Opinions on Exchange options

[Alexander Dalloz]

Am Di, den 13.04.2004 schrieb redhat um 17:42:

> First - forgive the length of this post...I am going to throw this out
> there for whomever wants to respond.  I have an Exchange 5.5 server
> which is my PDC (primary authentication and email - internal only)
> running on server 2000.  Last year it crashed because it mysteriously
> forgot that it was the PDC and I had to rebuild it from scratch.  Now, I

Starting with Windows 2000 there are no dedicated PDC and BDCs any more
;)

> am having serious issues with Exchange mail and am getting tired of it. 
> I am required to offer calendaring, shared contacts, yadda, yadda,
> yadda.  I have looked at SuSE's offering and have also looked into a
> product called bynari.  Both seem to offer the right stuff - at a hefty

Asking about SuSE products on a Fedora/Redhat mailing list is at least
curious.

> price - comparable to M$.  I don't mind the price but I want to be sure
> that in another year I am not back in the same position with problem on
> a different platform.  I don't have anyone on staff that can set up
> Sendmail and I don't have the time to learn it.  I need something that
> is intuitive enough to set up and administer.  If you are familiar with
> either of these products I would appreciate pros and cons.  If you have
> a different product that does not require 3 brains to setup and
> administer I would appreciate that as well.
> thanks,
> DF

You was not specific enough about your needs, whether you want a system
that runs and feel for users like an Exchange server or whether they
could live with other solutions as well. On the other hand you said very
few about your skills.

There are some products on the market - of course not all for free -
trying to bring the customer a cheaper solution, like the HP Openmail
and Samsung's OpenContact. An advanced groupware tool is
http://www.opengroupware.org/, which is open source and you would only
have to pay for the MAPI connector.

But let me speak a word in general: that all depends on the knowledge of
the people setting up and administer the system! A server and in special
a mail server is something you have to know a lot about. The less you
know the more you will have to pay for support by foreign support crews.
That is a general rule. And a mail server is no playground, knowing few
about the "inner life" you will be lost, especial if something does not
work as you wish. In conclusion: if you do not know anything about mail
server and groupware solutions on *NIX (UNIX/Linux) systems and have no
will nor time to get deep into the things you might better stay with
(bloody, standards neglecting) Exchange.

Alexander


-- 
Alexander Dalloz | Enger, Germany | GPG key 1024D/ED695653 1999-07-13
Fedora GNU/Linux Core 1 (Yarrow) on Athlon CPU kernel 2.4.22-1.2174.nptl
Sirendipity 17:56:08 up 25 days, 1:37, load average: 0.09, 0.22, 0.21 
                   [ Γνωθι σ'αυτον - gnothi seauton ]
             my life is a planetarium - and you are the stars
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