We currently have a single Exchange 2003 SP2 server servicing all our 
mailboxes and public folders.

In six months or so I need to look at replacing the hardware, which 
means I need to be thinking now what I want to do on the software side 
for testing/budgeting purposes etc.

I'm looking at the feature list of Exchange 2007 vs. 2003 and I'm kind 
of scratching my head and thinking "What's the big deal"?

We've just gone down the route of a SAN and a small ESX cluster, and 
what I'm currently thinking is skip the software upgrade next year and 
stick with 2003, and get it virtualized properly to add some 
resiliency, then review it the following year.

I'd welcome all feedback but I'm looking at all the E27K comparison 
matrices and tbh there's not much that's convincing me that the $70k or 
so just in CAL costs is going to benefit us sufficiently to justify it.

Thanks in advance

Usenet,

What are your business and technical requirements for upgrading?  What are 
your existing 'pain-points' with Exchange 2003 that you are looking to 
overcome with Exchange 2007?  These facts are what i would use to determine 
if an upgrade is just a 'cool' thing, or whether it will bring true, solid 
business value.  Without these pieces of information, i cannot recommend 
anything unfortunately :-(

-- 
Chris S
MCSE, MCITP:Messaging, CISSP


"Usenet" wrote:

> We currently have a single Exchange 2003 SP2 server servicing all our 
> mailboxes and public folders.
> 
> In six months or so I need to look at replacing the hardware, which 
> means I need to be thinking now what I want to do on the software side 
> for testing/budgeting purposes etc.
> 
> I'm looking at the feature list of Exchange 2007 vs. 2003 and I'm kind 
> of scratching my head and thinking "What's the big deal"?
> 
> We've just gone down the route of a SAN and a small ESX cluster, and 
> what I'm currently thinking is skip the software upgrade next year and 
> stick with 2003, and get it virtualized properly to add some 
> resiliency, then review it the following year.
> 
> I'd welcome all feedback but I'm looking at all the E27K comparison 
> matrices and tbh there's not much that's convincing me that the $70k or 
> so just in CAL costs is going to benefit us sufficiently to justify it.
> 
> Thanks in advance
>

On Mon, 12 May 2008 18:22:06 +0100, Usenet <usenet@nospam.please>
wrote:

>We currently have a single Exchange 2003 SP2 server servicing all our 
>mailboxes and public folders.
>
>In six months or so I need to look at replacing the hardware, which 
>means I need to be thinking now what I want to do on the software side 
>for testing/budgeting purposes etc.
>
>I'm looking at the feature list of Exchange 2007 vs. 2003 and I'm kind 
>of scratching my head and thinking "What's the big deal"?
>
>We've just gone down the route of a SAN and a small ESX cluster, and 
>what I'm currently thinking is skip the software upgrade next year and 
>stick with 2003, and get it virtualized properly to add some 
>resiliency, then review it the following year.
>
>I'd welcome all feedback but I'm looking at all the E27K comparison 
>matrices and tbh there's not much that's convincing me that the $70k or 
>so just in CAL costs is going to benefit us sufficiently to justify it.
>
>Thanks in advance

Can't argue with any of that.
If all you want is what you already have then there's no need to
migrate to Exchange 2007. You might as well wait for Exchange-Next,
whenever that's going to ship.
Virtualising 2003 is fine as long as you're in an agreement with MS
that gives you the support. Well, either that or you accept the
support limitations.
If you're looking at the feature matrix and can't see a business need
to go from 2003 to 2007 then the correct answer is not to bother.
Where that falls down is when 2003 goes out of support and with a fair
wind and a decent bit of luck you should have Exchange-next available
before 2003 goes that way.
What that means is you will have plenty of time to learn Exchange on
Windows 2008 as the version of Windows will be tipping off the end of
the support matrix by the time Exchange-next comes out.
I'd certainly go into the lab with E2K7 on W2K8 to get to know it - or
more accurately the Windows part - unless you car get or are on a beta
programme for Exchange-next.

In article ,
 Christopher Smith  wrote:

> What are your business and technical requirements for upgrading?  What are 
> your existing 'pain-points' with Exchange 2003 that you are looking to 
> overcome with Exchange 2007?  These facts are what i would use to determine 
> if an upgrade is just a 'cool' thing, or whether it will bring true, solid 
> business value.  Without these pieces of information, i cannot recommend 
> anything unfortunately :-(

Because we lease our hardware we're able to do a replacement every X 
years, though we're not on software assurance so anything like a Windows 
or Exchange upgrade hits us hard on CALs.

There are, at present, no "pain points" that I can think of.

