Convert from Exchange to Mac

[jfc1003]

I have a serious performance issue with Microsoft Exchange OWA. We are a hospital and there are 30 nurses that need to check email using only 2-3 computers - so I need a web client. OWA works horribly slow on Internet Explorer, but works fast on Firefox. But Firefox doesnt load OWA correctly, so it doesnt matter. Go figure. So this is where I am at....

I would very much like to convert to a different email software that allows my users to connect via a web interface for email, and still share calendars. I need to be able to bring my Exchange data over. I dont want to spend outrageous amounts of money on licensing for 250 users. Which is about $15,000.00

Any thoughts?

 

[Zelandakh]

Try Outlook 2001 with multiple profiles.

My OWA works perfectly on a Mac. Or Entourage. Or Apple Mail.

Set Firefox to be IE5 and it is ok. Or use Safari (I've never tried but anyway).

 

[rliebsch]

Entourage also supports multiple profiles, But if your OWA is slow, Entourage will likely be slow too.

Robert Liebsch
Stone Yamashita Partners

http://www.stoneyamashita.com/

 

[porkchopexpress]

Are you using Exchange 2003?

OWA for 2003 is generally concidered to be very good and there are several options for the client even down to PDA and it's pretty thin, make sure you have it configured for the correct connection speeds and hardware.

Check here for some advice forum955

There are some great alternatives but it is a good platform and i would try to hone this before splashing out.

 

[rliebsch]

Although, if anyone has suggestions for Mail, Calendar, and Contacts supplied by another server, other than Exchange,

I am up for hearing all about it. 80 Mac users, 1 Exchange 2000 server = a dogged admin

Robert Liebsch
Stone Yamashita Partners

http://www.stoneyamashita.com/

 

[Zelandakh]

Rob,
I still have more than that. My Exchange environment still works perfectly.

Instead of paying good money to change the software, pay someone to install the thing professionally. My users have no problems whatsoever.

 

[rliebsch]

Nice condescending tone.

I am an Exchange professional. I have been working on Exchange for 10 years now. Some of the company's I have worked for had thousands of users. I have never suffered any outages or viral outbreaks. My system is configured by the book and enhanced for our particular environment. This is my job. My server uptime is 99.99%. There are no performance bottle necks in the network, anywhere in the system, or the exchange application.

I wonder what levels of quotas you have set up for your users and how heavily they use their calendars, or if you had heard the complaints of Entourage 2004 not properly reading the updates received from other users. I wonder if your users have accepted use of OWA as a "check against" their Entourage client, which mine do not.

The biggest problem is in Calendaring. People generally make a meeting request, then perform up to 20 changes on the meeting before it actually happens.

The other problem is occasionally, Entourage refuses to connect to the Exchange server. Using tcpdump, there are no requests sent to the exchange server, but the Entourage client just spins "updating inbox"

I think the technical reason this is a problem is the fact that WebDAV was implemented in Exchange2000 with SP2, thus it was an add-on. I wonder if, since HTTP is the preferred protocol for delivery of information to client, Exchange 2003 would work better with Entourage 2004 and Outlook 2003, since both rely nearly exclusively on WebDAV and MAPI/RPC over HTTP, respectively, for communication to the server.

All of this is exacerbated by the Entourage 2004 client incorrectly interpreting some of the flags in the meeting request/update/cancellation messages. And its nominal. When using MAPI clients, such as Outlook 2001 for Macintosh or Outlook 2000 or 2002 for Windows, there are no problems, period.

The end problem is this: my Exchange server has a 99.99 uptime. However, the clients have only about a 90% success/reliability rating. This makes everyone believe there is a "server" problem when it is a systemic problem called "client software incompatibility".

ideas?

Robert Liebsch
Stone Yamashita Partners

http://www.stoneyamashita.com/

 

[Zelandakh]

Rob,
There was no condescending tone made or implied. This is very unusual trouble and I would suspect that it is not caused by Exchange, but i've been wrong before.

I agree that WebDav is not exactly a "product", but an add on that was an after thought. My OWA is working very rapidly and I highly recommend OWA on 2003 as there are huge improvements on the 2000 implementation.

My Mac users (about 100) have no quotas (neither do my PC users but there you go). Primary store runs nicely at 40GB, secondary store running around 20GB plus a public store all on the same array.

Can you do an Exchange 2003 eval on a similar box and do a test?

Have you tried Mail instead of Entourage? Personally I hate it, but it may offer a different set of problems

 

[rliebsch]

Mail had some serious issues with attachments. I have had people at other enterprises verify this. The attachments under specific circumstances are not visible under Mail.

It looks like I'll be doing the eval of Exchange2003 on Server2003. It seems to be the less disruptive and less expensive first step.



Robert Liebsch
Stone Yamashita Partners

http://www.stoneyamashita.com/