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Exchange 2000 in a Netware environment

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by kwg 1 view

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I've been asked to put together a spec for an MS Exchange 2000 server for a company with about 60 users that wants to get off of GroupWise. Netware and Groupwise live on a single server, the customer wants to add a server for Exchange 2000 but leave the NetWare server in place as the file and print server.

I have a bunch of questions:

1. Is there anything that will prevent this setup from working? Will users be able to login to the NetWare server and access Exchange? Will they also need to logon to the NT server?

2. Are we going to have problems with multiple/competing directory services on each server?

3. Will I need to license 60 users for Windows 2000 Server and 60 Users for Exchange 2000?

4. Given the need to convert to Exchange, would it be less trouble to ALSO convert file and print services to Windows 2000 server and shut down the NetWare server entirely?

Any thoughts will be greatly appreciated.

Kevin

3 replies

by jereg

I used to be an email administrator in an all Novell shop(NW5, GroupWise) and moved to a company using Exchange. I think I can answer your questions. BTW, I prefer GroupWise. That said,
1. Yes, you can set up a seperate Exchange server and it will work fine. I'm currently using NW3.12(doh!) and NT4 running Exchange 5.5. Yes, they will have to login to the 2000 server as well. Not a problem, though.
2. Having 2 directories is not a problem, it just means more administrative work. There shouldn't be a conflict since Novell will be file & print, 2000 will be email.
3.Yes, you will have to buy a 60user 2000 server license and you will have to buy 60 user Exchange license. Not to mention the new server hardware, new backup software, new antivirus software, etc (the costs are mounting).
4. This is a key question. I don't think I would run file & print and Exchange on the same server. The best point I can think of, by moving the entire shop to Microsoft, you are useing and maintaining one OS. You'll have active directory, (not as good aas NDS but there you go).
I'm in a similar situation. The network OS needs to be upgraded. Since our main database is moving to an NT platform, I'm moving the whole company to Windows 2000. There isno reason i can think of for a small company (under 100 users) to maintain and license 2 network OS's. But given my choise, I'd stick with Novell/GroupWise. The new GW 6.0 looks very good.
Hope that helps.

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