A tale of two Exchange Servers

Microsoft already rules the Indian messaging market. Now with the launch of Exchange Server 2003, it hopes to convert non-believers into Exchange evangelists, says RAHUL NEEL MANI

120 million people worldwide use Exchange for corporate e-mail. That’s impressive, but what is more interesting is that, according to IDC India, over 60 percent of the mail/messaging market is in Microsoft’s hands. Globally, 40-50 percent of the Exchange server user base is on version 5.x, a product that came to the market in March 1997. Microsoft India has done better, since between 60-70 percent of Exchange users here are already on Exchange 2000. Of the remaining 30 percent or so, just 10-15 percent run version 5.5, while the remainder have migrated or begun migrating to Exchange Server 2003 that was launched in November 2003.

Microsoft’s biggest opponent in many market segments (desktop OSs, office suites) is Microsoft itself. It’s no different in the case of Exchange. The company has to build a substantial business case for Exchange 2003 in order to convince customers that they need to switch from Exchange 2000/5.5. In-deed, the migration from version 5.5 to 2003 will be the company’s prime goal. To complicate matters, Exchange 2003 runs best on Win-dows 2003. While it can also run on Windows 2000, many of its advantages over its predecessor melt away in that case.

When the going gets tough…

Six months after its launch, Exchange 2003 is inching its way into the market much as Windows 2003 did in the server OS category. Looking at an IDC study released early last year, Exchange (all versions) accounts for nearly 60 percent of the mail or messaging market in India. As a product line, Exchange Server has a strong enterprise following. With India Inc ramping up, there should be a positive effect on its sales. Meanwhile the Small Business Server, which includes Exchange as a component, is doing well and has achieved a 100 percent year-on-year growth.

It’s not 2000, it’s 5.5

If you have a wireless network in the office, handhelds can straightaway sync with the Exchange server without needing an intermediary device, says PANKAJ UKEY

While two of Exchange 2003’s predecessors are still in the market—5.5 and 2000—it is the move from Exchange 5.5 to 2003 that Microsoft is more interested in. This mirrors the software giant’s goal of moving its NT user base to Windows 2003. Says Pankaj Ukey, product manager, Microsoft India, “A major chunk—close to 60-70 percent of Exchange users—are already on the Exchange 2000 platform. Looking at the existing user base, server consolidation, site consolidation and out-of-the-box mobility will drive the growth of Exchange 2003. Exchange 2000 would only allow up to two-node clustering and could support up to 1,000 users per box, whereas Exchange 2003 can support up to 5,000 users per box with eight-node clusters.”

Outlook 2003 comes with a cache mode that lets it pull the server data onto a PC’s local cache. In Exchange 2000, an Outlook client would always look for a server. If the server wasn’t found, you got a message stating ‘Outlook is trying to locate data from the server’. In Exchange 2003, due to the cache mode, the client polls the server less frequently. The cache mode lets it sense the available bandwidth, and it only downloads mail that the bandwidth permits. “It is all done without the user sensing it. Even if links are not available, the user can still work because the data is available in the local cache,” explains Ukey. In this manner, users don’t have to fret about network lag.

The out-of-the-box mobility feature components are part of the base software helping you configure parameters that let mobile devices access the Exchange server. There was a mobile information server in Exchange 2000, but it was a separate component that needed to be installed. “If you have a wireless network in the office, handhelds can straightaway sync with the Exchange server without needing an intermediary device (such as a notebook). Similarly, mobile phones can connect to a GPRS network through a service provider and download e-mail,” says Ukey. Orange offers this service to Indian corporate users who have deployed Exchange Server.

According to ASHIT PANJWANI, GroupWise 6.5 increases productivity by giving people greater control over their information, instant and mobile communication, and better tools to manage their day-to-day workload

From the administration perspective, there are two interesting additions. First, Microsoft has provided Active Directory enhancements. “All the primary Active Directory enhancements that debuted in Windows 2003 can be leveraged by Exchange 2003. You can lock-in your URL list from a spam prevention perspective or define *.abc.com to block a particular website,” Ukey affirms. Second, the Microsoft Operations Manager component lets an administrator manage all locations from a single console. You can drill down to the hardware level—memory, hard disk space, etc—to manage the server better.

