Re: [Exim] Exchange looming..

On Tue, 2002-08-27 at 10:10, Keith G. Murphy wrote:
> Jeff Breitner wrote:
>
> > My sympathies.
> >
> > For just email, the benefits of Exchange are outweighed by the sheer
> > weight of its baggage. I do like the lightning fast indexing and
> > searching of email, but this is hardly the scope of a MTA (and I argue
> > that Cyris IMAP is just as fast). And I admit that most of the mail for
> > my domain flows through Exim and then onto the Exchange server simply
> > because of the intense filtering and spam prevention tricks that Exim
> > has up its sleeve.
>
> Our setup is very similar; we're using Exchange for shared calendars,
> but it's simpler and cheaper to use exim for actual MTA features. You
> have to remember that anything you add to Exchange in the way of spam
> prevention or other features is probably going to cost you some bucks.

Personally, I think that the cost argument is really the only argument
that has a chance of working with anyone considering Exchange/Outlook as
a solution. Of course there are some people for whom cost is no object
if they get what they want. Be sure to include the price of virus
scanning when evaluating the cost of Exchange/Outlook - running Outlook
without some sort of virus scanning is suicide. Also be sure to include
the cost of specialized backup software for Exchange. Like any other
database, you have to shut it down to get a good backup unless you are
using a backup system that interface's with Exchange's hot backup
facilities.

Also, for anything but very small sites, Microsoft recommends splitting
various services up onto several servers - basically for performance
reasons.

> For such reasons, if the management here did not insist on the
> calendaring stuff, and that it be through Outlook, I would not recommend
> Exchange.

I'd semi-agree. Novell has a plug in for Outlook that will let it
access a Groupwise system. But getting someone to buy into a Novell
solution just to get Groupwise would be difficult.

> In the interests of objectivity, I must mention that the calendaring
> stuff works fine; also Exchange gives you OWA, its version of web mail,
> which is also pretty convenient at times.

Unless you need Outlook Web Access to check your calendar, I'm sure that
there a many other fine products out there that offer a better web mail
interface.

Also, for any moderately sized installation they recommend running OWA
on a separate server from the main Exchange system, thus increasing the
cost.

> Exchange as a mail server does not really tie you to Microsoft products,
> as far as I can tell.

Yes, it does. Exchange 2000 only runs on Windows 2000 Server or
"better", and requires Active Directory as that is where it stores all
of its configuration data.

> OWA even works pretty well under Netscape.

OWA is functional under browsers other than Internet Explorer, but I
wouldn't want to make extensive use of it.

> I think Microsoft's idea is that the groupware features (especially if
> you simply *must* use Outlook) force you to buy Exchange, which forces
> you to buy Win(2K|NT), etc.

One semi-bright note is that Ximian Evolution used in conjunction with
Ximian Connector allow you to access most of the functionality of
Exchange from a client that is not Outlook. I haven't actually used
Connector but I absolutely love Evolution. If I wasn't in so strapped
for cash right now I would have bought Connector yesterday.

> The big question is: Can something that complex and closed-source, no
> matter how impressive, be trusted with regards to dependability and
> security? Especially when *you can't fix it*.

Especially when it's from Microsoft... To be fair, the Exchange server
itself hasn't been where most of the security problems have been but
Outlook is a security breach just waiting to happen. At the very least,
Outlook's treatment of HTML mail will make you a spam magnet.

Jeff