Any network admins here?

[Homeslice]

I'm not one, but I have a question for you: In this modern era where I can go to Staples and buy a 16GB usb for only $20, why do you need to put a 200MB size limit on your company's email accts? I am calling BS on my employer's claim that it would cost too much to increase it. :bs:

[pauldun170]

I'm not one, but I have a question for you: In this modern era where I can go to Staples and buy a 16GB usb for only $20, why do you need to put a 200MB size limit on your company's email accts? I am calling BS on my employer's claim that it would cost too much to increase it. :bs:


Server hardware sho is spensive k'pared to consumer stuff
so is arrangin fer upgrades

[LeeNetworX]

Server hardware costs more. So does the bandwidth needed to backup/replicate your data. Also, many companies have strict archiving policies and don't want employees keeping e-mails that are x years old - limiting your storage size is another way to try and get you to keep only your recent communications.

[pauldun170]

Seriously....it is more expensive hardware and the work involved.

A 200mb limit on mailboxes is reasonable when combined with retention policies.
To hit that 200mb you either need a lot of old emails or a lot of attachments.

Attachments should be kept in the appropriate place (not email) and old email should be purged or stored appropriately for a bazillion reasons.

If it's so damn important TO THE COMPANY that you need to keep it, store it in a place accesible to anyone. Not in an exchange account.

(lee beat me to it)

[LeeNetworX]

Also, it's not just the cost of the hardware; there's also associated costs with keeping that hardware running. Electricity / load, rack space, A/C to keep the equipment running at an acceptable temp, etc. Every time you add another device or drive array you are adding to your recurring costs to maintain it.

[askmrjesus]

I'm not one, but I have a question for you: In this modern era where I can go to Staples and buy a 16GB usb for only $20, why do you need to put a 200MB size limit on your company's email accts? I am calling BS on my employer's claim that it would cost too much to increase it. :bs:

Dear Mr. Slice,

We here at Blamo Corp., take the happiness of our employees seriously. Very seriously. In fact, aside from the worst sales record in decades, the sinking global economy, and several pending sexual harassment lawsuits leveled against Peterson over in accounting, your e-mail size limit concerns are at the top of our list of shit to worry about.

Nevermind that you spend most of your time here at Blamo, posting on internet motorcycle boards, we really, really, really want you to be happy. So, we have a suggestion: Build your own fucking server if you don't like ours.

Alternatively, you could get your slacker ass back to work, and stop wasting our time and money.

Sincerely,

Blamo Corp. Management

cc: JC

[KSGregman]

Dear Mr. Slice,

We here at Blamo Corp., take the happiness of our employees seriously. Very seriously. In fact, aside from the worst sales record in decades, the sinking global economy, and several pending sexual harassment lawsuits leveled against Peterson over in accounting, your e-mail size limit concerns are at the top of our list of shit to worry about.

Nevermind that you spend most of your time here at Blamo, posting on internet motorcycle boards, we really, really, really want you to be happy. So, we have a suggestion: Build your own fucking server if you don't like ours.

Alternatively, you could get your slacker ass back to work, and stop wasting our time and money.

Sincerely,

Blamo Corp. Management

cc: JC

Hahahaha......breath......hahahahaha..... :lmao:

[Homeslice]

Seriously....it is more expensive hardware and the work involved.

A 200mb limit on mailboxes is reasonable when combined with retention policies.
To hit that 200mb you either need a lot of old emails or a lot of attachments.

Attachments should be kept in the appropriate place (not email) and old email should be purged or stored appropriately for a bazillion reasons.

If it's so damn important TO THE COMPANY that you need to keep it, store it in a place accesible to anyone. Not in an exchange account.

(lee beat me to it)

If you received as much email, and as many attachments, as I do, you wouldn't want to sit around downloading every attachment and then removing it from the original message just to save a little space.

