Help with exchange server

RabidDonkey

Hi,


I was wondering if anyone might have some advice for getting the right hardware for an exchange server.

I just started working for a new startup company, and i am in charge of handling all of the Backend IT. First order of business is to get an exchange server up and running. I have worked with other email applications, but this comapny wants to be pretty much and all windows environment, so I am going to get a machine with SBS 2003 on it with Microsoft exchange. I havent worked with Exchange so im not sure how powerful it needs to be. There will only be about 5-10 employess that will be using it initially with more in the next year. I will be adding different servers later so I am looking for a Rack server. Money isnt really a concern, I just dont want overkill but i still dont want any perfformance issues later down the road.

I guess my questions are:

Does anyone have any Hardware recommendations?

Does anyone have any experince with 2003 vs 2007? Should i just stick with 2003 or is it worth it to upgrade to 2007?

If anyone has any tips I would greatly Appreciate it.


Thanks Much

Rabid

blincoln

I would really recommend seeing if you can convince the company to pony up for the real version of Exchange. SBS is terribly crippled IMO, and it's especially annoying that it forces you to have your Exchange server be a domain controller.

I would suggest getting another system to put on the network perimeter to act as a buffer. Having Exchange exposed to the internet is dangerous at best. We use Barracudas, but if you feel like saving money you could do it yourself with a Linux system.

2007 is vastly different than 2003. For one thing, you have to run it on a 64-bit OS, so if you're not ready to do that then forget it.

If you're looking for a scalable server, I'd recommend a decent dual CPU dual core rack system with at least 4GB of RAM, separate RAID channels for the system and app/data arrays, with 500+GB of space on the app/data array. If you want to go with 2007, the price/performance sweet spot is around 16GB of RAM IIRC.

Feral

First off, I agree with everything blincoln said about SBS. SBS is a pain in the ass sometimes, and a big reason for that is because your Exchange server and your Active Directory controller really should not be running on the same box at the same time. If you're going to see any growth at all, SBS is going to become a straight-jacket really quickly.

Secondly, being an all-Windows environment does not necessarily mean you have to run Exchange. There are plenty of POP3 mail servers that run fine on Windows. MDaemon, VisNetic, and MailEnable are all good options for that. You can use SpamAssassin running on ActivePERL for spam filtration and I guarantee it'll be about 10 times easier to manage than an Exchange server of any size. The drawback is that you won't have PIM sharing; there are third-party apps for that but I have no personal experience with them. (I have done calendar collaboration using knowledge management products like Docushare, but that's another kettle of fish entirely.)

Third, if you want to run an all-Windows shop, you will need a strong firewall. blincoln suggested a Linux box, obviously that's not going to work if you're going all Windows. You can run Microsoft ISA on a seperate box, but it would probably be easier and more secure to go with an out-of-the-box solution.

Incidentally, what's your projected growth rate for the next three years?

PirateJon

Guys... c'mon... SBS isn't THAT bad. Ditto the pref for a stand alone box though. It's just good practice.

1) Hardware Rec:: for 10 people SBS on a half-decent desktop would be fine. I'd recommend something like a HP proliant DL360. rack mount, fairly cheap, good support from HP. If you need more redundancy look at the 380 series.

2) 2k3 vs 2k7 :: no brainer - stick with 2k3. Mainly for ease of support as it's pretty much where it needs to be.

Tip: If you're working on exchange pick up an incident-based support contract. Put it in your budget just in case you need it.

RabidDonkey

Thanks for all of the Help guys.

Another reason that I am going with exchange is that the company's founders all just came from companies that used exchange. That is what they are used to and that is what they want. I already tried to make the case that there are cheaper better options out there; but as you guys probably all know that is a moot point.


Our company also has an account through Dell, so that is where I need to buy the hardware from. I also found out that Dell Rack servers do not support SBS 2003 for some odd reason so I am going to go with server 2003 and add exchange 2003 to it. I was thinking about either 860 or The 1950

The 1950 has a xeon processor and actually has a free second processor which is nice, and It doesent really cost that much more. I just dont really know if I will ever need that kind of power. I am employee Number 7 I think, and I dont really think there will be very many more employees hired on. I think in the next three years 20 employees will be pushing it. The database however is going to get really big, but that is all from client side, and that will all be handled by a different server.

