spdrtanzil
MIS
Anybody has article regarding groupwise vs exchange advantages /disadvantages. Prefer independent article (not from novell)
Thanks
Thanks
Tek-Tips is the largest IT community on the Internet today!
Members share and learn making Tek-Tips Forums the best source of peer-reviewed technical information on the Internet!
-
Congratulations SkipVought on being selected by the Tek-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!
Groupwise vs Exchange 2
- Thread starter spdrtanzil
- Start date
- Status
-
1
- #3
ITsmyfault
IS-IT--Management
Here are some general bits I have collected over time.
- Groupwise is the #3 email/groupware app by seats. 39 million (IIRC) users. Sales were up 25% last year. It is not legacy, not dying and Groupwise 7 I am hearing will be the best yet.
- Admin is easier and more powerful than OE. You can drive policy from the domain level, the post office or the user. OE can't pull that off. You can have thousands of users in a single PO and configure them all with a click. That's power.
- It is so stable that several of my colleagues that have been to Novell's advanced technical training for Groupwise never get to try out the stuff they learn, bc it almost never breaks.
- All of the groupwise agents have web monitoring built in so you can check on your system status from anywhere. You also get an app called Grouwpise Monitor which lets you watch the entire system in a single well designed web interface. (it installs on IIS) This is also at no extra charge.
- It has a lot of fault tolerance built in. You can create multiple web access agents, multiple webacces webservers, multiple gwia's.. all at no charge.
- If your server croaks, it is easy to restore. You restore the files from tape, point the system to the files and roll. OE has a lot of Active directory fiddling that has to occur first. (not fun when you're trying to get the system back up..)
- There is no baloney 16GB limit on the post office size. Exchange has a little known limit here. Your PO hits 16GB and you either have to delete stuff, or upgrade to Enterprise Edition. That's always a fun surprise project. I know 4 folks who have been through that..
- IIRC the reccomended # of admins to users on Groupwise is 500:1. The most extreme case I have heard (at a college in UK) has a 10,000:1 ratio. Don't try this at home, but it is possible.
- Of the 3 leading email/groupware vendors, 2 have not been affected by viruses at all. Groupwise and Notes. Avg downtime of Exchange systems during major outbreaks? 1.5 days. I don't know about you all, but if my email were ever down for a day and a half, I'd be out of a job..
- Groupwise client connects to the post office with proprietary 40-bit encryption which has never been broken. SSL is also available if you prefer. many of my users with broadband run the full client from home and it runs great (and secure). They love having the same functionality.
- In version 6 and up, you can let users restore their own deleted email by defining a restore area on a server.
Here are some other things I have found on the novell support forums..
--------------------------------------------
....Besides the additional expense of administrators (remember that Exchange reccomends 50 users to one admin, and any other add ons (like doc management) require additional admins), there is the software costs. GW has doc management included, as exchange/Outlook has to have an add on (read that as more software and licensing costs. Check this site out for all your information:
plus this one:
-------------
GW charges for the Mailboxes only, You can run the POAs and MTAs on any handy server, NW, Windows and now Linux. Exchange requires a W2k3 server (for Exchange to run upon) and then you need the Windows cals as well as the Exchange cals and the Exchange server....
If you have more than 75 users for your mail system you will need at least 3 servers, 2 for your AD and one for your exchange. Any server that is a DC (Domain Controller) disables all caching on that server. This makes the performance, well shall we settle for "not that good"
Only OL2003 has caching mode, and that uses RDP over HTTP. So far, in the first year of this they have managed to fix only 9 security vulnerabilities... No not in the whole of Exchange, just RDP over HTTP You cannot swap from caching to remote in the same way as we do either. Indeed M$ recommend that, despite RDP over HTTP, you always use a VPN. They don't seem to have heard about SSL.
----------------
Also have a look at
and
___________
1) As already noted you pay per user, not per server install. This allows me to rollout dedicated servers for SMTP gateways - after all you should have more than one (just in case).
2) All server based messages and documents are indexed, using a powerful index engine. Exchange uses the basic SQL indexing for just the messages. This can create very large systems if turned on (default is off).
3) You have a built in document viewer than can handle many common document types for GroupWise. For Outlook you have to purchase the applications (MS' hope) or a third party tool.