I'm pretty sure I get about 200MB every 2 weeks. This leaves only one option -----> constantly dragging old messages to my "personal" folder which is off the network. Which gets old because then I'm forced to flip back and forth between online and offline stored messages in order to find what I need.

Regarding bandwidth issues? I'm no techie, but I don't understand how a 200MB mailbox puts any stress on bandwidth, when I could if I wanted to watch any video or even movie I wanted to, which I'm quite sure uses more bandwidth than a simple email account.

Regarding cost of servers? Please, at only 200MB per employee for a company my size, this would require only 2,000 gig's worth of space.

[pauldun170]

If you received as much email, and as many attachments, as I do, you wouldn't have time to download every attachment and then remove it from the message. I'm pretty sure I get about 200MB every 2 weeks. This leaves only one option -----> constantly dragging old messages to my "personal" folder which is off the network. Which gets old because then I'm forced to flip back and forth between online and offline stored messages.

Regarding bandwidth issues? I'm no techie, but I don't understand how a 200MB mailbox puts any stress on bandwidth, when I could if I wanted to watch any video or even movie I wanted to, which I'm quite sure uses more bandwidth than a simple email account.

Regarding cost of servers? Please, at only 200MB per employee for a company my size, this would require only 2,000 gig's worth of space.


What business value is being derived by allowing your lazy ass to drive a new expensive policy (how many employees at your company? Storage adds up quick) that will require a significant investment in time and resources?

What business value is being realized by allowing you to keep company data locked away in your exchange account?

Why are you receiving 200MB of email every two weeks? Is this from external clients or internal clients? In order for it to reach that level there'd have to be a lot of attachments because if it's just text emails then it does not make sense.

[Homeslice]

What business value is being derived by allowing your lazy ass to drive a new expensive policy (how many employees at your company? Storage adds up quick) that will require a significant investment in time and resources?

What business value is being realized by allowing you to keep company data locked away in your exchange account?

Why are you receiving 200MB of email every two weeks? Is this from external clients or internal clients? In order for it to reach that level there'd have to be a lot of attachments because if it's just text emails then it does not make sense.

Um yeah, people send attachments constantly. Internal, external, clients, etc......It's not my choice. A lot of it is internal corporate BS announcements, and a lot of it is inter-client communication. Not sure what else to say. A single Powerpoint could be 5-6 MB.

And you say "storage costs add up quick".....:lol:...For a company like this with 10,000 employees, multiply that by 200 mb and the result is only 2,000 gigs. I could go to Staples and buy that much capacity for only a few hundred bucks. Granted, a business is not going to use a common consumer HD for a server, but I still don't understand why it's a big deal. How many servers would possibly be required?

[pauldun170]

Um yeah, people send attachments constantly. Internal, external, clients, etc......It's not my choice. A lot of it is internal corporate BS announcements, and a lot of it is inter-client communication. Not sure what else to say. A single Powerpoint could be 5-6 MB.

And you say "storage costs add up quick".....:lol:...For a company like this with 10,000 employees, multiply that by 200 mb and the result is only 2,000 gigs. I could go to Staples and buy that much capacity for only a few hundred bucks. Granted, a business is not going to use a common consumer HD for a server, but I still don't understand why it's a big deal. How many servers would possibly be required?


Lets say you bought 2000gigs and shoved it all in a server.
Well...they don't sell a lot 2tb drives so you'll probably need to buy a couple of 1tb or a bunch of 500gb.

What happens if the drive fails?
Well guess you have to come up with a solution that provides a level of safety...so you set up a raid array.
Lets say you go simple (mirroring...which you wont you go full hog raid level 5 and up) so now your 2000gb became 4000gb.

Well that's great....now what if the sever fails?
Well I guess you got buy another server as a failover box...
So now you have another 4000gb plus the cost of a server
Total: 8000gb


Wait...what if something happens to the server room?
You better have a contigency site.
Another 2 servers.....

