Exchange or not Exchange...

[EnidtheDog]

Hi all,

We are a SME with about 30 users and have a single web server runing Windows 2000 Server as follows:

Intel PIII 866
256mb PC133 Ram
2x 15 Gig IDE Harddrive 7200rpm
52 Speed CD
1.44mb Floppy Drive
2 "u" SSI Server Case
D-Link 530TX NetCard
Tyan Tomcat Motherboard

We are considering whether to install Exchange 2000 as a mail service, however I am concerned that it is a bit too complex / big for us. I have heard that Exchange should be run on a separate server from IIS and this would be too expensive.

What do people think - is Exchange 2000 worthwhile for a business our size?

Thanks in advance...

 

[SteveTheGeek]

It's a webserver for external internet anonymous access, or internal intranet-type use (or both?), and are you also using it for file/print services, and Active Directory?

I've had organizations with less than ten users running Exchange, in my experience it's less to do with the number of users than the need for groupware - shared calendars/appointments, public folders, seamless email, etc.

Keep in mind that Exchange2000 needs Active Directory as well, but Exchange, AD, and IIS running on the machine you've given the specs for looks fine to me.
-Steve

 

[EnidtheDog]

Thanks for the prompt reply Steve.

The server will host a half dozen external internet domains and will use AD. We won't be using it for intranet / print services but we hope to keep a small library of data on the site to be accessed via web page or public folders.

I guess my main questions are:
1. Is it "value for money"? and
2. Will Exchange/OWA kill the IIS performance on the hosted sites...

Either way its good to get confirmation that the machine should run Exchange 2000 ok.

Thanks again!

 

[SteveTheGeek]

The answer to question 1 is pretty much something only you can decide, and for 2, run some performance monitoring now and get a baseline - if your server is largely "idling" (how many hits per day collectively are you getting, and is it simply page views or is there some back-end scripting/processing going on?) you probably won't slow anything down perceptibly with Exchange.

All that being said, I worry that you've got a pretty good hacker target there, as IIS is one of the easiest services to attack and if someone gets root on that box they own your whole network. If it was me, I'd give some thought to hosting the public websites elsewhere instead of in-house.
-Steve