Re: Sunfire 240 and Sun One messaging
From: Devin L. Ganger (devin_at_thecabal.org)
Date: 12/30/03
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Date: Tue, 30 Dec 2003 21:49:34 -0000
On Tue, 30 Dec 2003 18:27:34 GMT, Rich Teer <rich.teer@rite-group.com> wrote:
> > 1. Is this platform sutible for a small company to manage? Typically Sun
> > has not positioned this product for mid-range business.
> I've not used the specific product you're asking about, but
> generally all of Sun's stuff is suitable for businesses of
> all sizes. It won't be any harder to administer than a
> cluster of Exchange servers (and you'll likely need a cluster!).
> In fact, it's likely to be EASIER to manage.
I have to respectfully disagree on this count, especially if the company
in question already has Active Directory deployed. (If not, whole 'nother
story.) SunONE Messaging is very clearly positioned for very large
enterprise networks such as telcos, etc. The overhead of using the
iPlanet Directory Services is not insignificant, and like Active
Directory for Windows/Exchange, you have to have iPDS running for
SunONE Messaging. (Okay, in theory, you can run another LDAP server,
as long as you use the right schema, but there's a *lot* of kludgework
there).
I evaluated SunONE Messaging earlier this year, specifically with an
eye towards Exchange. Exchange 2003 has made a lot of great strides
towards managability and many of the common tasks a mail admin needs
to handle can be done either through WMI scripting *or* the GUI. In
contrast, managing SunONE pretty much requires custom scripts and a
solid handle on LDIF (to add multiple recipient domains, for example).
Don't get me wrong -- SunONE Messaging is a *great* product. However,
it does require a *lot* of up-front investment apart from installation,
configuration, etc. Exchange doesn't require nearly so much of that
anymore. Both require directory services. If that small company is
already using Windows file/print services, or can use Samba 3.0, having
all user management tied into a single directory -- that can be easily
delegated with existing out-of-the-box tools -- is enough of a decrease
in admin time to make Exchange worth a good, long look.
Not that Exchange does have its warts, too. Want to use NAS for
your mailbox database storage? Nope -- DAS or SAN only. SunONE has
*much* better documentation regarding the bundled tools and utilities
and gives you a much better sense of what you can do and fix without
having to be an Exchange guru. Exchange 2K3 offers a lot of nice new
functionality but you'll need to deploy Outlook 2K3 to make use of a
lot of it. That's a lot of license $$.
The original poster is well advised to consider carefully their
existing environment and desired feature set -- and to get some expert
consultation based on their current network -- before just blindly
jumping into switching messaging systems based on brand loyalty. There
are other options out there as well -- SuSE's commercial mail server
product comes to mind, and there are others.
-- Devin L. Ganger <devin@thecabal.org> "Aikido is based around the central precept of letting an attack take its natural course. You, of course, don't want to impede that natural flow by being in its way." -- overheard on the PyraMOO
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