Running Exchange 2003 on a PDC

[LeonBar]

I have read recently that you should not run exchange 2003 on your PDC. I have a small office 25 users installing a new PDC. The old NT box can't really be used as a BDC. I want to use only one server. Has anyone had problems or has anyone used exchange 2003 on a PDC running windows2003 server. We will be only using exchange for interoffice messages. Each client computer will run office2K. Our email is setup through our ISP only 10 users have email, so Exchange will only be running for interoffice transferring of files and messages not as a full blown mail server. On the 10 clients with email outlook has the internet email service setup and our mail goes through our ISP.

Thanks.

Leon

 

[bierhunter]

With that small of office, I wouldn't worry about it.

With a small office, one the main concerns is of course budget. Microsoft licensing isn't cheap if you want to be totally legal on your network. Having separate servers would be ideal, but also more expensive and not practical in your current state. As long as your company understands that with future growth you may need to expand your resources, you should be fine.

I've seen Win2k/Exch2k/SQL2k/IIS5 running on a 450Mhz computer for about 10 users. It ran just fine. A bit slow mind you, but it worked. They didn't want to do that, but it's all their budget allowed for. It kept them going until later on when they could pump some more money into it.

I've worked on small networks, and large nationwide enterprise networks. I've never worked on a network that allowed me to configure everything "properly" according to what we're taught. Most budgets don't allow for it. But sometimes we come close. You do what you have to do.

Also, since you aren't using it for outside mail, you should be safe with it on the domain controller. You normally wouldn't want a domain controller to have any outside contact for security reasons.

 

[amorielljr]

If you can't afford your exchange server on it's own box, why don't you just outsource your e-mail??

 

[LeonBar]

Thanks for the reply what you said bierhunter is correct. I was surprised on how much the CALs for Exchange are. Purchasing 25 of them for Exchange is more expensive than the software. I would not be surprised if most or a lot of companies don't purchase the right number of CALs they need. The licensing issue with server and exchange what a pain in the a**.

Amorielljr we do outsource our email. Our ISP handles it. Each account has a web mail access also. This way if they are out of the office they have access to their email. We add it as an account in outlook. This is for a lawyer’s office, they send docs back and forth to each other all day. Exchange makes it easier to move files around the office paperless. They also have a number of public calendars all share to track cases and such.

Thanks
Leon