Remote setup recommendations? - Microsoft Exchange

With so few employees at each remote office I would suggest one Exchange
Server at the Main Office and use RPC over HTTPs with Outlook 2003/2007 in
Cached Mode at the remote offices. This requires no VPN connectivity and if
the remote office broadband connection were to go down the users can still
work in Outlook offline mode. All this can be done at no cost if you
already have Exchange 2003 as Outlook is included with your Exchange CAL.
If you are using Exchange 2007 you will need to purchase Outlook 2007
depending your licensing for Exchange 2007 CAL.

--
John Oliver, Jr
MCSE, MCT, CCNA
Exchange MVP 2007
Microsoft Certified Partner


"Linn Kubler" <lkubler@chartwellwisc2.com> wrote in message
news:e$t224reHHA.3956@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
> Hi,
>
> Someone asked me recently for advice on how to configure Exchange for a
> company setup like this. Three offices, main office in one city, two
> remote offices in two different cities. They are all currently using
> Outlook with POP3 to their ISP's email server and they want to move away
> from this configuration.
>
> I imagine one way would be to set each office up with it's own subdomain
> like this, office1.mycompany.com and office2.mycompany.com and so forth
> with an Exchange server in each office. However, this is a rather small
> organization with only 4 employees in one of the branch offices and about
> the same in the other. I don't know if it's worth having that complicated
> an email address structure.
>
> Another option I can think of would be to have one Exchange server in the
> main office and setup vpn between the main office and remote offices. At
> least I assume that would be possible.
>
> What other options are there? I know this is a Microsoft group but are
> there any other products besides Exchange that would work and possibly be
> less expensive?
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Linn
>
>

Thanks John, I appreciate the response and suggestions. That does sound
like a good compromize that could save some $$ and be easier to setup and
maintain. Just what I was looking for.

Thanks,
Linn

"John Oliver, Jr. [MVP]" <jcoliverjr@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:512181A0-EFB9-4B3E-8A7E-4BA1284181C6@microsoft.com...
> With so few employees at each remote office I would suggest one Exchange
> Server at the Main Office and use RPC over HTTPs with Outlook 2003/2007 in
> Cached Mode at the remote offices. This requires no VPN connectivity and
> if the remote office broadband connection were to go down the users can
> still work in Outlook offline mode. All this can be done at no cost if
> you already have Exchange 2003 as Outlook is included with your Exchange
> CAL. If you are using Exchange 2007 you will need to purchase Outlook 2007
> depending your licensing for Exchange 2007 CAL.
>
> --
> John Oliver, Jr
> MCSE, MCT, CCNA
> Exchange MVP 2007
> Microsoft Certified Partner
>
>
> "Linn Kubler" <lkubler@chartwellwisc2.com> wrote in message
> news:e$t224reHHA.3956@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
>> Hi,
>>
>> Someone asked me recently for advice on how to configure Exchange for a
>> company setup like this. Three offices, main office in one city, two
>> remote offices in two different cities. They are all currently using
>> Outlook with POP3 to their ISP's email server and they want to move away
>> from this configuration.
>>
>> I imagine one way would be to set each office up with it's own subdomain
>> like this, office1.mycompany.com and office2.mycompany.com and so forth
>> with an Exchange server in each office. However, this is a rather small
>> organization with only 4 employees in one of the branch offices and about
>> the same in the other. I don't know if it's worth having that
>> complicated an email address structure.
>>
>> Another option I can think of would be to have one Exchange server in the
>> main office and setup vpn between the main office and remote offices. At
>> least I assume that would be possible.
>>
>> What other options are there? I know this is a Microsoft group but are
>> there any other products besides Exchange that would work and possibly be
>> less expensive?
>>
>> Thanks in advance,
>> Linn
>>
>>
>