We use Microsoft Exchange mostly for corporate communication services—setting up an email box, calendar, setting appointments, etc. My organization is a very big organization. The user base is not less than 15 people. When I worked with Exchange at Starcomms on the corporate organization, we had more than 1,000. When I was at another company, we had a user base that is more than 60.
Exchange 2003 was a more closed environment, but they improved on it in 2010. The availability group settings are better, so it has inherent scalability. In 2010, they added several sensible rules.
They could continue to improve the consolidation and integration of mailbox services to make them more flexible, easier to deploy, and more manageable.
I've used it for a couple of years. I've used Exchange 2003, 2007, 2012, and 2015.
When we've had issues that are beyond our ability to resolve, we've contacted Microsoft. Once we had a deep phishing outbreak that involved a lot of phishing emails, so I had to contact them and then work together to figure out how to stem that thing.
Setup is straightforward for administrators if you understand networking services and the need for an active directory service. Exchange is a site-aware service, so you must have a good grip on active directory services. You need a deeper understanding of the networking layer, internet services, and broadband before you can manage it on your own as a system administrator. These are services that an experienced administrator can handle.
I was able to do it all on my own. I have robust experience in hardware, installation and maintenance, operating systems, networking, routing and switching, security as well as database administration, and a little bit of user support too. I can also support the exchanges from the client side of it.
In terms of deployment and maintenance, I do need a support engineer just to help with the labor. I also need maybe other system engineers as a backup. Then there's the technical team. Okay. In a corporate environment, you have people to deal with management influence, IT governance, and all the business cases underneath all that. Then you have the administrative level, including the security admin, a Windows admin for the Java site, then you have the Exchange admin. On the support level, you have user support.
When I was working in another company, it was Enterprise volume licensing.
Microsoft Exchange is the leader in corporate communication. It has been quite a good service. I rate it nine out of 10.