Bart
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Registered: 19th Aug 02
Location: Midsomer Norton, Bristol Avon
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As per my previous thread about hardward VPNs, this kinda follows on from that;
We currently have around 50~ employees, of which 4-8 employees are looking to move to a remote location elsewhere in the country.
We're about to upgrade our head office to exchange 2010 standard and am not sure what to do for the remote offices.
I've discussed several options, but im still not sure which way to go, hopefully someone can offer some advice.
We'r about to upgrade our head office ADSL to Fibre (FTTC). The remote office(s) will have their own server.
Option 1 - Our IT company has suggested installing Exchange Server at the remote office location(s), with each users logging into their local server with its own copy of exchange server. In my head this seems like a great idea as it'll be the queickest in terms of the end user pulling down emails with large attachments accross their LAN.
Option 2 - Outlook Anywhere (cached mode) over HTTP/S - I cannot see any issues with this.
Option 3 - Normal Outlook Client (cached mode) over hardware VPN which will be in place anyway for file access.
What we're looking for is the most efficient, quickest and least bandwidth heavy.
With regard to Option1, I've been told the ES2010 at headoffice will collect/send all email, but im wondering as this distributes out to the other remote exchanges (over HW VPN), waether it will send accross 1 email for the two users its sent to, or will send 2 emails for the two users?
The same applies for the remote user sending to 10 recieptants, will 10 emails be sent between exchanges or just the one?
Any input / advice would greatly be appreciated.
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pow
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Registered: 11th Sep 06
Location: Hazlemere, Buckinghamshire
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Option 2 for me...
Setup Outlook anywhere... collect email on remote sites over HTTP(S). Seems the best way of doing it.
Failing that permanently connect the remote sites using a hardware VPN so they are just a remote node.
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Andrew
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Registered: 5th May 04
Location: Skoda Octavia Estate, Ford Puma
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If you are just accessing the server for mail then Outlook Anywhere is the best option. If you are accessing files and have money for a Terminal Server i would go for this option over VPN. However, VPN would work fine.
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Bart
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Registered: 19th Aug 02
Location: Midsomer Norton, Bristol Avon
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Thanks guys.
Pow, from a n00b point of view like mine, what benefit would outlook anywhere be over a straight hardware VPN?
I guess if they were to take their laptop away/home then they'd still carry on using their client as normal.
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Bart
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Registered: 19th Aug 02
Location: Midsomer Norton, Bristol Avon
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Andrew, we will be accessing the server for files, but I'm still unsure about this at the moment, considering file replication or BranchCache.
I LOVE the theory behind BC, but it seems very slow for first time access (50kb download speed).
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Andrew
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Registered: 5th May 04
Location: Skoda Octavia Estate, Ford Puma
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quote:
Pow, from a n00b point of view like mine, what benefit would outlook anywhere be over a straight hardware VPN?
Users will have to make the connection to the VPN and just something else to go wrong 
If you go down the Windows VPN route, make sure the IT Company using a different subnet to 192.168.0.x or 192.168.1.x - causes nothing but issues otherwise as we have found when taking on customers.
You can also have issues with the TCP/IP tables refreshing on old / free routers. Bilion and DrayTek budget stuff seems fine.
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John
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Registered: 30th Jun 03
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Another Outlook Anywhere from me, we've got a few host a few exchange boxes as well as have it set up for loads of clients in the same sort of situation as you and for the most part it just works.
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VrsTurbo
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Registered: 8th Jun 10
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Option 1 - you'd have to set up DAG's and have front end servers more work.
Keep the old exchange box in use for a couple of weeks as it makes it easier. If you get autodiscover set up properly you can set up email remotly very quick and easy also Just hammers the bandwith downloading the initial mailbox.
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VrsTurbo
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Registered: 8th Jun 10
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i migrated a company 2 weeks ago from exchange 2003 - 2010, 100 Users and it took 1.5days. Its the easiest migration ever! just make sure your in native mode or you'll have issues.
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John
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Registered: 30th Jun 03
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Depends what else is on the server and what clients everybody is running.
It's only a day's worth if it's doing nothing else and they all use outlook in windows.
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pow
Premium Member
Registered: 11th Sep 06
Location: Hazlemere, Buckinghamshire
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Why would you want to VPN & Outlook anywhere/
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ENB
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Registered: 24th Apr 06
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Option, Outlook Anywhere is what we use for our remote users. No problems and it's never fallen over.
Definitely wouldn't go for a second Exchange server (I wouldn't of had a first if it wasn't free!)
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pow
Premium Member
Registered: 11th Sep 06
Location: Hazlemere, Buckinghamshire
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Nothing wrong with Exchange 2010`
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ENB
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Registered: 24th Apr 06
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I prefer qmail.