4) Outlook has a 2GB limit on the size of its database - I have one user with 120,000 messages in their account, which would break this limit 4 times over.
5) With GroupWise, a user can operate the cilent on a number of machines at the same time, in different modes. My 120K message user has (all running at once).
1) Office machine - directly connect to main server
2) Home machine - using caching mode across ADSL
3) Mobile machine - using remote, via Dial up, ADSL,
access via Mobile Phone, wireless PDA, etc is no extra charge.. HTML profiles are included as part of web server install which runs on either IIS or Apache. Neither is true of OE.
... well that should get you started.
- Groupwise is the #3 email/groupware app by seats. 39 million (IIRC) users. Sales were up 25% last year. It is not legacy, not dying and Groupwise 7 I am hearing will be the best yet.
- Admin is easier and more powerful than OE. You can drive policy from the domain level, the post office or the user. OE can't pull that off. You can have thousands of users in a single PO and configure them all with a click. That's power.
- It is so stable that several of my colleagues that have been to Novell's advanced technical training for Groupwise never get to try out the stuff they learn, bc it almost never breaks.
- All of the groupwise agents have web monitoring built in so you can check on your system status from anywhere. You also get an app called Grouwpise Monitor which lets you watch the entire system in a single well designed web interface. (it installs on IIS) This is also at no extra charge.
- It has a lot of fault tolerance built in. You can create multiple web access agents, multiple webacces webservers, multiple gwia's.. all at no charge.
- If your server croaks, it is easy to restore. You restore the files from tape, point the system to the files and roll. OE has a lot of Active directory fiddling that has to occur first. (not fun when you're trying to get the system back up..)
- There is no baloney 16GB limit on the post office size. Exchange has a little known limit here. Your PO hits 16GB and you either have to delete stuff, or upgrade to Enterprise Edition. That's always a fun surprise project. I know 4 folks who have been through that..
- IIRC the reccomended # of admins to users on Groupwise is 500:1. The most extreme case I have heard (at a college in UK) has a 10,000:1 ratio. Don't try this at home, but it is possible.
- Of the 3 leading email/groupware vendors, 2 have not been affected by viruses at all. Groupwise and Notes. Avg downtime of Exchange systems during major outbreaks? 1.5 days. I don't know about you all, but if my email were ever down for a day and a half, I'd be out of a job..
- Groupwise client connects to the post office with proprietary 40-bit encryption which has never been broken. SSL is also available if you prefer. many of my users with broadband run the full client from home and it runs great (and secure). They love having the same functionality.
- In version 6 and up, you can let users restore their own deleted email by defining a restore area on a server.
Here are some other things I have found on the novell support forums..
--------------------------------------------
....Besides the additional expense of administrators (remember that Exchange reccomends 50 users to one admin, and any other add ons (like doc management) require additional admins), there is the software costs. GW has doc management included, as exchange/Outlook has to have an add on (read that as more software and licensing costs. Check this site out for all your information:
plus this one:
-------------
GW charges for the Mailboxes only, You can run the POAs and MTAs on any handy server, NW, Windows and now Linux. Exchange requires a W2k3 server (for Exchange to run upon) and then you need the Windows cals as well as the Exchange cals and the Exchange server....
If you have more than 75 users for your mail system you will need at least 3 servers, 2 for your AD and one for your exchange. Any server that is a DC (Domain Controller) disables all caching on that server. This makes the performance, well shall we settle for "not that good"
Only OL2003 has caching mode, and that uses RDP over HTTP. So far, in the first year of this they have managed to fix only 9 security vulnerabilities... No not in the whole of Exchange, just RDP over HTTP You cannot swap from caching to remote in the same way as we do either. Indeed M$ recommend that, despite RDP over HTTP, you always use a VPN. They don't seem to have heard about SSL.
----------------
Also have a look at
and
___________
1) As already noted you pay per user, not per server install. This allows me to rollout dedicated servers for SMTP gateways - after all you should have more than one (just in case).
2) All server based messages and documents are indexed, using a powerful index engine. Exchange uses the basic SQL indexing for just the messages. This can create very large systems if turned on (default is off).
3) You have a built in document viewer than can handle many common document types for GroupWise. For Outlook you have to purchase the applications (MS' hope) or a third party tool.
4) Outlook has a 2GB limit on the size of its database - I have one user with 120,000 messages in their account, which would break this limit 4 times over.
