MS Exchange server on FreeBSD?

[Anthony Atkielski]

Christian Tischler writes:

> The server side should be managed by BSD, but the client side is most
> surely an heterogeneous group.

The server side of what?  It all depends on the complete architecture of
your IT infrastructure.  For some situations, sendmail and qpopper are
all you'll ever need.  For other situations, you'll end up buying racks
of servers running Exchange.

However, from what you've said thus far, it doesn't sound like Exchange
would be the right choice.

> So a solution to somehow emulate/simulate an exchange server on an box
> (or cluster of sql horde what ever servers), and import this e.g. 
> calendar data into a BSD solution. As I understand the so far mentioned
> products, these are quite capable of doing so. Then there would be an 
> easy solution to different likes in clients.

Do they really need a calendar function?

Remember, once you start building this sort of stuff, it rapidly gets
more and more complicated.  You might end up at some point realizing
that it would have all been easier with Exchange.

If you _must_ have functionality equivalent to Exchange, then run
Exchange.  But if you don't need that functionality, run something
simpler.

For what it's worth, even fancy Outlook clients can access standard
SMTP/POP servers.  You can build a backend using only simple software,
and then consider something more complex only if and when users
absolutely demand it.  If you are forced into implementing a very
complex solution, consider going to Exchange rather than trying to
cobble something together, or you might spend the next ten years trying
to get it all to work.

-- 
Anthony