Help me avoid Exchange

[Mark Komarinski]

On Thu, Dec 22, 2005 at 03:40:54PM -0500, Paul Lussier wrote:
> 
> In other words, he's more than happy to see the IT group sink rather
> than swim.  However, I'd rather do the right thing, just do the work
> and not waste a bunch of people's time or the company's money with
> failed (possibly outsourced) solutions, just to have to, six months
> from now, do the work anyway.
 
It'll become his problem when the server gets owned and he loses a
week of e-mail.  I'd say do the prep work now so if they do pull the
trigger on your idea, implementation isn't that hard.

> I need to come up with (currently) valid reasons why it's a bad idea
> to move engineering over to an Exchange-based IMAP server from a
> linux/cyrus-based IMAP server.  So, I'm asking for help from those of
> you who have current, relevant experience with running small companies
> (30-50 people) on Exchange.  Btw, Engineering currenrtly doesn't have
> calendaring, and most of us would use Exchange purely as an IMAP
> server, not using the "added benefits" Exchange burdens you with.
> 
> Any and all help *gratefully* accepted!

Yea, assuming you're not using calendaring.

1)  Why use exchange?  No really.  If all you want is an IMAP server,
what is the reason for using Exchange?
2)  What is the cost/benefit analysis?  Exchange isn't free, nor are
some of the backup applications you use to back up it's database, nor is
the maintenance time required to keep a Windows box up and patched.
Assume hardware costs are constant (same box running the IMAP server)
and then calculate from there - how much to back up the data, how much
maintenance required, how long to create/remove users.

If you're using calendaring, well you're kinda stuck.  I've never gotten
Evolution to work with our Exchange server, and even if it did, it
doesn't support many of the calendaring features you get in Outlook.  I
run Outlook in a VMware machine so my calendar works, and this is after
fighting with Entourage (Mac client that uses the same protocol as
Evolution) for the better part of a year.

-Mark
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: Digital signature
Url : http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/private/gnhlug-discuss/attachments/20051222/85bb4d82/attachment.bin