In the past, if an Active Directory account became disassociated from the user’s mailbox, the only solution was to create a new, empty mailbox for that user. “The Mailbox Recovery Centre lets administrators discover lost mailboxes and re-link them with Active Directory accounts,” states Ukey. Exchange Server 2003 can make variable memory requests based on the size of the system instead of using hard-coded values. Older versions would allocate many small blocks of memory to perform a task; Exchange 2003 combines these requests into fewer, larger requests and saves memory in the process. Apart from this, Microsoft promises a smooth upgrade path as well as cost savings and productivity enhancements. Scalability and remote connectivity have been improved, allowing companies to host more mailboxes on a single server and do away with the need to have dedicated servers at remote locations.

Also new in Exchange Server 2003 is the ability to combat spam. Exchange has filters at the SMTP gateway, the entry point for external mail to your network.

Anti-virus technology has been incorporated into Exchange Server 2003, as have security features such as encryption and authentication. As in the case of Windows 2003, Exchange’s latest avatar comes locked down with the SMTP relay switched off by default.

Licencing gets more flexible

Exchange 2000 had just one option—device-based licencing. With Exchange 2003 enterprises can also buy user-based licences. In the case of a device-based licence, anybody who logs on to a licenced device is deemed a legal user. However, an e-mail service provider usually accounts for users in terms of mailboxes based upon user IDs. “If there are five PCs on the shop floor, it is better to buy five device-based licences. On the other hand, if the same user is using three different devices [say a PC, a notebook and a smartphone], it is better to purchase user-based licences because this person would otherwise have to buy three device-based licences which wouldn’t be economical,” says Ukey.

Exchange 2003 also adds an External Connector Licence, a purely non-employee licence option. “You can deploy an Exchange server as part of your Internet deployment for your customers, partners and suppliers, and provide an e-mail service to them. This is server-based licencing,” informs Ukey. The estimated street price for the standard version of Exchange 2003 is $750, whereas the Enterprise edition is available at $2,800. Individual client access licences are available at $45 per licence.

Works best on Windows 2003

While it is inaccurate to say that Exchange 2003 only works on Windows 2003, it performs best on that platform. You can run Exchange Server 2003 on Windows 2000 by installing Service Pack 3. “The Active Directory enhancements that came in with the Windows 2003 platform will not be available to users running the software on Windows 2000,” says Ukey. Also, the anti-spam function doesn’t work on Windows 2000. Lastly, server consolidation using eight-node clustering requires Windows 2003. “Exchange 2000/2003, as a platform, is growing so fast that it is not possible to have such a dependency on Windows 2003,” Ukey opines.

I can find no competition

As per IDC, there is no significant competition to Microsoft in this segment. Exchange is the preferred server software for enterprise mail/messaging. Still, you can’t write off emerging competition. IBM released a new version of the Lotus Notes messaging client that added instant messaging and other new tools at around the same time that Exchange 2003 was launched. Lotus Notes 6.5 and Domino Web Access 6.5 clients let users check if their colleagues are available online and exchange messages directly from their inboxes or other collaborative applications. By integrating instant messaging with e-mail into Lotus Notes 6.5, Big Blue has taken a tack similar to Microsoft. IBM’s IM function is powered by its Sametime software. Asks Ukey, “How many customers use Lotus Notes in India? It has a few big customers because they have been using it for a fairly long time, but there are many instances where Lotus Notes users have adopted Exchange.” That’s true, but it does not rule out the possibility of the tribe of Notes users swelling in the future.

