
--
With Kind regards,

Erwin van Workum
Alkum Solutions

Email : Erwin@alkum.nl

"David L. West" wrote:

Asher_N · Guest

"=?Utf-8?B?RXJ3aW4gdmFuIFdvcmt1bQ==?="
<ErwinvanWorkum@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in
news:C8405DD4-642F-4B46-8E5B-4C552077DF1D@microsoft.com:

Yes, but a large part of TCO is the cost of downtime.

Nightowl · Guest

What your asking is entirely possible. As with Exchange Cached Mode, the
ablitly to run Offline folder redirection is part of the Windows 2000/2003
server.

For the user group everything is transperrent. In the "Hosted model" all
your file and email data can enter a cashed mode enviroment, when the link to
the server system goes down. I uses and recommend Offline folder redirection.

This will not only provide you with pease of mind, on wether you work all
night bring the server back up, or sleep confortably, knowing that all you
lose when the link goes down is access to new email.
--

"David L. West" wrote:

Asher_N · Guest

While you are technically correct, the real world makes that impractical.
While Outlook cached mode will ALWAYS use the cached data, Windows cached
folders will use the server based copy when it detects the network. WAN
speeds are not nearly good enough to support an entire location with that
model. Remember that you are also looking at more than docs in your 'My
Documents' folder. What about the databases needed by your business
application?

Maybe I'm just incredibily lucky, but I've been in IT nearly 30 years
now, and I can count on the fingers of one hand the times I've had to
recover systems from backups, and one of those times was my own fault.
OTOH, I've stopped counting the amount of time comms link have gone down.
It does not take a long interruption to screw up you database.

"=?Utf-8?B?TmlnaHRvd2w=?=" <Nightowl@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in
news:D899360A-0147-443A-87D4-F6165EB46F9D@microsoft.com:

Nightowl · Guest

You are right about the way you are looking at the offline folder setup, but,
it is the deployment of this model that makes all the difference.

We have gotten off the original subject posted, but I would enjoy discussing
this further with you.

While you are right about databases, the offline folder structure is based
on an incremental backup senario. The replication a data is preformed at
whatever params you provide.

"Asher_N" wrote:

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