Item: Microsoft Exchange
Rating: 9
Author: Mark Metz

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Microsoft Exchange is the primary source of email communication for our users. All departments use it and it is the one service that cannot be down for any significant amount of time. It allows for group distribution of information via mail groups; conference room reservations; communications with outside organizations; management of daily work schedules; and communications via instant messaging. Without it, work would almost literally come to a halt.

Pros and Cons

Setting up Mail Groups/Distribution Lists which allow for communications with large numbers of people without having to address email to each person individually.
Setting up resource calendars for users to access and reserve. For instance tying a physical room to a mailbox calendar allows for very easy scheduling of that particular room resource. It helps with the timeframe of planning meeting locations and for easy reservation without having to coordinate with multiple people wanting to use the room resource. The same would apply to equipment resources.
Exchange allows for the creation of shared mailboxes, which allow email to be funneled to a central mailbox that can be managed by multiple people and allow for one point of contact rather than multiple individual contacts. When dealing with outside contacts this is absolutely critical.
It is an excellent tool for managing users' primary source of communication. Everything for message discovery to helping correct something as small as an incorrect Out of Office notice is possible via the Management Console. It's also a good source for PowerShell scripts since it provides you the ability to see the command and syntax in PowerShell of a task or function you perform within the tool.

Permissions for users on other calendars (Specifically Delegates) could stand to be improved quite a bit. Permission via Delegation, Full-Access on account or things like Send-As should be more easily available within the Exchange management console rather than a combination of using the console and using PowerShell scripts.
Mail discovery could also use an overhaul of its current process. While it does work, the limitations are difficult work around and sometimes it’s as though only have of the management done is via a GUI versus having to script a lot of the work needed.
The online version for Exchange O365 could also use an overhaul of how it works. There are too many related components that would seem to go together that reside in completely different locations. And again the reliance of scripting can be troublesome for someone that is not an extremely experienced administrator.

Return on Investment

It provides a means for interfacing with other applications such as trouble ticketing systems or other third-party applications.
There really is no other tool that allows for near-instant communications between users with all the options available for managing them.
The only negative that would be the fact that there really is not fallback in place. Once everyone is using the Exchange, you really have not options to consider other alternatives down the road. Where that really becomes a problem is you are at the mercy of Microsoft when they make changes they may or may not be beneficial. There are many times they deploy updates or patches that you must deploy but find they have not been fully vetted.

Alternatives Considered

There is nothing I've seen in any organization I've been part of in over 20 years that's been used in place as the corporate solution for email. The standardization of Exchange across nearly all major corporations and government agencies is near complete I not really aware of any viable alternatives. There is Yahoo or Google, but these are not used by anyone I've worked for so no really things to compare against.

Support Rating

It's the best application around email and group communication with the exception of instant messaging. It's not perfect but as far as providing near instant means of communications it really has no equal at this time. Online options like Yahoo and Gmail are good for personal users only, but the back end of Exchange is the only thing reasonably accessible in a professional environment.

Other reasons for the high rating include overall functionality and scalability. But the user interface does present its challenges. The fact that you sometimes may have to do the same thing but from two different mechanisms (i.e. GUI vs. PowerShell) can be challenging depending on your environment. And the eDiscovery process should be overhauled completely, but in all honesty, it's really the only game in town as far as mail stands and Microsoft at least puts continued effort into improving the product (although they don't consider user feedback enough).

Key Insights

Do you think Microsoft Exchange delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Microsoft Exchange's feature set?

Yes

Did Microsoft Exchange live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of Microsoft Exchange go as expected?

I wasn't involved with the implementation phase

Would you buy Microsoft Exchange again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Office 365

Likelihood to Recommend

Obviously it's a perfect tool for communications. The ability for users to access their mail either through the Outlook application or via the Outlook Web Application makes staying up to date and communicating with co-workers is unmatched by any other application. Without it out organization would be crippled and very hard pressed to find a substitute that matches all the Exchange offers.

The only time I would say it's not appropriate in as a substitute for face to face direct communication. Sending information and details is great, but one thing that is lost is the context of a conversation

An Administrator's General Guide to the Pros and Cons of Exchange.

Overall Satisfaction with Microsoft Exchange