Between those 2 (or if there are any other out there that might be better) do you guys think it is worth the extra money to go with the 1950 or should I stick with the 860 and buy something else?

Ruckus

You don't need super-lots for a low user exchange server. We're using a Dual P3-750 with 1GB of ram to handle mail for over a hundred users.

DO get a good anti-spam/antivirus package for your server, and keep it behind an enterprise class firewall. We use McAfee products for ours (Groupshield and Enterprise Antivirus 8.5).

One other thing, set user mailbox quotas (I use 150MB) and enforce them. Never let your users send or recieve large files (I use 10MB as a limit), if they need to transfer files that big then you need to get your own fileserver.

Backup the mail store nightly to at least fileserver, preferably to tapes, I use a 20 tape four week rotation. I like BackupExec, which is now a symantec product I guess.

PirateJon

No sweat. One of my hats is exchange admin for a midsize company with unusually high uptime requirements.

RabidDonkey wrote: »

The database however is going to get really big,

How big? EXCH 2k3 will support up to a 75GB store. If it's going to be bigger (or could be bigger) you'll need exch enterprise.

For the hardware, either should be ok...BUT... if you're reallly going to have a big store, i'd get bigger chassie with more drives. Exch is a just a (horrible/hacked/ugly) database. It like memory, cache, and fast disks. Getting a good raid setup would be worth the money to improve write performance. In any case, avoid SATA. Go SAS.


Other stuff...
Learn about the dial-tone database and recovery storage groups. Might save your butt.
http://msexchangeteam.com - exchange team blog. Good reading.
The exchBPA is a cool tool.

Ruckus

Oh, also on Drives, I like to put the mail store on a RAID5 array by itself, usually with the system partition on it's own RAID1 array. I think RAID5 is the recommended for exchange stores.

RabidDonkey

Thanks for more help! I do appreciate it. A lot of this is really new to me and I am learning as I do.

I was misleading with the database comment. The database is going to be a different part of the business all together. It is run by a different application and is SQL server. That wont be part of the exchange server and will be running on its own box. I was basically saying that there wont be a lot of employee growth so I dont forsee the exchange server getting really big. But there will be technology growth in the next few months as different phases of the business beccome operational.

For the Hard drives, ive never worked with RAID 5 so im not sure of its advantages, I was just going to do everything in RAID1 for redundancy. So i guess what are the advantages of RAID5?

Also would it be better to have the OS and active directory on its own Fast hard drive and have another set of hard drives in RAID for the mail store? or is it better to have just 2 hard drives in RAID and partiton for the system files?

Again thanks for all of the tips/suggestions

Rabid

PirateJon

The cool thing about raid is redundancy and performance. Small box, small store, light usage = you can probably get away with any setup.

In the newer 1U chassies I've seen, you can get 4 SAS drives. In that case I'd put 3 in a raid 5 (partition it up for OS and DB/queues) and leave one as a hot spare.

Also would it be better to have the OS and active directory on its own Fast hard drive

Nyet comrade. AD should live on its own box.

Ruckus

This is a good description of the various RAID levels.

I'd recommend 6 disks total: 2 Mirrored (RAID1) for the OS/Program installs, 3 in a RAID5 array, and the sixth equal in size to your largest drive to function as a hotspare (a 146GB disk can hotspare for a 146GB or 73GB disk, bur a 73GB disk can only hotspare for a 73GB disk)

RabidDonkey

Thanks for the help on RAID! when i get my server im sure ill have some questions.

I am about to order my server and i decided to go with Server 2003 and standalone exchange 2003. I have a question on CALs and how many I should buy right now. Like i said before I am employee number 7 so i was going to go with 10.

So as I understand it I need to buy 10 server 2003 CALs and 10 Exchange CALs as well?
Am i right in my understanding or do i need more/less?


Thanks

Rabid

PirateJon

The answer is "it depends". If you are only having 10 people access the two windows servers right now, it MAY be better to do the per user cals like you said. If you do end up doing the per-user, you're locked in and it can get pricy if you add more servers.

HOWEVER, it may be better in the long run to just buy a per device core cal which includes windows, exchange, sharepoint, and SMS.


dealing with MS licencing can drive you insane.