The Cost of Running and Configuring an Exchange Server

By: Thurman C. Arzola Click author's name for more of his/her articles

An exchange server is a Microsoft function that serves a variety of purposes including email capabilities, calendar application and information storage.
Exchange servers have been available since 1993 and have proved to be an incredibly popular facility. There have been many versions since their introduction to cope with the increasing demands of new operating systems in the world of personal computing.
When configuring an exchange server, it's a necessity to set up individual e-mail accounts for each individual which will be using the facility for sending and receiving messages through the server.
Each individual account must be configured to allow varying levels of accessibility, therefore giving some users higher degrees of permission than others. This designates what particular levels of access people could have on the server and dictates the level of control that a particular user will have over their own e-mails.
Once set up, the moderator or director of the exchange server is able to configure the filtering options. This can offer protection from viruses, trojans, spam and unsolicited mail reaching the users of the post facility of the exchange servers in question . Individual IP addresses can be blocked to stop mail coming from one special person and the server can also block recipients so messages can't reach them.
Once a message has cleared the filtering system, it is routed to the proposed recipient. Microsoft exchange servers were originally designed to be used only with Microsoft Outlook, but the inflating numbers of versions have allowed other clients to be used including Outlook Express, Mozilla and Thunderbird as well as allowing interfaces like Outlook Web Access.
The latest version of Microsoft exchange server will be ES2010. This is lined up for release in the later part of 2009 and will contain a major number of new features as well as improving certain aspects of the ES2007 version.
Price can vary dependant on the amount of storage groups and databases required. Cost can also be affected by the relevant licenses needed for operation.
5 storage groups and equivalent number of databases per mailbox server role will cost $699 ( Standard Edition ) while fifty storage groups and fifty databases will cost $3,999 ( establishment Edition ).
the standard license costs $67 while an upgrade to a co. license adds $35 to the bill.
External connector licenses will alter in price from area to region but may not be affected by restrictions. These licenses are generally charged out at individual price per server.

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