5) With GroupWise, a user can operate the cilent on a number of machines at the same time, in different modes. My 120K message user has (all running at once).
1) Office machine - directly connect to main server
2) Home machine - using caching mode across ADSL
3) Mobile machine - using remote, via Dial up, ADSL,
access via Mobile Phone, wireless PDA, etc is no extra charge.. HTML profiles are included as part of web server install which runs on either IIS or Apache. Neither is true of OE.
... well that should get you started.
-
1
- #4
marvhuffaker
MIS
I would like to expand on one area that itsmyfault only touched on briefly... Viruses and Security. Often disregarded by microsoft as no big deal, but should be a MAJOR consideration.
I have never seen a virus attack a groupwise system and propogate itself to other groupwise users and use security holes in Groupwise as its method of attack. Exchange has got to have the WORST record for any product EVER in this category.
When I worked at MCI / Worldcom a few years ago, their primary infrastructure was Novell Netware, and their email system was Exchange. They also had tons of NT/2000 servers used as application servers. I managed quite a few Netware servers, and didn't touch any MS stuff. In the two years that I was there, we saw 3 major waves of virus attacks that spread via security holes in exchange and outlook. The first one was the 'ILOVEYOU' virus. Another was "Melissa".. I can't remember the third. In at least two of the cases, the damage was so widespread that the Infrastructure teams around the world were forced to shut down routers at all major data centers in order to quaranteen the spread so they could get their Microsoft servers patched and erradicated from the virus. It's the only way they could keep the virus from spreading further.
That may not seem like a big deal.. But consider this.. At the time, there were 60,000 MCI employees and the entire company was brought to a complete halt for at least 3-4 days. No network traffic was allowed in or out. No email. No Internet. No Nothing. They only turned the data centers back on after they had cleaned out the viruses and certified that every single Windows NT / Exchange box had been fixed, patched, and everything else they have to do to them.
In the mean time, i sat on my ass for 3-4 days wondering what the comotion was all about because it didn't touch my Novell boxes. And now as an independent consultant, on all of my current client GroupWise systems, I've never seen a virus attack spread or propogate because of Groupwise. In fact, I hardly even keep up on any of the new virus scares because they can't touch my systems. The only time I hear about them is if I'm at lunch with a MS person and they're losing sleep cause they're company got slaughtered again.
Even if your company is not that big, how can you afford to be down for 3 days, over and over again each time a new security flaw is exploited in outlook/exchange.
Marvin Huffaker MCNE, CNE
Marvin Huffaker Consulting
I have never seen a virus attack a groupwise system and propogate itself to other groupwise users and use security holes in Groupwise as its method of attack. Exchange has got to have the WORST record for any product EVER in this category.
When I worked at MCI / Worldcom a few years ago, their primary infrastructure was Novell Netware, and their email system was Exchange. They also had tons of NT/2000 servers used as application servers. I managed quite a few Netware servers, and didn't touch any MS stuff. In the two years that I was there, we saw 3 major waves of virus attacks that spread via security holes in exchange and outlook. The first one was the 'ILOVEYOU' virus. Another was "Melissa".. I can't remember the third. In at least two of the cases, the damage was so widespread that the Infrastructure teams around the world were forced to shut down routers at all major data centers in order to quaranteen the spread so they could get their Microsoft servers patched and erradicated from the virus. It's the only way they could keep the virus from spreading further.
That may not seem like a big deal.. But consider this.. At the time, there were 60,000 MCI employees and the entire company was brought to a complete halt for at least 3-4 days. No network traffic was allowed in or out. No email. No Internet. No Nothing. They only turned the data centers back on after they had cleaned out the viruses and certified that every single Windows NT / Exchange box had been fixed, patched, and everything else they have to do to them.
In the mean time, i sat on my ass for 3-4 days wondering what the comotion was all about because it didn't touch my Novell boxes. And now as an independent consultant, on all of my current client GroupWise systems, I've never seen a virus attack spread or propogate because of Groupwise. In fact, I hardly even keep up on any of the new virus scares because they can't touch my systems. The only time I hear about them is if I'm at lunch with a MS person and they're losing sleep cause they're company got slaughtered again.
Even if your company is not that big, how can you afford to be down for 3 days, over and over again each time a new security flaw is exploited in outlook/exchange.