Your up to 16,000 gb

Don't forget to have some spares lying around for quick swaps
(your up to 32,000gb )

32 TBs




I could go on...

[LeeNetworX]

I'm no techie, but I don't understand how....

Then why are you rebutting almost everything that we (who work in the field) suggest as reasons? You must get off on being obstinate. You ask a question about something you admittedly may not understand and then want to argue with us on our answers. Troll.

[askmrjesus]

Dear Mr. Slice,

We have received several inter-office e-mails, from Mr. Lee and Mr. Dun in the IT Dept.

It would seem that despite our strong suggestion that you get your slacker ass back to work, you are continuing to harass our IT staff, on the subject of e-mail storage, despite having no knowledge of how our servers are set up.

Mr. Slice, we have tried to accommodate your requests in the past. Please remember that Blamo Corp. declared July 14th., "Menudo Day" after constant e-mail barrages from your cubicle. We also installed gluten-free toilet paper in third floor men's room at your request, and lowered the watercooler temperature to 36.5 degrees, to suit the needs of your "delicate stomach".

Frankly, you have become a distraction here at Blamo Corp. The staff is fed up with your constant whining, and most of them hate Menudo.

Please refrain from any further harassment of our IT Dept.

We're watching you.

Blamo Corp. Management.

cc: JC

[karl_1052]

We have 40MB limits at my work(for approximately 13000 users)

Create a personal folder on your network share(if you have one) or the hard drive, and back it up to CD once a month.

[Particle Man]

I'm not one, but I have a question for you: In this modern era where I can go to Staples and buy a 16GB usb for only $20, why do you need to put a 200MB size limit on your company's email accts? I am calling BS on my employer's claim that it would cost too much to increase it. :bs:

For just one person using their e-mail for personal use, it doesn't make sense... multiply that by hundreds and in some cases thousands of employees and that is a lot.

[Slowpoke]

Create a personal folder on your network share(if you have one) or the hard drive, and back it up to CD once a month.

That is the best solution, but you definately need to keep it backed up. Too many times have I had a user lose their desktop hard drive and *poof* goes their hard work.

By they way, space is getting cheaper and cheaper. Was at MicroCenter today and saw a 2Tb drive for $229, not sure on the speed, but very cheap and for a smaller type company a great way to expand for a quick fix.

[pauldun170]

At work, I keep important historical stuff in PST's, Important attachments on the shared drive (also important emails that should be available to others).

PST are by year and at the end of each year I bring a copy of that PST home.

For my personal email, also using outlook I use the following
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=8B081F3A-B7D0-4B16-B8AF-5A6322F4FD01&displaylang=en

Backs up everything to a seperate drive.


In your case, you may want to consider setting up some outlook rules to help you deal with the volume of email you get.

[pauldun170]

Oh almost forgot....

Homeslice, now that we are up to 32Tb from your original 2tb estimate.
We need to back that up somewhere and retain it.

damn this is getting pricey

[Homeslice]

Lets say you bought 2000gigs and shoved it all in a server.
Well...they don't sell a lot 2tb drives so you'll probably need to buy a couple of 1tb or a bunch of 500gb.

What happens if the drive fails?
Well guess you have to come up with a solution that provides a level of safety...so you set up a raid array.
Lets say you go simple (mirroring...which you wont you go full hog raid level 5 and up) so now your 2000gb became 4000gb.

Well that's great....now what if the sever fails?
Well I guess you got buy another server as a failover box...
So now you have another 4000gb plus the cost of a server
Total: 8000gb


Wait...what if something happens to the server room?
You better have a contigency site.
Another 2 servers.....

Your up to 16,000 gb

Don't forget to have some spares lying around for quick swaps
(your up to 32,000gb )

32 TBs


I could go on...

