5 ½ Reasons Why You Should Switch From Microsoft Exchange

We all know Microsoft is the juggernaut of offices the world over, with office suites and servers installed everywhere. We know that no one ever got fired for buying Microsoft. We know that the features of Exchange are useful and desired. Having said all that, why should anyone not use Microsoft Exchange? Here are five (and a half) reasons.

1. It's Expensive Compared to other mail server offerings, Exchange is priced so high as to be almost unbearable. There are a host of free mail servers out there, and as we all know, "free" is much more affordable than 99% of Microsoft's prices. And that's just the mail server. Add on the cost of the hardware (more on that later), the need for at least 2 licenses (the main server & the backup), plus the requisite dual Windows Server licenses for those two boxes, and finally the Client Access Licenses, and you're looking at a pretty hefty bill. Even the commercial Linux-based mail solutions save you thousands just in operating system licenses.

2. Proprietary Nature By this we don't mean that messages sent to and from non-Exchange mail servers don't get through, we mean that Exchange doesn't play well with some software you might like to use such as backup/archival and virus filtering software. There is software for that of course, but it might not be what you wanted to use. The software you end up using has to be written specifically for Exchange Servers, and the price reflects that. The first part of the problem is Microsoft's use of ESMTP instead of plain old SMTP, which creates problems with anti-virus and archival software. These applications can't understand the format unless specifically written for Exchange, and so cannot check for viruses nor archive the message properly. And there is also the...

3. JET Database This causes many problems in Exchange, as well as many headaches for Exchange admins. JET was actually supposed to be replaced in Exchange 2007, but the hoped-for SQL Server database wasn't performing as hoped. For now, Exchange users are stuck with JET. JET has some problems, such as a vulnerability to corruption issues. Compounding the corruption problem is the fact that when corruption is found, the recent backups often also have corruption, leading to a time-consuming recovery process that isn't even assured to not lose data. In addition, backup solutions have to be Exchange-Aware in order to backup the database properly. With many other mailservers, both free like Sendmail and commercial like PostPath, the messages are stored directly on the filesystem allowing any backup solution to be used. And to top it all off, JET just isn't as efficient as more modern databases.

4. Uncertain Upgrade Path Just because you're running Exchange now doesn't mean you'll be able to upgrade to a newer version in the future. Exchange 5.5 is still used by a surprising number of companies, and alas for them, Microsoft doesn't offer a direct upgrade path to Exchange 2007. It can be done, but requires a migration to an Exchange 2000 or Exchange 2003 server (as well as a valid license for that intermediate server), and then migrating to Exchange 2007. In addition, Exchange 2007 will in most cases require new hardware, as the only architecture Microsoft supports Exchange on is x86-64 (32-bit is only supported for training purposes). While 64-bit systems have advantages in terms of accessing larger amounts of RAM, other mail servers perform very well on more cost-effective 32-bit systems. Even on 64-bit systems, other mail servers can match or beat Exchange on like-hardware, such as the PostPath Server (PostPath & Intel Performance).

5. There Are Perfectly Viable Alternatives to Microsoft Exchange There are plenty of perfectly good alternatives to Exchange out there, they do the same things Exchange does, and they do them well. Many of these run on Linux, a very stable operating system for server use, not to mention a price that can't be beat. Most of these also use the Linux filesystem for storage, either ext3, ReiserFS, JFS, or XFS. By doing this, performance is increased, so more cost-effective storage can be used. Not only that, but it allows greater choice in tools for maintaining your email store.

One thing to keep in mind is that you want to find a system that doesn't require plugins, either to interoperate with Exchange, or to interoperate with Outlook on the desktop. Plugins create a support nightmare, as they generally have to be maintained individually on a per-desktop basis, which becomes a challenge when you have hundreds or even thousands of desktops to maintain.

No one ever got fired for buying Microsoft, but many of these alternatives offer excellent performance, coexist with your existing Exchange ecosystem (transparently splitting users between the Exchange and non-Exchange servers), and even use the same tools to administer the non-Exchange server.

5½. Exchange Doesn't Virtualize Well In the last year, "Virtualization" has become a buzz word in the industry. Briefly, virtualization allows one physical machine to run one or more virtual machines on it, like running a full copy of Windows XP from within a Linux Desktop. For servers, it's being used to take, say 20 servers that are running at 7% capacity, and running those servers on a single physical machine at 80% capacity. (For more on virtualization, see "VMware Servers in Plain English.") Alas for Exchange, it just doesn't work very well in a virtualized environment. While not a show-stopper, it does mean that those looking to virtualize their servers are still going to have at least one extra box solely for Exchange.

So here you are, 5½ excellent reasons as to why you should switch from Exchange. With all the non-Exchange solutions available, from basic mail serving to Exchange-compatible collaboration servers, there is a better solution for your business.