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Exchange Hosting

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Schoolies

Senior member
I am interested in setting up an off-site hosted 2003 Exchange server. Users will only be able to access their email via OWA. My questions involve licensing...

Do I need to purchase Exchange CALs for each OWA user?
Do I need to purchase Windows 2003 CALs for each user?

If this solution works well, it may grow to 300+ users. I read that Exchange can only use 3GB of RAM so my server, I'd imagine should be at least equiped with 4GB of RAM and a dual processor, with 1TB of hard drive space. Any ideas?
 
To answer your second question you will need to move to a 64-bit OS to get over the fact that 32-bit OS' can only address 2GB of memory.

In fact the upcoming version of Exchange is only being built for 64-bit platforms so a 64-bit system and OS isn't a bad investment.
 
Originally posted by: Schoolies
Do I need to purchase Exchange CALs for each OWA user?
Do I need to purchase Windows 2003 CALs for each user?
Click to expand...
I believe you will need an Exchange CAL for each user (or device) that uses OWA, not sure about the Windows CAL. But I'm not a Windows networking expert by any means. This link looks like it may be helpful.

Also, while Exchange can do some very impressive things, using it as a pure, standalone webmail platform seems like a waste of its abilities and probably a fairly expensive choice for the functionality. If all you want is pure, PC-based webmail access that's not going to hook up to any kind of local AD installation, I would look at a Unix-based solution before Exchange.

 
Originally posted by: Schoolies
I know of Scalix but I'm just trying to gather my data before I make my decision.
Click to expand...
Yeah, but Scalix is a much bigger product than you seem to be asking about. Scalix (like Exchange) is a groupware product - it ties together various types of messaging, calendar and task management and sharing, maybe integrates with mobile phones and other devices, communicates with various desktop clients (like Outlook, Evolution, etc.). That's all well and good if you need all that, but it's a lot more complexity (and cost) than just plain-old webmail (like Horde/IMP or SquirrelMail). But maybe you need a real groupware product and I'm just misreading your post.

 
I'm looking for a good OWA type of e-mail client basically. I currently use @pen Webmail. More background information, eventually this server will be implemented onsite in the network but for political reasons it can not be physically onsite.
 
Originally posted by: Schoolies
...eventually this server will be implemented onsite in the network but for political reasons it can not be physically onsite.
Click to expand...
Bleh... this just screams "bad idea" to me. Any onsite email system is going to be tightly connected to your network design and authentication systems in a way that an offsite server isn't going to be. There's no way you're just going to physically pick up an offsite server and move it inside, or even just image it over and do some tweaks. You're going to end up rebuilding and redesigning the whole system and having to transfer over (what appears to be a lot of) email from the old system to the new one. And an onsite system can effectively do a lot of things that an offsite one can't, so it makes it hard to pick an appropriate system for your needs.

It sounds like you're trying to show someone that you can solve a problem, which is cool. But I don't think this plan is going to reflect well on you in the long run.

 
While I am by no means an Exchange expert, I don't believe that you can even install Exchange 2003 without AD, as the schema is modified prior to the initial install of Exchange. So now your "standalone" installation has to include a DC as well.

As far as your licensing goes, you will need an Exchange CAL (User or Device depending on the licensing model you choose) for each connection. You will also need appropriate OS CALs as well.
 
So if I wanted to have a feature similar to OWA withouting using Exchange, what would your recommendation be, besides Scalix, unless that is truely the best alternative.
 
Originally posted by: InlineFive
To answer your second question you will need to move to a 64-bit OS to get over the fact that 32-bit OS' can only address 2GB of memory.

In fact the upcoming version of Exchange is only being built for 64-bit platforms so a 64-bit system and OS isn't a bad investment.
Click to expand...

😕

 
how about having third party exchange hosting?? They allready have the infrastructure to host exchange and its domain, also you can securely access it via outlook (which is included with the service).
 
Originally posted by: InlineFive
To answer your second question you will need to move to a 64-bit OS to get over the fact that 32-bit OS' can only address 2GB of memory.

In fact the upcoming version of Exchange is only being built for 64-bit platforms so a 64-bit system and OS isn't a bad investment.
Click to expand...
Exchange 2003 doesn't support Windows Server 2003 64. This provides a very simple upgrade path to the next version by requiring admins to purchase new hardware, new OS and new Exchange and do a migration that way. :roll:
 
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