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IT chewers - recommend a hosting/email service for a small business

post #1 of 9
6/3/05 at 3:15pm
Thread Starter 
After spending the last two weeks trying to troubleshoot a fucked-up Exchange server, and watching the vendor we hired flounder around trying to find solutions, I'm ready to tell my boss we need to ditch the whole thing and go with an outside solution for email, shared calendars & contacts, web hosting, etc. We can keep our existing file server/domain controller for other reasons and apps, but I have had it with Exchange.

Something like this, for example: http://registerfly.com/bizfly/

Anyone know of anything comparable/better? Keep in mind that we're a small non-profit with <250 email addresses.
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post #2 of 9
6/3/05 at 3:27pm
I'd go with an open source solution such as sendmail.
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post #3 of 9
6/3/05 at 3:37pm
Thread Starter 
I wouldn't know the first thing about how to configure sendmail though. I barely understand Exchange. Will sendmail run on a Windows 2000 server box, or is it linux only?

Remote access is a big need for us too, and people really like the Outlook Web Access client with Exchange. Does Sendmail do something similar, or would it all have to be done via POP through a regular email client?
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post #4 of 9
6/3/05 at 4:02pm
...
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post #5 of 9
6/3/05 at 4:16pm
I'm a developer not an admin guy, but I've always heard that sendmail is one of the hardest programs to configure. I think there are windows versions out there, too.

This one seems like a good alternative to sendmail, you might want to check it out ... http://www.postfix.org/
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post #6 of 9
6/3/05 at 4:31pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by CapitanAmerica
I'm a developer not an admin guy, but I've always heard that sendmail is one of the hardest programs to configure. I think there are windows versions out there, too.
Maybe if your not a Linux user.

Setup though is a different matter. A basic setup is somewhat easy, but adding in anti-spam hooks, anti-virus, etc is where the complications begin. But sendmail has been around forever and chances are there's someone out there that has had your problem and has posted a solution on the internet.

But, if you are looking for something to get quickly off the ground and not a somewhat confident Linux user/admin, then please look towards a non-open source solution.

Just thought I'd attach a sendmail install guide.
http://www.faqs.org/docs/linux_network/x14607.html
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post #7 of 9
6/3/05 at 4:36pm
Ohh, have you ever heard of OpenExchange? http://www.ahinc.com/openexchange.html
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post #8 of 9
6/3/05 at 4:56pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks billylove, but I've never so much as logged on to a linux/unix box. I got the job of "IT guy" (actual title)* a couple of years ago simply because nobody else had a clue. I can keep a Windows 2000/Exchange 2000 server running, and manage user accounts, and have no problems with managing the client machines but when it comes to anything much more involved than that, I'm pretty lost. This is why we had to call in outside help when a drive in our RAID failed and I accidentally rebuilt the RAID back onto the bad drive...oops.

Yeah, I know just enough to cause real trouble.

Anyway, after the unpleasantness of having a vendor take nearly two weeks to get us back up and running, and still sitting here today with various facets of the machine still crippled or not working, I just want to do the following things:

1) Throw the fucking server out of a moving car
2) Quit my job and never work in IT-related fields again
3) Have about 8 maragritas

Since none of that is realistic, I've settled on outsourcing. I don't need the aggrivation anymore.

*not actual title
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post #9 of 9
6/4/05 at 5:23pm
billylove, sendmail does absolutely NOTHING that Exchange does in terms of shared contact books, shared calendars, etc. I would think that they wouldn't want to switch cold turkey to Linux after investing the necessary funding into a Windows box.

If you are looking for a commercial product to use instead of Exchange that will allow you to have all of the features Outlook/Exchange people are used to using, try Oracle's Collaboration Suite:

http://www.oracle.com/collabsuite/index.html

Even though it's produced by oracle, it is relatively in-expensive (per seat costs anyways). And it runs through using Outlook as a mail client.
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