MS Exchange server on FreeBSD?

[Duo]

On Sun, 20 Mar 2005, Anthony Atkielski wrote:

> Ted Mittelstaedt writes:
>
>> Fine, you list the features you think are key ones and I'll provide it.
>
> Why not just buy Exchange?
>
> You make the same mistake that so many people with emotional investments
> in software make:  You feel you must look for non-Microsoft solutions
> _just for the sake of avoiding Microsoft_.  But in this case, as in
> several other cases, the Microsoft solution tends to be the best
> overall.  And if one has no sacred mission to drive Microsoft back into
> the Pit, there's no reason to look for cobbled UNIX solutions that do
> the same thing.

And you failed to answer his question. Why not stop trying to avoid it by 
answering it.

List the features. I am interested in Ted's list of items to replicate 
them in UNIX. =)

As for looking for non microsoft solutions, yes. There is a point to that. 
It's called voting with your pocketbook, and its a valid course of action 
in a capitalist society. Choosing to go outside a monopoly is a right.

And yes, looking for non MS solutions, for the sake of it, is a valid 
choice. It's the only way some things get better. If for instance, I go 
with a product of MS, as opposed to a smaller OSS project, the OSS Project 
typically *cares* about the feedback I give it. It cares about the 
features I want and need.

I need a credit card before MS will talk to me. The Exchange solution 
might be best for a gold partner with M$, but overall, a very poor 
solution, which locks you into a feature set, and a company that has shown 
little concern for its base of customers.

In regards to its use of JET, Jet2003 cannot handle any other process 
running against its datastore, because it dosent have the ability to cache 
and then commit like a REAL RDBMS. This is a problem for things such as 
virus scanning, and tight integration with an AD Environment, which is 
getting more and more replication based. In fact, some types of virus 
scanning can introduce data corruption of the store, which could lead to 
other issues. There are several papers on this, including some in Bugtraq. 
On this very issue.

What's more, the virus scanners that do run against Exchange's DB, also 
cost money, and typically require some more hardware. And overhead. So now 
I am running exchange, and a bevy of other stuff to prop it up.

The whole point of UNIX, and Open Source is a number of people, getting 
together and saying..."It shouldnt have to be that hard"

MS has had YEARS to put a SQL backend onto Exchange, yet have not. With 
its history, and its track record, and indeed, with even most 
recommending a dry SMTP server outside of the regular exchange server, 
exchange is hardly a worthwhile solution. With the number of machines you 
need to run Exchange properly, (basically, 2-3) with freeBSD, I can do 
*alot* more.

FYI, while I do need to run a tight AD environment where I work, I *still* 
dont do exchange. I use MDaemon (a real mailserver, not piled on with 
crap) and WorkGroup Share, coupled with the MDaemon Groupware function. 
Not quite the "same" featureset as Exchange, but, I am supporting 
developers who *care* about what I want. I get contact, scheduling, etc.

I am voting with my pocketbook, and, its highly arrogant of you to sit 
there and thinly accuse people of not doing right by their situation by 
not choosing M$ because they dont want to use MS. Not wanting to use MS is 
a perfectly valid course of action, and its rather lame of you to suggest 
otherwise. this is freebsd-questions@ not ms-questions at .


>> No it doesen't.  Exchange has a better feature set than MANY of the 
>> UNIX solutions but not all.
>
> Show me the one-stop UNIX solution that meets or beats Exchange.
>

There probably isint a one stop shop. However, there dosent need to be. In 
fact, there is something to be said for multiple services offering 
features. Exchange is bloated. Alot of its problems come from this bloat. 
Id rather have 5 different standards compliant services (LDAP based) 
talking to one another, maybe with a text db, or sql backend, than one 
huge asinine monstrosity, with a crappy and outdated DB backend, running 
mission critical for me.

> Exchange was written from scratch specifically to provide an integrated
> solution.  Nobody else was or is going to come up with the same thing
> without making a similar investment ... and the investment in Exchange
> was substantial.

Bullshit. Exchange is the perfect example of microsofts policy of embrace 
and extend. That fact is bolstered by you sitting here, and justifying 
their policy as valid. Id rather have world wide standards, not the 
standards (or features that MS feels are standards) Microsoft feels I 
need, or that I should have to pay for.

>> Exchange in the beginning was garbage also.  As I recall Exchange 5.0
>> couldn't even be configured to disallow promiscious relaying.
>
> I used Exchange from the very beginning, and had no problems with it.

Funny, then you are one of 5 people I know of, who claim to have no 
problem. The web, security boards, are rife with exchange issues, and the 
people who suffer from them.

Indeed, I see ads in the paper all the time, for "Exchange Admins". Id 
rather have spend my money on one guy who knows SQL, Postfix, apache, LDAP 
etc, than one guy, who knows one server. The mere fact that Exchange admin 
can be a full time job is sad enough.


--
Duo

Although the Buddhists will tell you that desire is the root of 
suffering, my personal experience leads me to point the finger at system 
administration.
 	--Philip Greenspun