If you need any further help with this or the paper just mail me direct.
I would be happy to take you on a visit of our sites if it helps (based
Manchester UK)
I have been cursed with Exchange for years and got into Exim whilst
trying to find a way to firstly secure it, then secondly replace it.
<rant>
The Exchange/Outlook virus factory is the worst lump of software I have
EVER used. The standard version of exchange (also in the small business
versions) are just poison pills that are pre-programed to explode at
16Gb (Just enough low enough for everyone to hit it, and just high
enough that you can't afford to lose it).
Without warning your mailserver will stop working and your only
indication of what went wrong is a single 4 digit error code entry in
event viewer AFTER IT HAS HAPPENED.
You can fix it two ways:
- get out the double-barreled cheque book and pay the ransom to see your
e-mails again by buying ENTERPRISE versions of your software (knock-on
effect to other licences too).
- Compact your "databases" to save space (databases, good joke). You
will generally free some space by compacting all of the "empty" space
you have been backing up due the the poor "database" design, but the
majority of space re-claimed will come from all of the messages that
simply vanish or end up completely blank and unusable after the compress
(lose messages = recover space).
- Edit the registry to use an even more risky one-time "death-row" 17Gb
hack.
Seriously, what kind of person would choose to use:
- A single microsoft access database to store all company emails in one
place (I wouldn't trust JET to store a shopping list never mind
corporate data and correspondence. Think about it, MS ACCESS to store
everything)
- An SMTP feature built into the notorious IIS webserver instead of a
real MTA (IIS WILL be accessible from the net even if you don't run a
website because it provides the SMTP service not exchange)
- A user directory based on the broken LDAP and Kerberos known as
Active Directory (don't even get me started on the endless list of
problems caused by multiple sites and servers in exchange environments)
- Exchange Security (can I legally use those two words in the same
sentence?)
Exchange users are forced to use these every day. Keeping Exchange
running is hard - backing it up reliably is impossible in my opinion
without taking the server down and making flat-file backups.
When looking at TCO the cost of backups will probably cost more than
exchange itself. For every server we had, at least two more were
required for making RELIABLE backups and fixing corrupt mailboxes offline.
Do yourself a favor and look at Scalix if you MUST run something like
Exchange. I've migrated 4 exchange organizations already with plans for
another 4 next year (and some users didn't even notice and the box is
now good for 50x more users from 100 to 5000).
see
www.scalix.com
</rant>
Can anybody back me up here, or am I completely wrong about a fantastic
product.
Before you flame me - ask yourself honestly how many of your Exim
problems relate to viruses, broken MTA's and badly written clients and
then ask yourself what percentage of those problems came along with
Windows\Exchange\Outlook\VBA\Office HTML\Office RTF
Thanks
Jason
>>Ronan Exim wrote:
>>
>>
>>>I need objective pros / cons for exchange in an entrprise
>>>environment that I can along with my colleagues prepare a
>>>document expressing our "concerns" regarding.
>>
>
> It's been mentioned on this list before, but those interested in
> integrating Exchange and Exim might find Jason Meer's paper on the
> subject of interest. This paper was presented at the first Exim
> conference in February 2005. See:
>
> http://www.uit.co.uk/exim-conference/full-papers/jason-meers.pdf
