STOP!
Forget this, the big one is that full OWA now works in Safari :)
Microsoft has shot Exchange Server 2010 worldwide spurring storage suppliers to instantly announce their support for the application. Exchange 2010 offers new features such as e-mail archiving, to help prevent inbox overload, while gaining admin improvements and more flexible deployment options. It has much improved I/O, …
Every time... a new version of Exchange comes along I still can't help wondering if the developers / marketing droids / management ever use the damn thing. I'd be more than happy to recommend that clients upgrade to the newest version if there was any real reason to do so.
It's bloated, enormously inefficient, hides data in massive blob databases and to top if off, every new edition still fails to implement any of the standard features that are a given in every other damn mail server. Rather than "improve performance" by adding support for even faster hardware and therefore even more ludicrous hardware requirements, why don't they fix the underlying code?
I think you should read up on Exchange 2010. Microsoft have added support for SATA/SAS disks rather than relying on FC - something that's been improved since Exchange 2007.
So - even though it's a 64bit application - although 64bit capable hardware has been out for an age now - it offers huge storage savings.
Please provide information on 1) how it is bloated 2) how it is enormously inefficient - please go down to the database and transport layers if you must to help me understand and 3) please identify these standard features every other mail product has so a comparison can be made.
Overall a MASSIVE thumbs up to Exchange 2010. When 2007 RTM'd I and many found it lacking - 2010 is simply the best release of this product ever.
Seriously - who cares - go to zimbra or move to google apps.. Forget that horrible piece of software. SMB's is where exchange was making some bucks forever but now there is 0 reason for most SMB's even to own their own server.. Forget all that downtime / money lost paying someone to constantly maintain and update that Microsoft junk, - outsource it to a hosted provider and save your company some bucks and headaches.. Get rid of your IT GUY and outsource that too.
Exchange / outlook / Microsoft $$ licenses = soooo old school.. time to get with the times and get a new game plan people!
@Shane Menshik
> Forget all that downtime / money lost paying someone to constantly maintain and update that Microsoft junk
I think you'll find that most IT professionals that run a tight ship have had higher uptime over the last couple of years with Exchange 2007 than they would have with Google Apps.
Saying nothing about the proven additional productivity enjoyed by users of the Office/Exchange platform offers over any other solution.
I dont understood - isn't the backup built into Windows 2008R2 + Exchange 2010 already? The Exchange 2010 backup related article says nothing about that but I read somewhere that Exchange 2010 can be backed up right from Windows 2008 R2 backup tool. Seems like the only built-in solution without costly third-parties software, as a Microsoft Data Protection server 2007 is trully "bloated" product for backup purposes. It creates so many dynamic disk partitions that they all crash after single disconnection of the iSCSI drive with that many complex partitions. DPM needs the same redesign as Exchange, because now SATA disks can be used for Exchange 2010 but fibre-channel disks are needed for backup if DPM 2007 is used for that.
Also BEWARE - Windows disk mirroring does not work even on Windows 2008 R2. If you mirror a system drive (C) of your Exchange 2010 server, then if power cut happens and one OS boot disk fails to start when power is restored, server WILL NOT START AT ALL from other non-damaged disk in mirrored disk pair. And Microsoft explained that non working mirror IS A FEATURE BY DESIGN. This is a terrible bug, its a SCANDAL that requires a separate Register article so every user must know. that they are not protected. I wonder how many users know that if they make disk mirror for their C: disk and one disk will crash, the OS (and the Exchange server or whatever business critical application on that server) will not boot-up from the other disk without half-day long lab type bit tweaking exercise where you must not make any error in long list of manual recovery steps (involving manual creating of additional boot partitions, etc.). On all UNIX'es I tried with OS based system disk mirror, if one disk crashes in the mirror set during power failure, system boots up from the other disk properly (unattended, fully automatically - that is why mirrror is needed for OS drive), so I can later insert new disk instead of failed one, break old mirror with non-existing disk, and create new mirror on the new disk.
So I can agree with "lol" that there are things that are hard to believe they are still NOT working, at least in as modern OS as is Windows 2008 R2. Not even reached up to Exchange for reliability test - I was stopped at so basic thing that the mirror for Windows OS boot drive simply still does not work. If even this is not working, probably I still need to wait for Windows 2013, Exchange 2013 and then test realiability again.
If you rely on Windows Server in your business, and have C: disk mirrored in OS, try this:
1. Power off server.
2. Take out first system disk. Leave second disk in place.
3. Start the server.
You think this situation must be handled by a C: disk mirror? Test that yourself. Server wil NOT start, and this is "by design"! Is this "most realiable Windows server ever released"?