Best configuration for remote offices to use an Exchange Server

tech

Ok this is the our current setup, 1 SBS 2003 server in our Dublin office acting as a file & print sever also an Exchange server, we have offices in Limerick and Galway, Whats the best way to get these remote office using the exchange server, I suppose Terminal services or Citrix? Can anyone point me in the correct direction.

jayok

Hi Tech,

Seeing as it's SBS 2003 you have the following options:

1. POP3
2. IMAP
3. MAPI
4. Outlook Web Access
5. RPC over HTTP

Notes:

1. POP3 is only for collecting mail doesn't support advanced features of Exchange and doesn't support a GAL
2. IMAP supports more folders but doesn't support advanced features (calendar, etc). doesn't support a GAL
3. MAPI - standard Exchange protocol. Not recommended MAPI will swallow all your bandwidth and is not recommended.
4. Outlook Web Acess - a realistic option supports most Exchange features, but end users need to have patience with the system to be honest more users don't accept this as a long term solution.
5. RPC over HTTP. Probably the best option but you'll need Outlook 2003 on the clients. Gives full MAPI functionality but without the overhead of pure MAPI connections.

As this is SBS you won't be able to deploy any more Exchange servers within the organization so remote access from the clients it is!

JayoK

jayok

BTW stay away from Citrix / Terminal Services if you just want to deliver mail... will cost a fortune and you won't really get the service you expect from SBS

tech

Yeah I was thinkning of using Web access, I know SBS is a 1 server job only so this will limit options kinda, what about a using sonic walls and using their VPN client we are only talking 15 users between the 2 remote offices?

jayok

tech wrote:

Yeah I was thinkning of using Web access, I know SBS is a 1 server job only so this will limit options kinda, what about a using sonic walls and using their VPN client we are only talking 15 users between the 2 remote offices?

Well the sonicwall client is fine for securing the connections. You could simply publish the URL to the users and let them access it this way. We deliver OWA to all our remote users and it works very well (we work on-site for a number of customers and a VPN setup would be too limiting). Never really had problems with OWA 2K3 much better that OWA 2K.

One though is that you better sort out the DNS so that the can type http://servername/exchange into the URL bar. Actually what I do is place a forward HTML script at http://serverrname and let it forward them as required.

JayoK

Capt'n Midnight

A lot depends on the bandwidth between sites and whether you want to backup the email or not.

outlook as a client can use off line stores so the users see a copy of what is on the server. - pop/smtp mean that email is removed from the server and can't be recovered.