What Exchange 2007 can't do
This week we rummage through the Reg Library for papers about email and archiving and stuff. We kick off with the corporate daddy, Exchange 2007. Exchange 2007 risks and migration strategies So we thought that running Microsoft Exchange was a pain for small businesses. According to this Dell white paper about Exchange 2007, it …
How's life in Redmond treating you?
Exchange 2003 is an over-architected, poorly functional dog of a product, and you need far too many boxes to be anywhere close to scalable. Not to mention the reliance on SQL for the companion products such as OCS, or even SCOM for monitoring.
Clustering and replication is a joke, so forget about HA.
The fact that you must upgrade to 64bit to be supported on 2007 is ridiculous, an absolute gimme for the HW companies with consulting arms, ie, all the major ones.
Exchange2010 is going to be even worse, with seven (I think) server roles that you'll need for anything above 250 users, all on different servers, even if you can put them on a VM. If I didn't know any better, I'd be thinking that the prder had gone out to the Exchange team to expand the number of server roles simply to boost OS sales, bu that wouldn't happen, would it?
'Also upgrading to Exchange 2007 can be very expensive, requiring upgrades to server hardware and software and increased licensing costs.'
A small increase in functionality (often to be done with a couple of lines of code on an external dll) and a vast increase in cost.
MS have upgraded a small icon on your desktop, please consult MS sales about redecorating your whole house and that of any poor bugger that looks through the window...
Just one rather small niggle in that wonderful assumption: it's an assumption. I will believe that Exchange <fill in future version> will do >fill in desired feature of the month> when I have seen it work somewhere else.
You see, there's a small little clue in all of this: if you're really that interested in rock solid resilience you will test, uat and pilot - and that only after "test" has indicated that the features marketing is seducing the golf club level with actually exist. Other platforms have offered this for years, so it's nice to see they're yet again promising to catch up.
Side note: if you're interested in rock solid email there's a small question what the heck you're doing with Exchange anyway, but that's answered by the embarrassing disassembled state of any other offering out there. No other solution offers the combination, at that level functionality. E ve n..thou..gh it's as ye.t h.as to earn a............boutasynchronousoperationssoit doesn't st..alls the desktop and then has to catchupanddoitallatonce. It's so functional people overlook all that.
However, as Windows users we know the value of Microsoft promises.
And delivery dates.
And interoperability
And backwards compatibility
And..
I went to 2007 and simply hate it. Almost all my clients refuse to pay for SMTP so losing POP on an SBS box is an issue.
I found it to be unneccessarily complicated and rue the day I have to work on one
:::shudders:::
the reg will let any one on these boards. Even sales/marketing droids from micro$oft.
Exchange is the biggest peice of bloatware on the market today. Exchange will do everything for you (according to the marketing morons),
Yeah Right, i write this whilst everyone sits around the office waiting for the network guys to get the exchange server running again. I'm placing bets that mars entered the age of gemini or some shit like that to cause the system to crash again
Flames as an oxy/acetylene torch is probably the best solution for an exchange server problem
...to say that Lookout/Exchange is the biggest POS that Mickey$haft have ever made, but it's certainly up there.
That honour, IMO, goes firmly to Windwoes Mobile, whose greatest claim to fame is that it makes Fista look fantastic.
Yadda yadda yadda (C) Microsoft PR.
We've heard that bull for every single MS product release for the past twenty years. It may even be right, but it won't keep Exchange 2010 from being an unreliable, virus-spreading turd.
The only issue Exchange 2010 is going to address is the dip of the failing MS server market - by requiring more servers to do the same, unreliable job.
