Groupwise to replace exchange 5.5

[ranijee]

Hi, My company is curently running Exch 5.5 on nt 4.0.
We are in the process of evaluating email systems to replace exch 5.5. One of the email systems we evaluate is Groupwise. What I would like to know is the stability of the software. I really hope you all that have been using Groupwise could give me sincere opinion of the software.
My company has almost 1000 users (and will increase by end of this year). Our site is the headquarter. We have 2 other branch. All the branches will be using same email systems ( 3 different locations and sites). We all are using Outlook 2000, XP, 2003 as the client. We also use public folder in Exchange server and calendaring/meeting features extensively.
Appreciate your feedback on this matter.

 

[pagy]

Stability: Before our parent compnay changed things I had Groupwise 6.0 running on a Netware 5.1 server and the uptime beofre it got turned off was 3 years, thats stability for you. it would have been longer but 3 years previous the raid controller died in the server.
What will you be running Groupwise on? Windows? or OES?
Groupwise was much more stable that the Exchange system we use now.

 

[LawnBoy]

We're a municipality and have been running GW since 5.0 (currently at 6.5). We run 2 Domains (one on Netware 6.5, the other on W2K), approx. total userbase of 2000. The system never crashes, and I mean never. The only time our GW servers get booted is when we've made config changes and don't want to bother restarting a lot of services, or after applying a SP.

The Calendaring/Appointment tracking is excellent and our users "get" how to use it. Very intuitive. Multi user scheduling of meeting rooms and the like is just beautiful.

Can you tell I'm gushing here? This is some great software.

 

[marvhuffaker]

GroupWise is STABLE.

You want to plan your migration correctly. Don't just throw GroupWise out there. It needs to be done right or it won't be any better than what you have now. I see GW systems all the time that are crippled by configuraiton issues and could have been avoided completely if done right from the get go.

As a consultant, I often tell people that the biggest problem with GroupWise is that it's so stable and so easy to manage that I can't make any money supporting it.

If you'd like to do some reading, I have some GroupWise info on my website at

http://www.redjuju.com..

Articles, comparisons, highlights, etc.






Marvin Huffaker, MCNE

http://www.redjuju.com

 

[Walyeska]

I have ran both GW and Exchange, and as you see from the group here Stability is the number one reason to go with GW. The other side for Exchange is the functionality and administration. From an administrator stand point, I love the fact that I can just ignore GW (to more extent) than Exchange, but I hate the fact that there are limited third party tools and there are other limiting factors, like the Calendaring, Remote email (for handhelds) and Public Folders in GW. In my experiences if you have a good EMail admin who knows what they are doing Exchange will serve you better in the long run. However if you do not have an EMail admin or someone with limited knowledge, GW may work better for you. The other issue I see with GW is the user limitation. GW 7 will help some of this with Outlook support. But if you want to make your users happy, pretty fonts, pretty signatures(html support) multiple calendars, use of outlook now (which some want)then Exchange is a better solution. The only (however very huge) benefit I have ever found from GW over Exchange is the stability. And I agree with marv...your planning and deployment are huge...do it right the first time, no matter which you go with.

 

[Walyeska]

One final point I forgot to mention...if you are running a Novel Domain, run Groupwise...If you are running a Windows domain, run Exchange. The email clients run smoother in their own native environments.

 

[LawnBoy]

Walyeska,
I going to have to disagree with some of your observations.

But if you want to make your users happy, pretty fonts, pretty signatures(html support) multiple calendars, use of outlook now (which some want)then Exchange is a better solution.

GW 7 does all of that. GW 5.5 has been doing all of that (except using an Outlook client) for many years.

...if you are running a Novel Domain, run Groupwise...If you are running a Windows domain, run Exchange. The email clients run smoother in their own native environments.

Don't know what you mean, all clients run on windows desktops...

 

[brichr]

We run GW and love it. GW 7 is awesome and very pretty. Most of our users like it better than Outlook 2003. However, GW has always been limited by its third party development.

I would have to say that regardless of the stability that GW offers if you run a Novell NDS directory then use GW and if you run Active Directory then probably Exchange is better for you.

 

[marvhuffaker]

There certainly are challenges when you get into enterprise environments and you have multiple directories running. But I have clients that are pure Windows shops running AD that use GroupWise for their email because of its' security and reliablity. This configuration is fine. Works great.

Microsoft will have you believe that it needs to be all or nothing. Which is the case if you use Exchange.. But if you use GroupWise, you can really run whatever platform underneath that you want.

Marvin Huffaker, MCNE

http://www.redjuju.com

 

[sstoppel]

I am a Groupwise CNA and a CNE 6 with 8 years experience administering GroupWIse. I am a Windows 2000 MCSE with 1 year experience administering Exchange 2000.

GroupWise beats exchange in stability by at least 10 to 1. It beats exchange in administrative burden by at least that. How many full-time email admins will you need for Exchange in a 1000 user multi-site environment? At least 3, I bet, and that assumes a pristine AD tree. One Groupwise admin can easily handle 1000 users if the system is set up correctly.

There is very little you can do in the outlook client that you can't do in GroupWise client. Functionally they are very similar. The only hurdle to overcome is familiarity.

 

[BigShyBear]

I am a Groupwise Master CNE, and a Microsoft MCSE. I have been working on Groupwise since GW4, and Exchange since Exchange 5.0 For me the biggest difference between Exchange and Groupwise is when they break. I cringe every time I have to work on a broken Exchange server. Backup and restore almost never works correctly. Simply moving an Exchange server over to new hardware is normally a multi-day ordeal. With Groupwise, if you are reasonably careful about your backups, moving to a new server is a one day task, and disaster recovery is relatively simple.
Yes there differences at the client side, and that may end up being the deciding factor for your company, but from the server point of view, Groupwise is a decade ahead of Exchange (and you don't need to buy a case of Rolaids).

 

[terry712]

that's spot on bgshybear

obviously i'm a grpwise guy as well - although i do have about 3000 people on an exchange 2003 system - runs ok

server wise - when i upgraded to gw7 from 6.5 - we slapped the cd in and did it live with users logged in. took about 2-3 hours - and thats 5 domains - 20 postoffices.

the exchange migration from 5.5 to 2003 - i tested in a lab for about 3 weeks and then it took me about 6 hours and that was just on 2 servers at the same site

any issues woth frpwise - i can throw about no probs

with exchange - i would be reading and praying and fairly confident that i would be speaking to someone at m$ saying "you want me to do what ....

 

[LawnBoy]

when i upgraded to gw7 from 6.5 - we slapped the cd in and did it live with users logged in.

You've got to be kidding me. That's incredible.

 

[BigShyBear]

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server wise - when i upgraded to gw7 from 6.5 - we slapped the cd in and did it live with users logged in. took about 2-3 hours - and thats 5 domains - 20 postoffices.
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I just did a 4 post office, 1 domain GW5.5 upgrade to GW7 on a Saturday morning. Users were logged off so I can't comment about that part, but the Groupwise 7 upgrade went so sweet that I was starting to get nervous, you know - the other shoe dropping deal. No other shoe dropped. The only interesting part of the Groupwise upgrade was that we had to upgrade the server that was hosting Webaccess from NW5.1 to NW6.5 since the documentation did not list the Novonyx web server we had been using as being supported in GW7.