Preparing to Implement Exchange- Questions

[bran2235]

Hi everyone-
I currently support about 300 users who use Outlook 2000 which uses .pst files (because our current mail server is another vendor (Imail) by ipswitch).

Considering moving to exchange becuase it looks like using pst files over or on a network is causing problems- such as disconnects from their pst file. Can't find much info about this issue other than that MS is not supporting pst files over a network... (?)

DOES EXCHANGE USE PST FILES?? How is it that Exchange will be better for us (as far as performance from the end-user's perspective??... From what I can gather is that the way exchange and the mailboxes work, it would definitely be a fix for us- ANY THOUGHTS??

Any thoughts are greatly appreciated!!!!

Brandon

 

[belpepsi]

It is Outlook that controls the location of PST files. Whether they are local or stored on a Network Share. Network Share is our preferred method as they will be backed up as part of our backup strategy.

A question for you. When you move to Exchange, what requirement do you see for PST's? Connect to the Exchange server in Corporate mode with the Outlook Client and then all users can access email directly from the server.

 

[bran2235]

thanks belpepsi-
Here's our basic setup.
Users using Outlook 2000 via a Citrix published desktop. Everyone connects to their pst which is in a network share.

Now that we have about 250-300 pst files/users, all of the sudden people are losing their connection to their pst- when they hit Send/Recieve, they get an error msg explaining that the connection to their pst "cannot be contacted". This happens to almost everyone on a random basis...

I at first thought it was a size problem (too big, etc.)- however, this also happens to users who have brand new accounts (very very small psts!!)-

According to some other posts which I have read, MS no longer supports using pst files stored on network shares- HOW DOES EXCHANGE WORK THEN?? Some other folks have said we need to move to Exchange to fix this. I am assuming that MS Exchange is setup different(?)

AS FAR AS YOUR QUESTION- No requirements that I can think of yet-- other than the mailbox (pst?) has to be centrally located somewhere so that we can back them up easier. Is it common practice with Exchange to place mailboxes LOCAL on the EXCHANGE SERVER ?? Help!

THANKS AGAIN!
Brandon

 

[belpepsi]

Ok. We currently run a corporate network of similar size to yours. All of our users have a mailbox on Exchange Server 2003. We configure their Outlook 2000/2002/2003 in Corporate mode to connect directly to the Exchange server. No need for PST files. We back up the Exchange server Information Store(s) everynight with Veritas Backup Exec. This not only backs up all email it commits and purges Exchange Log files. We also have a few users on Citrix Metaframe 1.8 and they access Outlook 2000 in the same way. Not as a published app, but that is just as easy to do.

Hope this helps