Any exchange gurus?

[txsr20de]

I know I've seen some people that were MS partners on the board before, anyone have expertise in ms exchange?

I've got some questions about hosted vs. in-house, implementation, realistic costs, etc. At this point I am an absolute exchange newbie, but able and willing to learn exchange if it gets us away from this godawful POP server

[ceyko]

I'll preface this with I AM NOT AN Exchange guru. (At least since 5.5)

However, I have exposure to it via the numerous times I've had to integrate with it. Many Cisco apps use it for seamless...blah blah (enter sales pitch)

Some questions to answer before anyone can help you...

1. How many users?

2. How many sites?

3. What external apps will integrate with it? (Think phone systems)

4. What sort of a break/fix SLAs do you want? (Hinting at on-prem expertise or managed services SLAs)

5. Who in house can be an expert on it if needed? At a minimum - even if cloud or hosted - there need to be a single point of contact in house for it.

6. What email features do you want/need?

7. Are you looking for IM and presence? (Lync, jabber...etc) More for licensing...etc.

Those are the sort of questions most partners are going to ask and then a whole lot more. Generally speaking I would recommend talking with 2-3 MS partners, getting feedback, quotes and an idea of features you may or may not want. From there...

...although we hate the "turn key" phrase in our business - they will get you setup. Once you've gotten an idea of pricing and so forth and pull the trigger a partner will provide you a SoW, setup the server side app(s) (probably on VMware), and can even get the client PCs squared away. Training is often available as well. Both end user and admin training depending on implementation.

I will say I've only had exposure to a couple of cloud/hosted situations and the customers were not very happy. Generally speaking there are 3 problems I've noted in those situations...

1. Break/fix SLAs. Meaning it takes too long to fix problems, whether it is system wide or specific users. Remember, Joe Blow gets the same response as the CEO. Which is bad for whoever is deemed responsible for the system.

2. MACDs - I've heard of a week or two for changes, new accounts...etc.

3. Integration with other apps can be limited or not supported.

The only cloud type mail I've seen work well so far has been Google Mail.

Again though, these are only my experiences. I'm sure I've probably ticked off some Exchange Hosting person with my above comments and your mileage may vary.

[GeorgeG.]

I'll help out where I can. I'm currently an Exchange admin. When I came onboard at my current place of employment, they were transitioning from hosted to on-prem so they hired me, although they had already got with a managed services company for the design/implementation part of it.

We are actually in the process of going back to the cloud using MS's Exchange Online. While I wasn't entirely for the idea, it was a decision based on cost. And since my bosses know my personal goals, I didn't mind too much.

As far as on-prem vs. cloud, I'm a big advocate of being in control of your own data. The three points Ceyko mentioned about cloud solutions is very spot on and were the primary reasons they wanted to bring it in-house. I, personally, have the same concerns about going back to a cloud based service but in the end, the cost savings out weighed the SLA's so this is the decision upper management made.

don't forget to consider spam filtering and archiving into your project. I went with 3rd party hardware appliances for those functions.

Anyway, let me know what questions you have and I'll help where I can. As far as cost, I may not be able to provide cost estimates for the SAN, VMware, licensing, etc since we get e-rate funding from the state...meaning we only pay about 10% of the actual costs in addition to getting special pricing for being in education.


Also, since you mentioned that you're an Exchange newb, keep in mind that you also need to know VMware and SAN's.

[stang2be]

On another angle without knowing your line of business don't forget to consider e-discovery/legal hold issues in relation to emails in the cloud

[txsr20de]

We are actually in the process of going back to the cloud using MS's Exchange Online. While I wasn't entirely for the idea, it was a decision based on cost.

Let me know how that goes, this is really the direction I would like to go, although at this point it looks like our CIO is adamantly opposed to any kind of hosted setup because of "security issues".

It seems to me to be far more cost effective(hosted), especially considering how small we are(roughly ~50 users). I understand being in control of your own data, but the initial costs involved with in-house seem pretty steep for a company of our size.

I appreciate the input guys, but like I said I think the decision is out of my hands, so at this point all I can do is put in my .02 and hope for the best.

[GeorgeG.]

Let me know how that goes, this is really the direction I would like to go, although at this point it looks like our CIO is adamantly opposed to any kind of hosted setup because of "security issues".

It seems to me to be far more cost effective(hosted), especially considering how small we are(roughly ~50 users). I understand being in control of your own data, but the initial costs involved with in-house seem pretty steep for a company of our size.

I appreciate the input guys, but like I said I think the decision is out of my hands, so at this point all I can do is put in my .02 and hope for the best.

Yeah, hosted is what you need for your size. You didn't mention that in the beginning. I don't anticipate any issues once we're completely done and the fact that I won't have to worry about redundancy, backups completing, storage space, etc., means more sleep for me.... not to mention more networking work!

[txsr20de]

Yeah, hosted is what you need for your size. You didn't mention that in the beginning. I don't anticipate any issues once we're completely done and the fact that I won't have to worry about redundancy, backups completing, storage space, etc., means more sleep for me.... not to mention more networking work!

That was the big thing for me, redundancy, backups, space, hardware upgrading/maintenance. It seemed like a no brainer to go hosted. Luckily, it seems my boss talked to an expert who talked him out of in house. Not like he could have listened to me or anything...

[ceyko]

That was the big thing for me, redundancy, backups, space, hardware upgrading/maintenance. It seemed like a no brainer to go hosted. Luckily, it seems my boss talked to an expert who talked him out of in house. Not like he could have listened to me or anything...

Yeah that's the interesting part of consulting. In some cases, in-house advice is solid - but management will take an outside recommendation at xyz cost.

However, some of that has to do with CYA and politics too.