I have to say that Exchange 2007 is a huge step forward from earlier
versions of Exchange. To date, I have not seen any serious issues with the
platform across a number of different environments. However, you may want
to consider deploying Exchange 2010 if you don't already have Exchange 2007
up and running. There are a couple of technical advantages to 2010 but the
biggest impact will likely be felt on the user end. Outlook Web Access in
2010 is pretty slick and comes pretty darn close to being what users see in
Outlook. There are also some very nice features in both 2007 and 2010 when
it comes to mobile computing.
Having said all that, I am of the opinion that outsourcing email (where
feasible) is a fundamentally good idea. Messaging is such a mission
critical application that it is well suited to being hosted in the so-called
cloud (depending, of course, on how you define cloud). While it may not
take much to administer the system, it is still sitting in your environment
so you will always have storage, environmental and connectivity concerns.
I should add that virtualization is certainly the way to go. Both Exchange
2007 and 2010 run quite nicely in a VMWare environment (both ESXi and
full-blown ESX) and the server portability can be a real life-saver.
TJ
TJ Rainsford
E: tjrainsford@gmail.com
On Thu, Jun 24, 2010 at 14:03, JPDS Tech <techpurchases@jpds.org> wrote:
> We are a small school, with under 100 email accounts. We are considering a
> shift from POP3 to Exchange 2007 but I am concerned about adding a great
> deal of administrative overhead. The proposed new set-up would be Exchange
> 2007 running on (VMWare-virtualized) Server 2008; we would continue to use
> Postini to reduce our spam load. We're hoping to achieve universal access
> for staff and shared calendars and distribution lists. I also hope that
> the
> SIS described in the thread below will reduce our storage requirements.
>
> I'm aware that Google Apps and Microsoft Live offer these things but I'm
> specifically asking about Exchange 2007. One techie tells me that 2007 is
> so stable that there is little maintenance work. Would I be taking on a
> nightmare of administrative tasks? I am a one-person tech office.
>
> With trepidation,
>
> Dan Berger
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: A forum for independent school educators
> [mailto:ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU] On Behalf Of TJ Rainsford
> Sent: Tuesday, June 22, 2010 3:01 PM
> To: ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
> Subject: Re: Public Folders Exchange 2003 and iPhones
>
> Renee:
>
> If only it were that simple :-)
>
> In order to reclaim disk space and white space when users clean up email,
> you actually have to run a offline defrag of the Information Store in
> Exchange. This is actually something that should be done on a regular
> basis
> as part of maintenance (the interval is dependent on the how big your
> information stores are). It is a pretty straight forward task but must
> necessarily be done after hours as it will take down any users who are part
> of the specific information store as long as the process is running.
>
> Running regular offline defrags is a really good idea. Not only will it
> clean up disk space, it will compress the information stores (and defrag
> them) which will improve overall performance and keep the system happy.
>
> Please note that this is NOT a disk defrag! In fact, running a disk
> defragmentation process on the disk where your Exchange data resides is a
> fundamentally BAD idea (things will likely go BOOM in a really bad way).
> And as with all major maintenance, make DARN sure you have a backup of
> EVERYTHING (the OS, server system state, Exchange databases, etc) before
> doing this.
>
> TJ
>
> TJ Rainsford
> E: tjrainsford@gmail.com
>
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