New Servers: Windows Server and Exchange 2000 or 2003 ?

[DonIsHere]

I just got hired into this small office of about 15 people. They are using Caldera OpenLinux 3.1.1. It's so old that Caldera has since been bought out by SCO. They mail server is just a basic IMAP server (postfix). I want to upgrade their servers to Microsoft. I just don't know which versions to get.

Windows Server 2000 or 2003?
Exchange Server 2000 or 2003?

The client machines are all using either Windows 2000 or XP so I don't think that part of it should be a problem.

Microsoft bashing aside, please help.

thanks.

 

[MysticLlama]

If you're buying them fresh anyway, there is no reason not to go with 2003 on both.

Windows 2003 has a bunch of nice stuff, the biggest thing for me being Shadow Copy. You can just go back in and get versions of files that are taken a couple times per day for 30 days, or depending on how you set it up. It's a nice thing to have in a small environment.

In my experience, Exchange 2003 is a lot better than Exchange 2000. I was having a bunch of issues with corruption and such with 2000, not recovering well from restarts, etc. but 2003 is working great.

Also, you can't use all the features of Exchange 2k3 without having Server 2k3.

In my opinion, there isn't any reason to go with Win2k/Exchange2k unless you're getting it a lot cheaper somewhere.

 

[lobadobadingdong]

Why not get SBS 2003 it will have everything you need for up to 75 users.

 

[zodder]

Originally posted by: lobadobadingdong
Why not get SBS 2003 it will have everything you need for up to 75 users.

Very good idea.

 

[Boscoh]

Why would you spend all that money on Exchange for an office that small? Doesn't make sense to me.

Just run a POP3 server on Linux. It's free.

 

[classy]

2003 server. For all the reason quoted above and its very secure to boot.

 

[MysticLlama]

SBS 2k3 is a really good option if you don't see growing past 75 people anytime soon.

With 15, it doesn't seem likely, but you never know.

The migration process to "real" stuff after SBS isn't always much fun.

It's a great idea though, and should save a good amount of $$ over full products.