MS exchange server - rent/dedicated/managed?

JGBR

JGBR

JGBR

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18 Mar 2007
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Hello

Helping set up small buisness

Am wondering if anyone had any dealings with using dedicated exchange services and providers/recommended?
 
What is the level of expertise in your company? Can you manage an exchange server? Would your time be best spent on the business or managing your IT infrastructure?

You can start with a provider purchasing mailboxes until such a time when having your own server makes sense.

Why do you need exchange?
 
I have experience in most server environments, just not specifically exchange

the department has very heavy and confidential email loads.
 
Hosted exchange is fairly cheap and seems to be making sense for small business at the moment, but as mentioned above what is wrong with A N Other POP3/IMAP service?

If you go with Hosted exchange have a look at CobWeb. They seem to offer a decent service at an ok price point.
 
Because we have many protable devices and people need to login via browser etc.

also need some extra security settings etc.
 
If you are concerned about email security then a managed exchange box would probably be your best bet.

Can you not host an exchange server at your offices or do you have a vast amount of remote users? I.e. you need the connectivity?
 
We only have a standard buisness broadband package and no leased line , hence not having own server for it
 
What really worries me is how im going to have control over the dedicated server from the office particurly if i have to manually install exchange server etc
 
Skilldibop said:
Hosted exchange is fairly cheap and seems to be making sense for small business at the moment, but as mentioned above what is wrong with A N Other POP3/IMAP service?

If you go with Hosted exchange have a look at CobWeb. They seem to offer a decent service at an ok price point.
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I work for Cobweb, we offer hosted exchange so effectively your users can have mailboxes/mobile devices/OWA without you having to manage any servers. Also get antispam chucked in from Message Labs.

I'd imagine it's fairly typical but our users get a control panel they can use to add accounts, email addresses, mailbox permissions etc.

If you want the above at a fixed cost you can predict then i'd say hosted exchange is a good idea, if for whatever reason you need to manage your servers or want more control it may not be the best thing to take up.

Trying to be impartial here we do offer good service at a decent price, i'd personally have no problems taking up our services if I was running a business. We have some pretty big names on board too such as Innocent Drinks and All 3 Media.
 
But - if i get your system right - you pay a couple of £ per email address? how does that work when mail services/web hosting with another provider etc?

Not being able to host our own servers has put me down a route that i have never tried, of outsourcing some of my ICT.
 
JGBR said:
But - if i get your system right - you pay a couple of £ per email address? how does that work when mail services/web hosting with another provider etc?

Not being able to host our own servers has put me down a route that i have never tried, of outsourcing some of my ICT.
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Got some answers for you:

1) You pay per user/mailbox rather than email address, so if you wanted a user/mailbox to have multiple email addresses there is no extra cost for this. For example you can have a user with [email protected] and [email protected] for no extra cost.

Per user the cheapest you will get without discount is £3.29 per month and that is without premium support and on a 36 month contract. 12 month contract on the same is a bit more expensive but you're not tied in as long.

2) If you have your domain hosted elsewhere it's OK, all we generally need to get you up and running for mail flow is the following DNS records on your domain(s):

  • MX Records pointing to our Message Labs cluster.
  • Autodiscover CNAME record pointing autodiscover.domain.com to our autodiscover A Name record.
  • TXT record for SPF.

None of these affect your web hosting or domain registration settings, so your websites can remain live where they are. We don't try to take control of customer domains just for the sake of getting mailboxes to work but we do require the above is setup.

the CNAME and TXT record should have no real impact on anything, the MX records ensure that mail to your domain from the internet hit our mail servers correctly.

Gonna kip now but probably on tomorrow if you have any other questions :P
 
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This is surely an economics question, if you start getting into 20-25 users then a server is cheaper then paying for every single box?
 
It will probably work out that way,

My question is why you dont run a local exchange server in house, so people on site get normal outlook access and people offsite can use either outlook anywhere or Webmail?
 
google apps all the way, there is not way any crappy outfit is going to be more secure than google

£35 per mail box per year, 25gb storage, imap, full contact and cal sync to outlook and mobile devices, web mail

if you have a hosted exchange box you are relying on a single (though probably virtual) machine to be workign correctly, with gmail as long as the multi billion $ data center is not struck by a nuke your service will be up...
 
edscdk said:
google apps all the way, there is not way any crappy outfit is going to be more secure than google

£35 per mail box per year, 25gb storage, imap, full contact and cal sync to outlook and mobile devices, web mail

if you have a hosted exchange box you are relying on a single (though probably virtual) machine to be workign correctly, with gmail as long as the multi billion $ data center is not struck by a nuke your service will be up...
Click to expand...

I would go with this if you dont want an in house server tbh, I use google for message continuity and its fab.
 
Diakatarnis said:
It will probably work out that way,

My question is why you dont run a local exchange server in house, so people on site get normal outlook access and people offsite can use either outlook anywhere or Webmail?
Click to expand...

if your BB line dies you have no email, if your office burns down you have no email, if windows / exchange go wrong you have no email, if you get a virus you have no email, if the server hardware dies you have no email, if your router dies you have no email, it costs you £300 - £500 a year on electric to keep the server running, the initial cost of the software and setup is going to be £1500+... dont forget the massive support overhead and pain in the ass backups that will keep going wrong

I cannot think of any plus point for exchange over google apps for a small setup

I would only consider local exchange for >20 users
 
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