On the flip side if the mfg says "we have designed our product to do XYZ", then responsibly doing XYZ with it may not be such a bad thing. Also just because the product will do XYZ doesn't mean you have to do it.
Obviously YMMV, but in my environment we allow people to have large mailboxes. We have some approaching 6GB today and they are looking forward to better performance and larger mailboxes and I'm happy for them. I have an environment designed for this. I can backup my whole org in 30 seconds, so that's not an issue. I can restore a bad Store in less than 5 minutes. A blown server in about 10 minutes. I have plenty of disk and server horsepower. So we are going for it. When $500K quotes and sales orders are flying back and forth in email, who the hell am I to say stop it? We are working on some new solutions now, but those take time. For now email rules and email it shall be. From: Maglinger, Paul [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, March 29, 2010 5:53 AM To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues Subject: RE: Exchange 2010 Large Mailbox Vision Whitepaper The users have a obligation to use the technology responsibly. Don't we have a likewise obligation? From: John Hornbuckle [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Sunday, March 28, 2010 6:21 AM To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues Subject: RE: Exchange 2010 Large Mailbox Vision Whitepaper But who are we in IT to tell users what they can/need to save and what they can't/don't need to? That's not our call to make. If they want to save 100% of their correspondence, shouldn't we be okay with that? Isn't that one of the big selling points of IT-to make it easy to store, search, and retrieve massive amounts of information? I tend to take a more user-centric approach. To the extent feasible, I want my users to use technology the way they want to-I try to avoid forcing them to use it the way *I* want them to. The technology exists to serve them, not vice versa. John From: Maglinger, Paul [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Saturday, March 27, 2010 11:07 PM To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues Subject: RE: Exchange 2010 Large Mailbox Vision Whitepaper <rant on> Dear employees, Is your file cabinet full? Can't stuff another piece of paper in it? Don't worry, we just bought you a bigger file cabinet so you don't have to clean out the useless cr*p in your old one, compliments of Microsoft. Next we have to figure out how to finance the backup solution to cover this bloated whale that has washed up on shore. </rant off> From: John Hornbuckle [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Saturday, March 27, 2010 8:08 AM To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues Subject: Exchange 2010 Large Mailbox Vision Whitepaper We've previously debated large mailboxes on this list, with some of us arguing that users ought to be able to use e-mail as a file transfer/storage mechanism even if that's not what e-mail wasn't originally designed for, while others argued that e-mail is much less efficient than other means of doing this. Actually, those two arguments aren't mutually exclusive. Anyhow, Microsoft seems to recognize that there's just no stopping people from using e-mail this way, and they designed Exchange 2010 with that in mind. Below is a link to their Exchange 2010 Large Mailbox Vision Whitepaper: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en <http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=e33 03d34-af6c-4108-861b-dc05f9cf3e76&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_ campaign=Feed:+MicrosoftDownloadCenter+(Microsoft+Download+Center)> &FamilyID=e3303d34-af6c-4108-861b-dc05f9cf3e76&utm_source=feedburner&utm_med ium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+MicrosoftDownloadCenter+(Microsoft+Download+Cent er) They write: "Giving your users the ability to store more e-mail has many advantages. Large mailboxes keep e-mail on the Exchange Server instead of allowing it to be scattered in Outlook Data Files (.PST files). That helps reduce the risk of data loss, improve regulatory compliance, and increase productivity among both workers and IT staff. The main barrier to implementing large mailboxes is the perceived cost and complexity of storing large amounts of e-mail data. MicrosoftR Exchange Server 2010 is specifically designed to overcome these barriers. This paper discusses how Exchange 2010 enables you to give users large mailboxes without breaking your budget." John Hornbuckle MIS Department Taylor County School District www.taylor.k12.fl.us NOTICE: Florida has a broad public records law. Most written communications to or from this entity are public records that will be disclosed to the public and the media upon request. E-mail communications may be subject to public disclosure. NOTICE: Florida has a broad public records law. Most written communications to or from this entity are public records that will be disclosed to the public and the media upon request. E-mail communications may be subject to public disclosure.