I don't get users coming to me asking "Can it do this" as for what we 
use it for, which is email, public folders, and scheduling, it seems to 
do it all.

Not often I can say that about any product, but Exchange 2003 seems to 
just sit there and, having been setup right, quietly works.

About the only thing I can think of right now would be Out Of Office 
being allowable per user rather than at an organisational level.

I believe Microsoft have been quite cunning in using years in product 
names as you do find yourself thinking "Ooh it's 2008/9 and I'm still 
using Exchange 2003" etc.

In article ,
 "Mark Arnold [MVP]"  wrote:

> You might as well wait for Exchange-Next,
> whenever that's going to ship.

Yeah I did have a quick look and as I see it it's unlikely be any time 
before 2010/11?

> Virtualising 2003 is fine as long as you're in an agreement with MS
> that gives you the support. Well, either that or you accept the
> support limitations.

Our support agreement is Google and Usenet :-)  My understanding is that 
Microsoft have a policy that they may require you to replicate a problem 
on physical hardware, but are reasonably accommodating if it's an issue 
that is clearly nothing to do with the platform being used.

Tbh there's enough VMware white papers and guides and people using it 
that it's not a major concern other than making sure I can get decent 
performance.

After your reply - i think that you have the answer.  It doesn't sound as 
though there is a business case to accept the cost and/or risk associated 
with the upgrade. 
-- 
Chris S
MCSE, MCITP:Messaging, CISSP


"Usenet" wrote:

> In article ,
>  Christopher Smith  wrote:
> 
> > What are your business and technical requirements for upgrading?  What are 
> > your existing 'pain-points' with Exchange 2003 that you are looking to 
> > overcome with Exchange 2007?  These facts are what i would use to determine 
> > if an upgrade is just a 'cool' thing, or whether it will bring true, solid 
> > business value.  Without these pieces of information, i cannot recommend 
> > anything unfortunately :-(
> 
> Because we lease our hardware we're able to do a replacement every X 
> years, though we're not on software assurance so anything like a Windows 
> or Exchange upgrade hits us hard on CALs.
> 
> There are, at present, no "pain points" that I can think of.
> 
> I don't get users coming to me asking "Can it do this" as for what we 
> use it for, which is email, public folders, and scheduling, it seems to 
> do it all.
> 
> Not often I can say that about any product, but Exchange 2003 seems to 
> just sit there and, having been setup right, quietly works.
> 
> About the only thing I can think of right now would be Out Of Office 
> being allowable per user rather than at an organisational level.
> 
> I believe Microsoft have been quite cunning in using years in product 
> names as you do find yourself thinking "Ooh it's 2008/9 and I'm still 
> using Exchange 2003" etc.
>

Hola!

In the original poster's situation, I doubt the upgrade makes much
sense.

Our organization (about 200 mailboxes) on Exchange 2003 SP2 had been
running beautifully for months.  We don't use any mobile devices and
outside of in office Outlook clients, OWA is the only thing used.

No email complaints for users but I've recently finished Exchange 2007
upgrade just because we shell out the big bucks for software assurance
and because the number 2007 is closer to 2008 than 2003 is.  Its the
latest cool thing.

The upgrade to 2007 went very well and I can't complain about anything
I've seen in 2007 thus far.  It appears to work just fine as 2003 did.

However, I can't say that there's any tremendous new features that
we're making use of.   We sure did spend tons of money on the new
server and all for it though.

So, speaking from experience, its hard to see that the upgrade would
be worthwhile given the original situation.

Just my two cents!

Again, no issues with Exchange 2007.  I just don't think it made
"business sense" for us to go to it.

Good luck!

On Mon, 12 May 2008 19:04:03 +0100, Usenet <usenet@nospam.please>
wrote:

>In article ,
> "Mark Arnold [MVP]"  wrote:
>
>> You might as well wait for Exchange-Next,
>> whenever that's going to ship.
>
>Yeah I did have a quick look and as I see it it's unlikely be any time 
>before 2010/11?
>
>> Virtualising 2003 is fine as long as you're in an agreement with MS
>> that gives you the support. Well, either that or you accept the
>> support limitations.
>
>Our support agreement is Google and Usenet :-)  My understanding is that 
>Microsoft have a policy that they may require you to replicate a problem 
>on physical hardware, but are reasonably accommodating if it's an issue 
>that is clearly nothing to do with the platform being used.
>
>Tbh there's enough VMware white papers and guides and people using it 
>that it's not a major concern other than making sure I can get decent 
>performance.

Sage words.

