Advice about Exchange and Windows server

[bobsmith1492]

Greetings,

I'm looking for advice about running my own email and website server. I have set up Windows Server 2012 r2 with Active Directory server, IIS, and Exchange Server 2013.

It is running in a HyperV virtual machine on my desktop. I have a domain name and DNS service from dynDNS.

I got everything up and running and can send/receive emails and can host a website.

I'm running a small business (my business partner and I are electrical engineers).

So, all that said... I'm debating whether to make this work and maintain the server myself or use a hosting service from my cable company. I hate to give up the work I've done setting it up but I could see it being quite a bit of work. I also want the email and website to be somewhat responsive; it is not that fast now (probably limited by my cable internet speed, or the rather slow VM response).

The cable company uses a Parallels service but I'd have to pay extra for Exchange email functionality (vs. a POP3 interface). It's somewhat limited for storage and bandwidth (3.5GB/50GB).

Can any server or networking gurus offer some directional advice?

Thank you!!

 

[Oyeve]

How many employees will you have? Internally hosted Exchange can be a bitch to maintain if its only for a few users. My company has 80 email addresses and I still think our inhouse exchange server was a waste of money. I wanted it all to be hosted externally by MS but noooooo, the boss wanted it internal.

 

[bobsmith1492]

We will not have even that many, more like 4 to start with, possibly growing some beyond that.

What kind of maintenance do you typically do? I'll want to back up the email database and the whole VM somehow. It's being somewhat finicky too, the Transport Submission Service stops every few days, preventing email from flowing until I restart it manually. Not quite sure what's happening there.

 

[azazel1024]

We will not have even that many, more like 4 to start with, possibly growing some beyond that.

What kind of maintenance do you typically do? I'll want to back up the email database and the whole VM somehow. It's being somewhat finicky too, the Transport Submission Service stops every few days, preventing email from flowing until I restart it manually. Not quite sure what's happening there.

At least on the last issue, is Windows actually showing that the TSS is stopped? Or is it simply becoming non-functional? If it is actually stopping, can you set a scheduled task with an event trigger related to the TSS stopping to kick off a powershell or batch to restart the service?

 

[bobsmith1492]

Yes, I'm looking at the server dashboard and it shows a big red line item "Service stopped."

I could probably do an auto restart progarm - I'll take a Google around and see what I can come up with.

There are a couple other services that stop sometimes too (Exchange health monitor and another couple that have stopped before). I noticed once that the RAM was about maxed out so I bumped that up in the VM. It's quite a RAM hog now, the server will use over 4GB. I've read I shouldn't be "remote logging into" the server but I'm not enough of a power user yet to configure it remotely.

 

[imagoon]

If the transport is stopping, something is wrong. Review the logs and event logs. Transport should not stop randomly and scripting a restart is like placing a band-aid on a broken femur.

 

[Exterous]

If the transport is stopping, something is wrong. Review the logs and event logs. Transport should not stop randomly and scripting a restart is like placing a band-aid on a broken femur.

This. Also, are there any updates that need to be applied?

We will not have even that many, more like 4 to start with, possibly growing some beyond that.

What kind of maintenance do you typically do? I'll want to back up the email database and the whole VM somehow. It's being somewhat finicky too, the Transport Submission Service stops every few days, preventing email from flowing until I restart it manually. Not quite sure what's happening there.

With only 4 I would definitely do hosting. That should take care of the backups for you as well. As for maintaining Exchange a lot can just be little issues cropping up: The OAB is no longer updating, The certificate update didn't complete properly, The datastore got corrupted, the Replication service is constantly stopping etc etc. Let someone else deal with that hassle for 4 people.

 

[saratoga172]

With 4 people definitely go with a hosted option. If you want similar features you can always look into Office 365 for business. I believe they have a per person fee and you'll also get licenses for the Office suite (you can configure most of it to your liking). Pretty sure they also do an email only. This way you don't even have to worry about bandwidth.

They also offer shared share point services. You'd have to look into it a bit more but it may serve your needs for a website. Alternatively a simple website can be gotten from some of the larger hosts like godaddy pretty cheap. They do things like site builder for $5-10/month or you can find a simple site design and upload it. If you've already got a site you're already set. You'll just need to pick a hosting plan accordingly.

 

[Exterous]

Oh I forgot to mention their uptime will probably be better than yours too. With a local exchange server if the power, internet goes out or the server goes down then people get DNRs. Theoretically a hosted solution will be redundant so that if one site goes down the mail keeps flowing\queuing up through the other

 

[bobsmith1492]

Thanks for the input Exterous, saratoga, azazel, oyeve. Here is my summary thus far:

Pros (self-hosting)
Fun to do, learn a lot
Own our email data
Flexibility (mailbox limits, attachment size, etc.)
No hosting cost
Easy to update/maintain website

Cons (self-hosting)
No fun (maintenance required)
Slower, less bandwidth
Higher risk of downtime, data loss

I'm still leaning toward wanting to do it myself, despite the impracticalities. I think the biggest risk is it going down while we're trying to work, and bouncing emails back to our clients. DynDNS has a service to "hold" emails that don't get through; that could be an option to mitigate that risk. I can get a UPS to help with (brief) power disruptions.

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All updates have been applied (Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter). I'm not having any luck finding anything useful in the log though.

 

[mvbighead]

As far as email goes... definitely leave it to the cloud. Heck, if you're talking of using it for business reasons, you could always go for a paid Google account:

https://www.google.com/work/apps/business/

Your business may be different than some, but for most, if a customer gets a rejection of any sort on the email side, that could result in lost business.

$200/year for what will most likely be available 99.99999% of the time, or a home grown solution you manage on the side that will most likely require some manual management... pay the money and leave that solution to a large team that maintains a highly redundant network.

If you still want to play with email, do it on the side with a personal email space. You're asking for trouble if you use it on the business side in the manner you're describing.

 

[Oyeve]

In 2012 Sandy destroyed our exchange server. I wanted to have it hosted but the boss wanted to own. For what it cost in hardware software and especially licenses we could have it hosted for 5 years.

 

[bobsmith1492]

Thanks for the input everyone!
I shut down my VM server and set up hosting through our ISP.

Funny thing is, the first 3 days after turning it on their email server was down. So much for better downtime!!

Have a nice weekend all.