FWIW - I have 120 remote sites with mostly cable and DSL speeds. I have 1500 mailboxes hosted on 1 single Exchange 2003 Server, with a few hundred gigs of mail split across multiple stores.
All remote users connect using RPC over HTTPS using Outlook 2003 in cached mode. To a dedicated front-end server that does nothin but RPC over HTTPS connections, OWA, SMTP, and IMAP4. There are no performance issues anywhere. The front-end server has NO mailboxes, all those are on the single backend server referenced above. I deployed this infrastructure about 2 month after Exchange 2003 went gold, but it was with less users back then. I'm still using the same Exchange server hardware as I deployed back then as well, no upgrades of any kind. The advent of RPC over HTTPS has all but eliminated the need to have individual exchange server at sites for small groups of users. If my IT infrastructure is centralized, I wouldn't put a server at a remote site unless I was decentralizing/regionalizing my entire infrastructure, or it was a LARGE site (I'm talking many many hundreds of users) and I saw performance being degraded for them, and of course, disaster recovery site. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Joe Pochedley Sent: Friday, April 27, 2007 11:43 AM To: Exchange Discussions Subject: RE: Migration Strategy for remote office? We've got two remote sites with 25+ Exchange users, plus a more than a dozen smaller sites with less. No troubles hosting them all from our HQ. All of them have T1 speed MPLS links with a dual T1 here at the head end. Both of the larger sites had their own Exchange 5.5 servers at one point. There was some initial grumbling when we told them they were losing their email servers. The managers at the sites were told we would be open to re-implementing servers on site if there were problems. But it's been over 3 years now and we've _never_ looked back. Another thing to consider: By consolidating you now only have one server that ever needs upgraded. Thinking of going to Exchange 2007? Only need to do it once, everyone gets the benefits. The money you save in maintenance and Exchange server licensing could be put toward a WAN acceleration solution (Riverbed, packeteer, etc). Then you would not have to worry so much about 25 people downloading a 10MB file from HQ and would get better WAN performance for whatever else you've got going over the WAN as well... There's no wrong way to do it... Just another angle to think about..... Joe P -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Paul Hutchings Sent: Friday, April 27, 2007 10:54 AM To: Exchange Discussions Subject: RE: Migration Strategy for remote office? Approx 25 mailboxes. Their existing server is a Windows 2000 DC/GC. There are already CA's in place from when we (the main site) migrated from 5.5 to 2003. I'm thinking that the Pro of having a box down there is naturally that if someone sends a single 10mb file to all 25 people it's got to get there once vs. 25 times over a slow (T1 equivalent) link? The box is already down there and is a good spec Proliant with plenty of RAM/Disk/Redundancy, it's not the stereotypical "old PC stuck in a cupboard" that some branch offices have. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Joe Pochedley Sent: 27 April 2007 15:25 To: Exchange Discussions Subject: RE: Migration Strategy for remote office? You say it's a "small site"... How small is small? 10 users, 50 users, 100 users, 1000 users? (Small it relative depending on the size of your org.) Just based on the little info you've presented, it sounds like consolidation would be a good thing. Bring the Exchange users into the central server... Use cached mode in Outlook. Simplify management, simplify infrastructure, reduce costs (licensing and management time), etc... What's the WAN link between your sites (speed and reliability)? Are you going to overload the WAN link? Is the WAN link it's reliable enough? If the answer is No to both, seriously consider consolidation... 7gig's isn't bad, That's fine for a single DB in an OU... Unless you're running close to the 75 GB limit of Exchange 2003 Standard edition or something? Joe P -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Paul Hutchings Sent: Friday, April 27, 2007 4:23 AM To: Exchange Discussions Subject: Migration Strategy for remote office? Folks I wondered if I could pick your collective brains on a migration strategy for a remote office. They have a single Windows 2000 server, which is a file server, DC and Exchange 5.5 Server, we're already on 2003. Whilst it works adequately I could do with getting rid of 5.5 for all the obvious reasons, and I'm unsure of the best way of doing it. As I see it my options are: Upgrade in-place from 5.5 to 2000 then to 2003. Stick in a box, add a 2003 server to their AG, migrate their mailboxes, remove the 5.5 install, install 2003 on it, migrate them back. Move their mail to the main site server (even with cached mode this sounds a no-no as they have a 7gb or so store). Do something with Virtual Server/VMWare (as it's only a very small site). What I can't do is put a second server in at that site as anything other than a temporary measure during any migration. I'd really appreciate any input or suggestions. Cheers, Paul Paul Hutchings Network Administrator, MIRA Ltd. Tel: 44 (0)24 7635 5378 Fax: 44 (0)24 7635 8378 mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] -- MIRA Ltd. Watling Street, Nuneaton, Warwickshire, CV10 0TU, England. 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Attn: Discussion List Management 475 Park Avenue South New York, NY 10016 Please include the email address which you have been contacted with. _________________________________________________________________ List posting FAQ: http://www.swinc.com/resource/exch_faq.htm Web Interface: http://intm-dl.sparklist.com/read/?forum=exchange To subscribe: http://e-newsletters.internet.com/discussionlists.html/ To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Exchange List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe via postal mail, please contact us at: Jupitermedia Corp. Attn: Discussion List Management 475 Park Avenue South New York, NY 10016 Please include the email address which you have been contacted with.