And if I look at Slowpoke's post, where he saw a 2TB server for only $229, multiply that by 16 to get 32TB and you're at only $3,664. Now, maybe those are slow, cheap-crap servers, I don't know........So, let's exagerate a bit and say that my company would need to spend 100 times that amount in order to get top-quality equipment. That's still only $366,400, which is pocket change to my company. So what's the problem again? Sure doesn't sound like hardware costs are the problem to me. :shrug: Bandwidth costs, real estate, power & maintenance costs are probably a better argument, in my uneducated opinion.

[pauldun170]

And if I look at Slowpoke's post, where he saw a 2TB server for only $229, multiply that by 16 to get 32TB and you're at only $3,664. Now, maybe those are slow, cheap-crap servers, I don't know........So, let's exagerate a bit and say that my company would need to spend 100 times that amount in order to get top-quality equipment. That's still only $366,400, which is pocket change to my company. So what's the problem again? Sure doesn't sound like hardware costs are the problem to me. :shrug: Bandwidth costs, real estate, power & maintenance costs are probably a better argument, in my uneducated opinion.

I'm in a good mood so I'll give you a few hints

You are starting with 10,000 users at 200mb per mail box.

* 1 processor core for every 1,000 light/medium user mailboxes
* 1 processor core for every 500 heavy user mailboxes
* 8 cores maximum

(do the math)

Memory
* 2GB : 2 to 5MB/mailbox (I wonder what it is for a 200mb mailbox?)
* 32GB maximum recommended (point of diminishing returns in terms of both cost and performance)
* The minimum memory required also depends on the number of storage groups:
(10,000 users....hmmm bet ya got a lot groups)


that's just cpu and memory....

Something tells me your server budget needs to go up.


I'm sure somebody on here has Exchange experience and give you a proper estimate based on 10,000 users @ 200mb as well as your proposed 10,000 at 2GB.

Considering that mailbox size is just a portion of the storage cost....



uneducated opinion

An uneducated opinion is another way of saying ingnorance and your continued yapping means....

Well...I'll stop for now. I know you have back issues of In Style magazine to finish up and I don't want to hold you up

[pauldun170]

oh yeah...

I'm not a network admin.

[Homeslice]

An uneducated opinion is another way of saying ingnorance and your continued yapping means....

Of course it is, they're interchangeable and it matters not to me which one is used. I am ignorant on this issue, that's why I posed the question. But so far, what's been posted hasn't provided a dollar figure of how much it typically costs to run my existing system, how much more it would cost to increase it, or a plain English description of what the various pieces of equipment do. Your post about processor cores, groups, light/medium/heavy users etc. made no sense to me, so I'll just drop it. I'll let you go back to your Defense Weekly or Jane's Aviation or whatever it is you read :lol

[buzzcutt2]

Not to mention the fact that your company likely is using some sort of SAN and RAID configuration for redundancy and speed. If you had 100 users accessing 1 drive - it would be unbearable.

[Bluestreak]

I'd kick you back to 150mb just for complaining about it in the first place.

[Bluestreak]

Hardware for an email server is only half the battle. If you are running Microsoft Exchange like a good little enterprise, you’re looking at spending a small truck load of money in licensing alone. 1 Exchange license (or CAL) is about $60 per person. With 10,000 users, well, you do the math.
A good SAN with 3TB of storage will cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $30k. Multiply that times 2 for replication.

Then you probably have multiple servers’ setup in a cluster. Average server cost is probably in the $15,000 range after you add all the necessary ram and disk space for the server install. Ram still isn’t cheap when you need 20 gig per box. Figure on at least 3 large boxes for 10,000 users and that’s on the conservative side.

Just as a comparison, we have over $15,000 invested in our email server for 200 users. That’s just licensing and hardware. Backup is a whole other story.

Now, take into account that you have to backup that 3TB of disk space. I know you‘re working with 2, but you always need free space, and at least 30%.

How do you backup 3Tb of data (keep in mind this is for email alone) and make it available offsite. There are lots of ways to do this and they all cost money.

Bottom line is, servers = mo money.