I believe that if you really want to cluster, then you ought to do it with 
Exchange 2007 because you can deploy CCR and get database redundancy.  I've 
never thought that Exchange 2003 clusters offer much business value.
-- 
Ed Crowley
MVP - Exchange
"Protecting the world from PSTs and brick backups!"

"Christopher Smith"  wrote in message 
news:11F0A450-1EE3-42A6-A465-C565CC185F45@microsoft.com...
> Usenet,
>
> What are your business and technical requirements for upgrading?  What are
> your existing 'pain-points' with Exchange 2003 that you are looking to
> overcome with Exchange 2007?  These facts are what i would use to 
> determine
> if an upgrade is just a 'cool' thing, or whether it will bring true, solid
> business value.  Without these pieces of information, i cannot recommend
> anything unfortunately :-(
>
> -- 
> Chris S
> MCSE, MCITP:Messaging, CISSP
>
>
> "Usenet" wrote:
>
>> We currently have a single Exchange 2003 SP2 server servicing all our
>> mailboxes and public folders.
>>
>> In six months or so I need to look at replacing the hardware, which
>> means I need to be thinking now what I want to do on the software side
>> for testing/budgeting purposes etc.
>>
>> I'm looking at the feature list of Exchange 2007 vs. 2003 and I'm kind
>> of scratching my head and thinking "What's the big deal"?
>>
>> We've just gone down the route of a SAN and a small ESX cluster, and
>> what I'm currently thinking is skip the software upgrade next year and
>> stick with 2003, and get it virtualized properly to add some
>> resiliency, then review it the following year.
>>
>> I'd welcome all feedback but I'm looking at all the E27K comparison
>> matrices and tbh there's not much that's convincing me that the $70k or
>> so just in CAL costs is going to benefit us sufficiently to justify it.
>>
>> Thanks in advance
>>

In article ,
 Drew  wrote:

> So, speaking from experience, its hard to see that the upgrade would
> be worthwhile given the original situation.
> 
> Just my two cents!
> 
> Again, no issues with Exchange 2007.  I just don't think it made
> "business sense" for us to go to it.

That's the conclusion I've come to.

I've intentionally come to look into this early to give me time to do a 
U-Turn if something comes along that makes me think "Wow" and want to 
try and get approval for it, but the timing would be such that not only 
would it be the CAL cost, but the cost of CALs with SA as it'd be a 
waste of money going to 2007 next year with no upgrade path.

So plan A seems to be an extra server or two for the ESX cluster and a 
couple of Exchange Standard licenses and off we go.

cheers all!

On Tue, 13 May 2008 18:47:49 +0100, Usenet <usenet@nospam.please>
wrote:

>In article ,
> Drew  wrote:
>
>> So, speaking from experience, its hard to see that the upgrade would
>> be worthwhile given the original situation.
>> 
>> Just my two cents!
>> 
>> Again, no issues with Exchange 2007.  I just don't think it made
>> "business sense" for us to go to it.


>
>That's the conclusion I've come to.


Of course, you could have said the same thing about upgrading to 2003
as well :)

>
>I've intentionally come to look into this early to give me time to do a 
>U-Turn if something comes along that makes me think "Wow" and want to 
>try and get approval for it, but the timing would be such that not only 
>would it be the CAL cost, but the cost of CALs with SA as it'd be a 
>waste of money going to 2007 next year with no upgrade path.

It sounds as if you have small enough shop that allows you to use exch
on a virtual machine with no performance issues.
On the one hand, I agree with you, on the other, I think once you do
get to Exch 2007 or beyond, you'll find that it offers alot of
features and nifty improvements that are not really appreciated until
you use it. Personally, I would never go back to 2003 now that Im on
2007. But thats just me. 




>
>So plan A seems to be an extra server or two for the ESX cluster and a 
>couple of Exchange Standard licenses and off we go.
>
>cheers all!

In article ,
 Andy David  {MVP}  wrote:

> It sounds as if you have small enough shop that allows you to use exch
> on a virtual machine with no performance issues.
> On the one hand, I agree with you, on the other, I think once you do
> get to Exch 2007 or beyond, you'll find that it offers alot of
> features and nifty improvements that are not really appreciated until
> you use it. Personally, I would never go back to 2003 now that Im on
> 2007. But thats just me. 

Well the rough plan is a couple of VM's at the very least, though I also 
intend to do some digging into the pros and cons of using multiple 
storage groups/databases as I'm sure there are ways to improve things 
like backup windows (using ntbackup right now with all the optimization 
tweaks/switches) and to just put us in a much better position should we 
lose a piece of hardware.

I'm sure I'll be back nearer the time if there's any questions or issues 
outstanding.

Cheers!