Meanwhile, Sun has shipped its Reference Solution for enterprise messaging consolidation. This system combines e-mail, instant messaging, calendaring, scheduling, identity management and the hardware on which the whole shebang runs. Sun is gunning for Microsoft Exchange users, and says its product costs half as much as Microsoft Exchange to deploy. It also says that running its software can help a company reduce the number of servers in its messaging environment by 90 percent, and bring down upgrade and migration costs by up to 80 percent when compared to Exchange 2003. Sun’s message is simple—the product provides dramatically lower TCO (total cost of ownership)—compared to Exchange, and those who are running systems two generations behind current offerings (such as Exchange 5.5) should opt for Sun’s software. However, there may be few takers for an alternative like this unless the desktop infrastructure can be retained to make the alternative interesting.

Even Oracle plans to deliver a major update to its Collaboration Suite by the end of 2004. The update will add instant messaging capabilities and improve integration with enterprise applications. Though it is intended to create a strong rival to Microsoft Exchange, the Collaboration Suite is still a fledgling product. To catch up with Exchange, Oracle needs to come out with a highly innovative messaging system; with just 0.75 percent market share (2003) in messaging, it’s going to be a long haul for the company.

Meanwhile, Novell recently announced that it is shipping a connector for Microsoft Exchange Server that allows users of its Linux-based e-mail software, Evolution, to access Exchange from a Linux desktop. The company said that Novell Evolution 2.0 would be available later this year with native support for GroupWise. The connector for Exchange will be open-source software. With the release of the connector, the entire Evolution product will become available under the GNU general public licence. The upcoming version of Evolution will include spam filtering, S/MIME and PGP for security, and integration with Novell’s Linux desktop and Gaim instant messaging client. Says Ashit Panjwani, manager, Alliances & Marketing, Onward Novell India, “GroupWise 6.5 increases productivity by giving people greater control over their information, instant and mobile communication, and better tools to manage their day-to-day workload.” Its new features include contact management, instant messaging and a mailbox to-do list feature.

Microsoft remains unfazed. Although competitors have mounted challenges before, they have all too often ended up like Don Quixote tilting at windmills while their users migrate to Exchange. “Exchange goes beyond mail/messaging. It gives a complete collaborative architecture,” insists Ukey. The company feels that the user-friendly nature of its software helps it win over customers from rival platforms—even its worst critics concede that Microsoft can design usable user interfaces. The learning curve for Outlook is non-existent. “Exchange has matured a lot from the days of 5.0 or 5.5,” says Ukey.

If tomorrow never comes…

Despite many advantages, there are some fundamental problems that could stop Microsoft in its tracks as it races to make Exchange 2003 a virtual monopoly in enterprise messaging. Exchange Server 2003 uses Microsoft’s Active Directory, and if deployed on Windows 2000, key features such as eight-node clustering and volume shadow copy services will not be available. Also, some features such as mailbox caching require Outlook 2003 to be installed, which means that an organisation will have to purchase Office 2003. Installing Windows SharePoint Services, a collaboration and information sharing add-on to Windows Server 2003, exposes Exchange Server 2003 mailboxes as it disables Kerberos authentication and replaces it with Windows NT LAN Manager authentication. This can adversely affect Outlook Web Access (OWA); a user logging in to OWA could be logged in to another user’s mailbox at random. Though Microsoft recommends that users run Exchange 2003 with Kerberos enabled for security purposes, users may end up using the software with SharePoint and get clobbered.

Carry that weight

Even though Exchange 2003 is superior to its predecessors, and there is enough to motivate non-Exchange users to switch, Microsoft will continue to carry the legacy of earlier versions of Exchange Server for a long time. Though we expect India Inc to pilot Exchange 2003 and start rolling it out this year, it will take several years for the software to supplant Exchange 2000/5.5. CIOs would be well-advised to evaluate the efficacy of Exchange 2003’s anti-spam tools. BFSI, government, education and manufacturing are expected to form the bulk of Exchange 2003 adopters, while SMBs will get the software as part of SBS.

rahul@expresscomputeronline.com