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pow
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Registered: 11th Sep 06
Location: Hazlemere, Buckinghamshire
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Gmail is fine for a personal or small business but exchange is a totally different kettle of fish.
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John_C
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Registered: 5th Mar 03
Location: South east, Bromley
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Have you checked out gmail business version? less IT admin, reduced costs next to exchange.
The size of your business for me points to having that instead of an exchange box per site! All the hardware, power, support, licensing
Hosted exchange box per month per user is around £5.50 or 66 per year. Google apps is £33 per user per yr.
BTW we run version 3 at the mo accross Leased lines and ADSL at smaller sites. Accessing attachments is not a problem.
Gmail just requires internet where ever you are
[Edited on 20-05-2011 by John_C]
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John_C
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Registered: 5th Mar 03
Location: South east, Bromley
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Can't really say not great for business. Can interact with outlook, blackberries etc. Included mail filtering, archiving can be added on...
Im working on the ROI for my business - 170 maiboxes
so far hosted exchange 12K per yr
google - 5.6K
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John
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Registered: 30th Jun 03
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Google apps is terrible for business compared to exchange and outlook. Hugely dissapointed with the migration.
Only any good if you've got no mail to migrate, only using the web interface and everybody has android or ios.
It'll cost more than 6k in problems. Nowhere near enterprise ready.
[Edited on 20-05-2011 by John]
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VrsTurbo
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Registered: 8th Jun 10
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quote:
Originally posted by John_C
Can't really say not great for business. Can interact with outlook, blackberries etc. Included mail filtering, archiving can be added on...
Im working on the ROI for my business - 170 maiboxes
so far hosted exchange 12K per yr
google - 5.6K
But then the cost your paying each year is pointless as you could spend 20k on hardware and software and then no cost for 4years +
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John_C
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Registered: 5th Mar 03
Location: South east, Bromley
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John - Any more info on your experience. Looking to make a call on our exchange environment.
VRS - From a management point of view outsourcing is more cost effective. Removing exchange from your environment, depending on size, will generally mean less support staff.
20K hardware / licensing what about archiving, external backup on top? We pay around 12K a year for external backup of around 300-400GB of brick level / bare metal exchange data.
SaaS imo is changing the dynamics at the mo.
Just putting my 2p in.
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Bart
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Registered: 19th Aug 02
Location: Midsomer Norton, Bristol Avon
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how many people here have hosted exchange else where?
I assume you'll be using Outlook Anywhere then?
Do you get free upgrades when the exchange server gets upgraded etc?
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John_C
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Registered: 5th Mar 03
Location: South east, Bromley
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Depends on your agreement with upgrades. I would imagine most would jump to the next version when it was available
As for clients you will be able to use outlook 2007/10 etc or remote access outlook anywhere.
Prices i have so far are £5.50 per mailbox per month on a multi tenanted environment or around £8 per mailbox per month for own box
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John
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Registered: 30th Jun 03
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We have a client who moved from a massive enterprise IT setup with exchange, fancy archiving, blackberry and outlook.
They had a massive amount of mail, 25gb mailboxes common place with tens of thousands of mails.
It was all extracted as pst's (google do have backend migration tools but they weren't used here). Importing them into google was the first problem, it just didn't work, completely unreliable, the bigger mailboxes took literally 2 weeks and ended up with duplicates and various problems.
The outlook connector isn't reliable, it's hit and miss whether it works or not and google apps regularly gets out of sync with outlook.
Even though google apps has some sort of exchange like interface for phones etc it's not exchange so doesn't work properly.
iPhones and Android devices are fine with it, nothing else syncs calendars and contacts properly.
If it was a new company for people who didn't require outlook and had android phones it would be great, I think gmail is one of if not the best mail system going, just not for non tech savvy people who are used to working in a certain way, which is normally exchange and outlook.
12k a year sounds like a lot of money for that backup, is it all outsourced?
Our typical backup scenario is a copy onsite and another offsite, can restore the system to (almost) any system anywhere within a couple of hours and wouldn't cost half that.
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VrsTurbo
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Registered: 8th Jun 10
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quote:
Originally posted by John_C
John - Any more info on your experience. Looking to make a call on our exchange environment.
VRS - From a management point of view outsourcing is more cost effective. Removing exchange from your environment, depending on size, will generally mean less support staff.
20K hardware / licensing what about archiving, external backup on top? We pay around 12K a year for external backup of around 300-400GB of brick level / bare metal exchange data.
SaaS imo is changing the dynamics at the mo.
Just putting my 2p in.
Backup is really how far you want to go Backup exec with exchange addon around 1.5k tapes around £250 hardware 3k for an LT04 drive. Then you can use windows image based backup for the os
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John
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Registered: 30th Jun 03
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Backup exec and tapes are well out of date, something image based (not windows) is much better.
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