Marvin Huffaker MCNE, CNE
Marvin Huffaker Consulting
I have been with GW for over 7 years now (v4.x to current v). All I will say is DITTO to all of the above posts from very respected gentlemen. I have an IT buddy that oversee's an MS Exchange E-Mail system. All I will say is that he has had to cancel on a couple of Golf matches because of Exchange problems. I'm not saying that I have never had any problems with our GW system (3 Domains, 1 MTA, 1 GWIA, 6 PO's, 2 Web Application servers, 2 Web Agent servers, GWAVA's AV/Spam solution and 5,801 users) but, I have never missed a Golf match due to it.
FarOut
V-Peace-V
FarOut
V-Peace-V
ITsmyfault
IS-IT--Management
Wow Marv.. that was an amazing example. Let's flesh that out just a bit.
60,000 employees sitting on their butts for 3 days. What might that cost?
60,000 * 3 days * 8 hours a day * some avg hourly wage.. say $20/hr (40k per year as an avg salary across the firm).
That's $28.8 Million. And that's not including the OT pay to all the folks working to fix the networks, loss of trust by clients, Potential loss of new business since they were unreachable, etc. . . That is a major problem. And it happened more than once. An IT manager with any sense would have ripped out exchange after the 2nd incident and put in Groupwise or Notes. IMHO..
It's easy to choose Exchange bc "everyone else does it" but don't be a sheep. We have a saying around here.. "sheep get slaughtered". Don't think for a second that bc lots of folks use it, it is a good and reliable piece of software and they don't have problems with it. They absolutely do. You have to decide if the risks of running it outweigh the benefits. Whichever email system you choose, you're going to live with it for a long time. Choose wisely.
60,000 employees sitting on their butts for 3 days. What might that cost?
60,000 * 3 days * 8 hours a day * some avg hourly wage.. say $20/hr (40k per year as an avg salary across the firm).
That's $28.8 Million. And that's not including the OT pay to all the folks working to fix the networks, loss of trust by clients, Potential loss of new business since they were unreachable, etc. . . That is a major problem. And it happened more than once. An IT manager with any sense would have ripped out exchange after the 2nd incident and put in Groupwise or Notes. IMHO..
It's easy to choose Exchange bc "everyone else does it" but don't be a sheep. We have a saying around here.. "sheep get slaughtered". Don't think for a second that bc lots of folks use it, it is a good and reliable piece of software and they don't have problems with it. They absolutely do. You have to decide if the risks of running it outweigh the benefits. Whichever email system you choose, you're going to live with it for a long time. Choose wisely.
marvhuffaker
MIS
Well, if you have followed the success of MCI lately.... the poor management decisions pretty much speak for themselves. On the bright side, since they only have about 20,000 employees or less now, the virus attacks only cost 1/3 of what they used to. So cheers to progress and saving money. <grin>
- Thread starter
- #8
Very interesting. I was wondering whether anybody would mind if I put these comments on my website? Also, is GroupWise installed mostly on Linux, NetWare, Unix, Solaris or Windows?
Thanks
Seb
(Email me at sebpayne@gmail.com if you want to send me your comments)
Thanks
Seb
(Email me at sebpayne@gmail.com if you want to send me your comments)
First, I generally agree with the above. Be careful in comparing GW to OE, though- they are completely different animals. OE can be compared to Thunderbird or Eudora, if you like, but GW compares to Outlook.
I would hazard a guess that GW runs mostly on NetWare, mostly because Novell shops use it. Second Windows and third (probably distant) Linux. I don't think it works on any Unix.
I would hazard a guess that GW runs mostly on NetWare, mostly because Novell shops use it. Second Windows and third (probably distant) Linux. I don't think it works on any Unix.
marvhuffaker
MIS
About a month ago I migrated a Novell Groupwise system to a Windows Groupwise system and will never recommend it again. Although to the end users, the functionality is the same, the base platform is drastically different. If you're used to the stability and ease of management of NetWare, you'll hate running it on Windows. All of my clients that use GroupWise, except for one, run it on NetWare. Just my $1.24 worth.
Marvin Huffaker MCNE, CNE
Marvin Huffaker Consulting
Marvin Huffaker MCNE, CNE
Marvin Huffaker Consulting
- Status
Similar threads
- Locked
- Question
- Locked
- Question