MS SBS 2003 or Stand alone Exchange 2003??

[nell1]

Hi all,

Just a quickie. We are looking at buying Exchange 2003 for our small office (5 Users) as we would like to take advantage of calender sharing, IMAP folders etc...

We are looking at 2 products, the stand alone version of Exchange 2003 and MS Small Busines Server 2003. On the face of it the SBS 2003 looks like the one to go for because it is much cheaper than the stand alone Exchange server. However, we are not sure why, there must be a reason.

Can anyone shed some light on the differences and why one is better than the other?

Thanks in advance!

Nell1

 

[dkediger]

You'll want SBS unless you are needing to join the domain of an affiliated company. The "catch" in SBS is that the server must control the domain, it cannot form a trust with other domains, and you are limited to 75 users. Note that you can add other servers into your domain if you need them later.

If you can live within those limitations, SBS is what you want. Yes the price is very attractive, particularly for the Standard version which is basically just Server and Exchange. Note that you'll need to acquire SBS license packs as you add usuers. The base package comes with 5 licenses, and extra packs are sold in multiples of 5 or 20.

Invest some of that price difference in acquiring good hardware: 2GB RAM, hardware RAID controller, etc. and you'll be set.

You'll need to acquire SBS, or exchange aware backup software: Veritas sells an SBS version of BackUp Exec, as do several other companies.

Ditto for Anti-Virus. Trend sells their CSM product which will give you server, desktop, and Exchange scanning. Sophos is another top notch AV vendor with an SBS product.

 

[nell1]

Many thanks for teh reply dkediger!

Has helped alot!

Regards,

Nell1