Good Windows email server?

[D-W-S]

Anyway, since Exchange is the panacea, what can you say against it?

It doesn't conform to either RFC2821 or RFC2822 for starters.

It accepts then bounces non-deliverables.

It doesn't know how to use DNSBLs without 3rd party plugins.

Since it requires MS-Windows it's inherently vulnerable to far too many
attacks.

If we bring email in house we have to deal with a lot of things - and
buy software or plugins to deal with spam, viruses and backups. Do
the benefits outweigh the costs in additional maintenance and
software?

If you don't use Microsoft products on a Net-facing machine and rather
stick with industry standard software (a real MTA on a Unix O/S)
instead, then your costs in terms of initial outlay and maintenance are
*lower* than with a MS system.

In the long term it's also probably cheaper then outsourcing your mail.

[Mr K. Mean]

Post by D-W-S

If we bring email in house we have to deal with a lot of things - and
buy software or plugins to deal with spam, viruses and backups. Do
the benefits outweigh the costs in additional maintenance and
software?

If you don't use Microsoft products on a Net-facing machine and rather
stick with industry standard software (a real MTA on a Unix O/S)
instead, then your costs in terms of initial outlay and maintenance are
*lower* than with a MS system.
In the long term it's also probably cheaper then outsourcing your mail.

I think the one thing you will get with Exchange that doesn't really
have a suitable equivalent is the calendar stuff. But since you don't
have that now, you probably won't miss it.

Do you have to host it on Windows? I'm not sure I can think of a
suitable industrial strength mail MTA unless sendmail or postfix run
under Windows too. Or maybe run them under Cygwin. But it wouldn't be
too tough to set up a Linux or whatever server and put a decent email
server with backup and those other nice things.

[D-W-S]

Post by Mr K. Mean
I think the one thing you will get with Exchange that doesn't really
have a suitable equivalent is the calendar stuff. But since you don't
have that now, you probably won't miss it.

There are other solutions for that. Not that I can name any since I have
no need for that kind of thing anyway, but I can't believe MS is the
only vendor to provide that kind of thing.

Who wants their mail server to do calendar stuff anyway?

Post by Mr K. Mean
But it wouldn't be too tough to set up a Linux or whatever server and
put a decent email server with backup and those other nice things.

It's also highly recommended to do so anyway and put it in front of the
Exchange server so that it isn't facing the 'Net directly. Unless you
know exactly what you're doing and/or you have someone on call to apply
patches the minute they're available, exposing MS-Exchange directly to
the 'Net is asking for trouble.

[D-W-S]

Unless you know exactly what you're doing and/or you have someone on
call to apply patches the minute they're available, exposing
MS-Exchange directly to the 'Net is asking for trouble.

Oh, come on! It can't be that bad! It -is- the panacea, after all! But,
hey, if you want I'll let you go and argue it out in
microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs :)

That would also be asking for trouble. It would be like walking into a
bikers' bar and screaming "Harleys suck!". Regardless of whether or not
it's true, it's a bad idea :)

And, you know, they give a lot more reasons than just the calendar.
Most importantly (???) they talk of automatic backups of every email -
so no biggie if your computer gets stolen.

Ever heard of IMAP?

It's been around a hell of a lot longer than Exchange and it fulfills
the same purpose in that the mail is stored on the server. It's also
compatible with almost every mail client out there, whereas you have to
use Outlook to be able to take advantage of all of Exchange's features,
and that means malformed e-mail going out and the inability to retrieve
received e-mail in exactly the form it was sent to you.

[D-W-S]

Ah, but I already have Exchange - it's part of SBS. And it can,
supposedly, do IMAP. Mind you, my understanding of things was that it
was an add on that you had to purchase, but, hey, what do I know?

Well, if you're in "purchase" mode, think of this before you go out and
buy something:

Price of a mail relay worth its salt (postfix, sendmail, exim...): $0

Price of a POP3 or IMAP4 server (like cyrus imapd): $0

Price of an easy-to-secure O/S to run all of this: $0

Firewall to protect the machine running the O/S: $0 (included in the O/S)

Antivirus to filter out viruses before they even reach your users'
inboxes (such as ClamAV for example): $0

I assume you already have the machine and the network connectivity.

[[H]omer]

Post by D-W-S

Ah, but I already have Exchange - it's part of SBS. And it can,
supposedly, do IMAP. Mind you, my understanding of things was that
it was an add on that you had to purchase, but, hey, what do I
know?

Well, if you're in "purchase" mode, think of this before you go out

I don't get it.

Why are people so reluctant to implement Linux solutions? It's not like
Linux has to prove itself in the server space.

MS Exchange is trash, like everything else MS do. What do we have to do
to these brainwashed Windows users to make them understand that.

[D-W-S]

Post by [H]omer
I don't get it.
Why are people so reluctant to implement Linux solutions? It's not like
Linux has to prove itself in the server space.

Or FreeBSD.

Some people are reluctant to interact with the drool receptacle^W^W
keyboard and are lost the minute they have to use one instead of a
mouse.

Many Windows users don't know what a text editor is. They'll try to edit
configuration files in MS-Word and then not understand why the
configuration doesn't work.

Post by [H]omer
MS Exchange is trash, like everything else MS do. What do we have to do
to these brainwashed Windows users to make them understand that.

Some never will. You can point them to pages and pages of accounts by
sysadmins of the difficulties that the OL/Exchange creates for them as
recipients of mail from that software, but that's just propaganda, isn't
it? You can show them your log files filling up with traces of Code Red
and Nimda, but that's just selective reading (although, to be honest, I
see more attempts to crack things like PHPMyAdmin and Mambo right now,
not to mention ssh brute force attacks). You can show them that
alternative software can do what M$ garbageware does but even better,
and at a fraction of the cost, and they'll never want to leave their
warm, fuzzy-feeling Windows world.

I'm glad I left those problems behind many years ago.

[D-W-S]

despite how terrible MS stuff is, people are MUCH more productive when
using it.

That depends entirely on what you're used to. I know for a fact that I'm
far *less* productive on a Windoze system.

[POP]

Post by D-W-S

despite how terrible MS stuff is, people are MUCH more
productive when
using it.

That depends entirely on what you're used to. I know for a fact that I'm
far *less* productive on a Windoze system.

That's because you got suckered! It's WindoWS, NOT WindoZE! You
must be in the wrong newsgroup! ;=)

Pop

[Porpoise]

Post by D-W-S

despite how terrible MS stuff is, people are MUCH more productive when
using it.

That depends entirely on what you're used to. I know for a fact that I'm
far *less* productive on a Windoze system.

<obvious question>
What do you produce?
</obvious question>

[Hunter]

I've had great performance & reliability from Alt-N / Deerfield's MDaemon,
does pop n imap, web interface too, plus numerous methods of filtering on
e.g. IP address, domain/hostname, email address. Also has anti-relay...
Phil

Microsoft MVPs swear up and down that Exchange is the best thing since
sliced bread. Bully for them! I'm not convinced yet.
Now we (16 people) POP our email from our ISP. He deals (harshly) with
spam and viruses. And if there's ever a problem, well, we just call.
[Haven't had any email stuff lately, but there's an ongoing network issue.
He's sent an outside consultant over to figure out what's going on - on his
dime. We're working through it and hope to have resolution soon!]
Anyway, since Exchange is the panacea, what can you say against it? If we
bring email in house we have to deal with a lot of things - and buy
software or plugins to deal with spam, viruses and backups. Do the
benefits outweigh the costs in additional maintenance and software?
cheers!
c