Topic: Exchange 2013 Support

[kruhm]

So I'm in a sad situation where I need to be the point person to support a 2013 EXCHANGE server. Does anyone have any recommendations where I can go to get paid support and ask questions?

Thanks,

[mmccarn]

Maybe Microsoft has fixed this, but after charging customers $5k - $10K+ in labor for the hours and hours it took to upgrade from Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2000, then again from Exchange 2000 to 2003, then again from 2003 to 2007, I got frustrated with the overly complicated procedures required to perform Exchange upgrades and moved my clients to hosted exchange services.

My basic argument was this:
- OK, you've bought your stand-alone exchange server for your 50 users (one physical server: $5k software plus $5k hardware, or virtualized environment: $much $more)
- At least every 4 years, you'll need to spend $5k - $10K on new hardware and software plus $5K - $10K in labor to upgrade the server - a total of $10k - $20k
- with hosted exchange accounts costing around $7 ea, $10K - $20K every 4 years accounts for 30 - 60 hosted exchange mailboxes

These numbers change significantly if your client is able to get Microsoft non-profit or academic pricing -- but in that case they could also get Microsoft's free Office365 and get hosted exchange at no cost.

The relative cost to install each upgrade changes if you're hosting enough exchange servers to share the upgrade learning curve among multiple clients, or if you have a reliable virtualized environment that supports high availability, or if you're hosting enough exchange users to change the pricing calculations.

I have had exchange customers hosted at 123together.com since 2003 with very few problems.

At my "day job" (for non-technical reasons) we use Kerio Connect - a reasonably complete exchange clone that runs on any OS (windows, linux, os x) and allows upgrades to new hardware using a single restore command in whatever amount of time is required to actually copy the mailbox data to the new server.  We have about 130 users  on a mix of mac and Windows boxes, with many also using ipads, iphones, and android on a 3-year-old mac pro server. Kerio provides a 30-day trial license if you want to test it out.

A colleague of mine supported his exchange servers through paid Microsoft support incidents -- despite having some technical knowledge, he would open a ticket, pay the fee, then play dumb until the remote Microsoft engineer had fixed the problem -- whatever it was.  Install/reinstall/backup/restore/ -- he would spend 4 - 6 hours at a time sitting on the phone with the microsoft techs until the problem at hand had been resolved.


Good luck!

[kruhm]

Thanks for the reply. I realize it is kind of a long shot asking here since this the forum focuses on Linux distro but I'd thought I'd ask since there are some of the best and brightest in the world hanging around here.

I have gone office365 for some accounts but this is an industry where regulations prevent going that route.

Between the bugs, the support expenses, lack of any qualified help desk, lack of any meaningful log files, and complex powershell commands (with no type-ahead), I'm really up against a wall.

One aspect I get to experience now is looking back on how awesome SME still is. The minor bugs we've dealt with in the past is nothing compared to the colossal failure of a product as Exchange. I've never experienced a more convoluted, complex and frustrating management process in my life. It's a wonder to me how MS has fooled so many into believing Exchange is the answer.

A colleague of mine supported his exchange servers through paid Microsoft support incidents...

This, unfortunately, it going to be the route I have to choose. I was just hoping there was some type of alternate support option that would provide better and faster support.

Thanks again. I really appreciate your insight.