Analysis by Novell
The following information presents finding from a September 11th Novell report that compares GroupWise 7 to Exchange 2007 and examines the costs associated with migrating from Exchange 5.5 to GroupWise 7 or Exchange 2007.
GroupWise 7 Implementation Costs
If you are implementing GroupWise 7 instead of Exchange 2007 there are the same assumptions as with Exchange 2007 for a 5000 user GroupWise 7 system, new installation. Let's start by looking at a new GroupWise 7 system running on Windows 2003 R2 Servers versus running on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10.
| Server Function | Number Needed | Unit Price | Total Price |
| Primary Domain and One Post Office (eDirectory for Management of GroupWise 7) | 1 | $8,363 | $8,363 |
| Post Office Domain and One Post Office | 1 | $8,363 | $8,363 |
| One Post Office | 2 | $8,363 | $16,726 |
| Gateway Domain and One Internet Access and One WebAccess Gateway | 1 | $8,363 | $8,363 |
| Total Hardware Price | - | - | $41,815 |
Table 3: GroupWise 7 Hardware Costs
| Products | Number of Licenses
Required | MSRP Per Unit Cost /
Total Required | CDW Per Unit Cost /
Total |
| 1 GroupWise 7 Full License | 5000 | $143 / $715,000 | $119.99 / $599,950 |
| 1 SUSE 10 Server License | 5 | $0 | $0 |
| Total Licenses/Price | - | $715,000 | $599,950 |
Table 4: GroupWise 7 on Linux Licensing Costs
| Products | Number of Licenses Required | MSRP Per Unit Cost /
Total Required | CDW Per Unit Cost /
Total |
| 1 GroupWise 7 Full License | 5000 | $143 / $715,000 | $119.99 / $599,950 |
1 Windows 2003 Server R2 Standard Edition License
(+ 5 CAL's, 20 CAL's Total) | 5 | $999 / $4,995 | $959.99 / $4,799.95 |
| Total Licenses/Price | - | $719,995 | $604,749.95 |
Table 5: GroupWise 7 on Windows 2003 Server Licensing Costs
Migrations
In either case, on Linux or on Windows 2003, GroupWise 7 is less expensive. However, if you are migrating from Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2007, What are the associated costs? Answer: More than the above numbers!
In order to migrate from Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2007, you must first migrate to Exchange 2003. Yes, that's right. There is no "in-place" upgrade. But that's the same for Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2007 - no in-place upgrade. This is due to the changes in the databases and infrastructure of Exchange 2007. In order to migrate from Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2003 - your first step to get to Exchange 2007 - you must move all users to Exchange 2003. Yes, that means you need to build an Exchange 2003 system for the interim migration, and it must support your environment while in the interim step. This means more hardware, which means more costs.
Once moved to Exchange 2003, you can then move the users to the Exchange 2007 system. This process is similar to moving mailboxes from post office to post office in GroupWise. It requires each user's account to be moved. The good news is you can facilitate this using a 3rd party provider utility that will aid in the migration, at a cost (Quest).
This new utility by Quest will migrate directly from Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2007. The Exchange Migration Wizard by Quest costs $23.67 per mailbox, according to CDW. So if you had to migrate 5000 mailboxes, it would be an additional $118,350 on top of the new Exchange 2007 costs. Discount pricing is probably available but was not factored into this analysis. The last cost would be consulting fees to migrate your organization, unless your IT team is skilled in migrations and has the time.
If you wanted to migrate from Exchange 5.5/2000/2003 to GroupWise 7, it would cost you nothing extra but the consulting fees, if you hired a consultant. The GroupWise 7 Migration Utility for Exchange is free. Simply build the new GroupWise 7 system and migrate the users. You can run multiple instances of the GroupWise 7 Migration Utility for Exchange in order to increase the migration process. As an example, you could have 10 Migration Utilities set up and running each migrating 500 users mailboxes. You could potentially have the migration done in one long week, depending upon the size of user mailboxes, of course. The GroupWise 7 Migration Utility for Exchange runs on a Windows workstation, so you are not limited to just a few servers for the process.
Summary
As you can see, migrating to Exchange 2007 from Exchange 5.5 or GroupWise is a costly venture. And it will be time-consuming as well, not to mention the loss of end user productivity as users learn a new client. On top of all of this, a truly respectable corporate officer or leader in an organization must ask himself: "Where is the return on investment?"
Now it's not always about money. Sometimes the migrations are about "resume building" for the CIO or Director of IT or IT Staff, and sometimes it's about business processes such as a crucial application that can link into an email system. But when making a truly honest business decision, it is never justifiable to migrate from any email platform unless you can show good ROI and strong economies of scale. The fact is, less money can be spent to improve the existing system. So, if you need to migrate your existing email platform, do gather your facts and figures and make an honest, informed decision. Click here to learn more about the Cost of Ownership of an Exchange 2007 implementation.
|