OK IT gurus,

I am contemplating getting Exchange for push email/calendar etc. Obviously pricing is an issue, but MS may have charitable licensing that is not too bad (they do for the OS and Office, for example).

What I am wondering is what is required to maintain it. Is that something that needs a full (or nearly) time IT guy to maintain? Or can I do that with my "decent" computer knowledge?

__________________
Fred Greco
Senior Pastor, Christ Church PCA (Katy, TX)
Christ Church Blog

"The heart is the main thing in true religion...It is the hinge and turning-point in the condition of man's soul. If the heart is alive to God and quickened by the Spirit, the man is a living Christian. If the heart is dead and has not the Spirit, the man is dead before God." (J.C. Ryle)

Price has always been the reason I don't implement it here where I work.

I'm not sure how tough it is to maintain after the initial setup, but from what I know about it, I don't think it'd be too bad.

__________________
Steve Butts - Former SBC-er
Three Forms of Unity - Bradenton CRCNA - Bradenton, Florida
(A conservative member in a conservative congregation)

"Turning away to false Theology is equal to turning away to false gods" — Francis Schaeffer (Death in the City)

We run Exchange Server for a couple of high end clients. We also run Mail Enable 3.0 Enterprise which I have been thrilled with for years. Has everything except the AD hassles.

I think you could manage an Exchange environment, Especially if you get it as a part of MS SBS Server Enterprise Edition. Alot of wizards built in for the setup/maintenance aspect.

Take a look at Mail Enable Enterprise. Comes with a free 60 day trial.

Just my

__________________
Bob Lynam
Deacon,
Pilgrim Presbyterian Church (OPC)
Raleigh, NC

OK, so let me show my ignorance here. What would I need to buy from the ground up to get something like this?

Right now our environment is 3 laptops, 1 desktop in the office. About 5 users max (for a while at least). Our email is hosted by Google Apps for your domain, and we have Host Excellence as our web server.

If I wanted to get an Exchange or "Exchange like" solution (i.e. push email to mobile devices (iPhone), push calendar, etc.) what would I need to get? Hardware? Software? Do I need to do something with our email (where it is hosted)? Keep in mind that I don't need a real high powered solution, and don't want to spend thousands.

I am really coming in on this from the bottom level.

Okay, I take back my "I think you could manage an Exchange environment".

Just kidding.

Before proceeding, let me advise you to check out the following:

Push Capability with Mail2Web

LifeHacker article


Be advised, this is not an endorsement from me. Just something I think you would be wise to consider.

You're talking big bucks for an exchange server ($2,000 +) fully configured and protected, etc. etc. Okay, that may not be big bucks for some in the PCA, but for us in the OPC, it's huge.

If, after looking over the above links to see whether you can meet your need, you still aren't satisfied, just post back and we can discuss from there.

Hope this helps.

Fred - why not just use the functionality of gmail? You can do shared calendaring, etc...even has a built in IM function.

__________________
-JD

I'll admit to being a bit obtuse on the latest tech initiatives, but why all the push for "push." Can't you simulate push by setting your handheld to check emails more often, like, say, every five minutes? If you are in an active email exchange, can't you refresh manually?

I agree that push is cool, but I think the Exchange server approach is a big step backwards, especially considering the costs. Plus, I hear that gmail is working on integrating push capability for iPhones and it may come out within a few months anyway. For a small office like yours, it seems overkill to spend a lot of money on an Exchange server, particularly when Google and others are working day and night to make these things obsolete. (But as usual, I'm probably missing something).

In the mean time, maybe forwarding to a mobile.me account could be a decent solution:

How to setup push Gmail on your iPhone 2.0 using MobileMe*|*Gear Diary

__________________
Raymond Victor Bottomly
Providence Reformed Baptist Church, Tacoma, WA

Click to get: Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions?

Gmail over Exchange

Vic,

I had not really even thought about getting Exchange until this morning. I am having some problems with my Gmail IMAP connection (driving me nuts) so I did a little digging. To buy Exchange itself is not much - only $188 for the software and $4-10 per user (CAL). That is because we are a charitable organization. But I thought there might be hidden other costs (hardware, other OS issues, etc.). That is why I asked.

To be honest, I don't really need push email. Every 15 minutes (Fetch) is fine with me. I am not going to even get started on the Mobile Me nightmare. Ugh. What I really want is push contacts and calendar. Why? Because I am anticipating adding an admin soon, and one of the things I want the admin to do is to keep my calendar and make appointments for congregational visits. Push updating (not having to tether) would be a big help there.

When (I think it is not "if") Google sets up Push, that will likely be my best solution.

I thought that Exchange would be overkill, but since we have so many good real-live IT guys (not pretend like me) on the board now, I thought I would ask.

Thanks!

Do you access gmail through the mobile interface or are you trying to keep it synched with Outlook or something?

I access it through Outlook and my iPhone.

curious: Why not just use the web interface and ditch Outlook altogether? I did.

Because I don't like the web interface. It is also not available when I am offline. It also has limited search capabilities - I archive all my email and have two great search programs to help me manage it very well (Xobni and X1).

Also, the web interface on iPhone is clunky and does not take advantage of the iPhone's features. It would like saying why use Microsoft Word when there are Google documents? Google documents are nice, but they don't have 1/10th of the features of Word.

I hear ya, bro - I use googledocs almost exclusively now - particularly since they have an offline tool...to each his own

anyway - instead of installing your own exchange box, firewalling it, managing it from becoming an open mail server , you should probably look at shared exchange hosting. Cheap, comparatively.

You could get it remote hosted and save some money. I use a company called 1and1.com. They offer remote hosted mailboxes for $6.99 per mailbox per month. That'd be about $420 per year for 5 mailboxes. There might be some companies out there that are cheaper.

But, I do support some administration on Exchange 2003 in my profession and it can get pretty involved. You want a redundant solution just in case something happens, and then you're talking about two servers instead of one. Then you have to take into consideration that Exchange uses Active Directory as it's back end, so now you really need to consider how you do that. It's really not cost effective for such a small number of mailboxes. So I'd say, if you really want the functionality of a full outlook client and support along with that, check into remote hosting.

I used to use 1and1 for this, but I really couldn't justify the $6.99 per month just so I could use the Outlook web client, so I cancelled it. But support-wise, I was happy with them.

Blessings,

KC

__________________
Heb 13:20-21

Kevin C. Easterday
Member Covenant OPC, St. Augustine, FL
Husband to Tina (August 13, 1988), Father and Teacher to Kamden (17) and Kolton (15)
Federal Theology Website
Click to get: Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions?

This looks really good. I will check it out.