[pauldun170]

Of course it is, they're interchangeable and it matters not to me which one is used. I am ignorant on this issue, that's why I posed the question. But so far, what's been posted hasn't provided a dollar figure of how much it typically costs to run my existing system, how much more it would cost to increase it, or a plain English description of what the various pieces of equipment do. Your post about processor cores, groups, light/medium/heavy users etc. made no sense to me, so I'll just drop it. I'll let you go back to your Defense Weekly or Jane's Aviation or whatever it is you read :lol


:lol:

I'm not paying subscription fees...

asshole

[Homeslice]

Hardware for an email server is only half the battle. If you are running Microsoft Exchange like a good little enterprise, you’re looking at spending a small truck load of money in licensing alone. 1 Exchange license (or CAL) is about $60 per person. With 10,000 users, well, you do the math.
A good SAN with 3TB of storage will cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $30k. Multiply that times 2 for replication.

Then you probably have multiple servers’ setup in a cluster. Average server cost is probably in the $15,000 range after you add all the necessary ram and disk space for the server install. Ram still isn’t cheap when you need 20 gig per box. Figure on at least 3 large boxes for 10,000 users and that’s on the conservative side.

Just as a comparison, we have over $15,000 invested in our email server for 200 users. That’s just licensing and hardware. Backup is a whole other story.

Now, take into account that you have to backup that 3TB of disk space. I know you‘re working with 2, but you always need free space, and at least 30%.

How do you backup 3Tb of data (keep in mind this is for email alone) and make it available offsite. There are lots of ways to do this and they all cost money.

Bottom line is, servers = mo money.

1) Exchange is a piece of software, right? Just curious, what does it do?
2) I would see Exchange (license costs) as being a fixed cost that wouldn’t be affected if a decision was made to increase user’s inbox size, correct?
3) The cheap 2TB servers Slowpoke mentioned, I guess they probably don’t have much RAM, right? If so, then yes that would have to be upgraded, but other than that, what’s the real difference between those servers and expensive servers?

[karl_1052]

) The cheap 2TB servers Slowpoke mentioned, I guess they probably don’t have much RAM, right? If so, then yes that would have to be upgraded, but other than that, what’s the real difference between those servers and expensive servers?

Slowpoke mentioned a 2TB hard drive, not a server.

[Bluestreak]

1) Exchange is a piece of software, right? Just curious, what does it do?
2) I would see Exchange (license costs) as being a fixed cost that wouldn’t be affected if a decision was made to increase user’s inbox size, correct?
3) The cheap 2TB servers Slowpoke mentioned, I guess they probably don’t have much RAM, right? If so, then yes that would have to be upgraded, but other than that, what’s the real difference between those servers and expensive servers?

Yes, Microsoft Exchange Server is a peice of software. It's a common email server side software. It hosts the mailboxes that are created. There are several different "flavors" of this software all priced differently. Lotus Notes, iMail and MANY others are alternatives available.

Yes, you are correct, to a point. If a company installed the standard edition of exchange, (don't know what network admin would with 10k users) you have a limit on database storage. This is a software limit, not hardware. The enterprise edition of Exchange is either not limited or has some astronomical size. I can't remember exact details right now, Microsoft keeps changing the rules. For an organization your size, you are likely running the enterprise revision.

Server hard drives are VERY different from pc drives. High end servers, like what you would use to host Exchange, usually use 15,000 RPM SCSI drives. Email servers are very intensive with their hard drive writes, called Disk IO. There is a lot of this done during normal operation. Currently, the biggest drive I can get is a 15k RPM 450Gig SCSI hard disk but the price is like $800 per drive. For a raid 5 setup, you need at least 3 drives. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID

If your company is running a RAID 10, you need double the amount of drives than normal.

You also have to take into account how you utilize your disk space. If something was purchased before you got so big, it might not be "right sized" for the job at hand. Sometimes, just getting gear in to fill your needs can be VERY expensive. Sometimes CIO's will approve the cost of the software one year, and the cost of new hardware another.

The 2TB drive Slowpoke mentioned is a SATA drive. Those spin at 7200RPMs. Not recommended for an email server. Not nearly fast enough. Keep in mind the 10k users here again...

The difference, is always SPEED!

[Slowpoke]

Just for the record, I am a girl :)

Secondly I posted that kind of quickly about the 2tb drives. The more I think about it, they probably wouldn't work in a server well, at least the type I run at work. That would most likely be a drive you'd put into a desktop. For business of course you'd pay through the nose for that kind of space.

[Homeslice]

Yes, Microsoft Exchange Server is a peice of software. It's a common email server side software. It hosts the mailboxes that are created. There are several different "flavors" of this software all priced differently. Lotus Notes, iMail and MANY others are alternatives available.

Yes, you are correct, to a point. If a company installed the standard edition of exchange, (don't know what network admin would with 10k users) you have a limit on database storage. This is a software limit, not hardware. The enterprise edition of Exchange is either not limited or has some astronomical size. I can't remember exact details right now, Microsoft keeps changing the rules. For an organization your size, you are likely running the enterprise revision.

Server hard drives are VERY different from pc drives. High end servers, like what you would use to host Exchange, usually use 15,000 RPM SCSI drives. Email servers are very intensive with their hard drive writes, called Disk IO. There is a lot of this done during normal operation. Currently, the biggest drive I can get is a 15k RPM 450Gig SCSI hard disk but the price is like $800 per drive. For a raid 5 setup, you need at least 3 drives. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID

If your company is running a RAID 10, you need double the amount of drives than normal.

You also have to take into account how you utilize your disk space. If something was purchased before you got so big, it might not be "right sized" for the job at hand. Sometimes, just getting gear in to fill your needs can be VERY expensive. Sometimes CIO's will approve the cost of the software one year, and the cost of new hardware another.

The 2TB drive Slowpoke mentioned is a SATA drive. Those spin at 7200RPMs. Not recommended for an email server. Not nearly fast enough. Keep in mind the 10k users here again...

The difference, is always SPEED!

This is good info, thanks. I never really knew the physical differences between a server and a desktop, other than the fact that servers have this cool stackable format with rugged cases & blinking lights & shit. I didn't know the actual RPM was faster.

So the difference between Outlook and Exchange is that Outlook is just user-side software that manages an indiv. account, while Exchange is server-side software that manages how all the accounts interact with each other?

[Bluestreak]

This is good info, thanks. I never really knew the physical differences between a server and a desktop, other than the fact that servers have this cool stackable format with rugged cases & blinking lights & shit. I didn't know the actual RPM was faster.

So the difference between Outlook and Exchange is that Outlook is just user-side software that manages an indiv. account, while Exchange is server-side software that manages how all the accounts interact with each other?

Yes, you pay more for all the blinky lights! :lol:

You got it. Exchange (or other server peice) back end, Outlook front end. Exchange does more than just what we talked about, but that's another topic for another day.

[Papa_Complex]

This is good info, thanks. I never really knew the physical differences between a server and a desktop, other than the fact that servers have this cool stackable format with rugged cases & blinking lights & shit. I didn't know the actual RPM was faster.

So the difference between Outlook and Exchange is that Outlook is just user-side software that manages an indiv. account, while Exchange is server-side software that manages how all the accounts interact with each other?

It's more than just RPM that makes things faster. You can get into things like 'striping' of data on the drives, which distributes the data from a single source across multiple disks. This means that while one disk is recovering from a seek operation and getting ready to read another discrete piece of data, another drive can already be doing so. This reduces latency periods between data reads and speeds overall disk performance.

Since disk reads are the slowest operation that takes place on a server, this can significantly reduce that particular performance bottleneck. That's where a good DBA comes in because location of data can have a big effect on overall access times.