There is quite a bit of interest these days in open source solutions for products. Personally, I have always been a stickler for Novell. Novell has excellent directory services and an incredibly intuitive administration tool. Typically I manage to squeak out an occasional Novell article for System toolbox and not much else. I've never really taken an interest in Linux, however, with the emphasis on the email reviews this month, I've been talking a lot with Chris Campbell and honestly, when he showed me the Suse Email Server III, I was pretty blown away. He went on to tell me of some research that he had been doing for an email implementation and mentioned that for educational pricing closed source email options weren't much more expensive than their open source counterparts. I was then reasonably curious as to how things stack up in the commercial world.

We discussed it and what we've chosen is to go with Microsoft Exchange 2000 vs. Suse Email Server II. I am typically more of a Novell guy and Chris thought that using Microsoft would put me on more or less equal standing on both products to be evaluated: only a vague familiarity. Both products have been reviewed for the site already as well. *

* Editors Note: Microsoft Exchange 2000 has been reviewed as part of the .Net series and will be released in schedule with the series. This review has not been posted yet.

Metrics:

Both server options are for different platforms and come from vastly different sensibilities. Comparing them is almost like comparing apples and oranges. Therefore a neutral set of metrics was required to give a non-biased evaluation.

Depending on the needs of the organization, the values placed on various features of the email application changes. For the purpose of this review, we required that a specific feature set be developed from a third party, unbiased location.

To establish the metric set used here, product comparisons from the websites of the major email servers were reviewed. These products' comparisons cannot be seen as anything accept biased, so the metrics were comprised of features compiled from multiple sites.

Local Security Directory

LDAP Synchronization

Automated LDAP Mail list

Online Backup

Individual Mailbox Restore

Flexible Internet Addressing

Support for Administrative Delegation

Internal PKI Functionality (SSL)

HTTP

IMAP4

POP

SMTP

Clustering

Archive All Outgoing Mail

Archive All Incoming Mail

Calendaring

Anti-Virus Capability

Public Folders

Instant Messaging / Chat Server

Client Flexibility

HTTP Administration

Scalability

Migration tool / Pop3 downloader

Unlimited Message Store

SPAM Filter (Server Level

SPAM Filter (User Level)

Non-Standard Mail Interactivity

Scoring:

Once the features had been compiled, a value had to be placed on the status of the feature within the product. A point system was established to account for possible permutations of feature availability.

"3" =	Functionality Included
"2" =	Functionality Available. Not included.
"1" =	Functionality Available, poor implementation
"0" =	Functionality Unknown
"-1" =	Functionality Not Available

Now with a value able to be associated to the features, each email server can be valued relative to the cumulative total of the feature set. Our feature set total ended up being equal to 81 points.

Summary of Results:

The results of this evaluation are included in the following pages. The pricing is reported from web page listings and when web listings were not available, price projections from Telephone contact to the sales vendor. Cost projections are made for a 5,000-user account scenario. Suse Email Server II is a specified product release and is not the download version of Suse; likewise the Microsoft Exchange 2000 listed here is the standard version.

The Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) projections for both estimate server hardware at $10,000 and a Full Time Employee (FTE) Salary at $42,5000. (Both of these would be negotiable. The idea is that they're accounted for and consistent across the platforms.)

Microsoft Exchange 2000
Windows NT 2000
Feature Analysis:
Functionality Included
Functionality Available. Not included.
Functionality Available, poor implementation
Functionality Unknown
Functionality Not Available
Item	Score	Possible	Cost:	Detail:
Local Security Directory	3	3	$0.00
LDAP Synchronization	3	3	$0.00
Automated LDAP Maillist	-1	3	$0.00
Online Backup	3	3	$0.00
Individual Mailbox Restore	2	3	$783.00	Veritas Backup for Exchange
Flexible Internet Addressing	3	3	$0.00
Support for Administrative Delegation	0	3	$0.00
Internal PKI Functionality (SSL)	3	3	$0.00
HTTP	3	3	$0.00
IMAP4	3	3	$0.00
POP	3	3	$0.00
SMTP	3	3	$0.00
Clustering	3	3	$0.00
Archive All Outgoing Mail	2	3	$0.00	http://www.slipstick.com/addins/content_control.htm **
Archive All Incoming Mail	2	3	$0.00	http://www.slipstick.com/addins/content_control.htm **
Calendaring	3	3	$0.00
Anti-Virus Capability	2	3	$39,500.00	Norton Antivirus 2.5 for Microsoft Exchange
Public Folders	3	3	$0.00
Instant Messaging / Chat Server	3	3	$0.00
Client Flexibility	3	3	$0.00
HTTP Administration	2	3	$0.00
Scalability	3	3	$0.00
Migration tool / Pop3 downloader	2	3	$0.00
Unlimited Message Store	-1	3	$0.00	Standard Exchange Limited to 16 GB
SPAM Filter (Server Level	2	3	$0.00
SPAM Filter (User Level)	0	3	$0.00
Non-Standard Mail Interactivity	3	3	$0.00
Total	60	81	$40,283.00
Cost of Ownership:
Implementation:
	Rate	Amount
OS / Media Cost	$699	1	$699.00	http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/howtobuy/pricing/default.asp
Licensing Cost	$67	5000	$335,000.00
Additional Feature Cost (from Above)			$40,283.00
Total			$375,982.00
Hardware:
Server Hardware			$10,000.00
Other			$0.00
Total			$10,000.00
Training:
Instructional Material			$40.00	http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/managexsvr/
Human Resource Time			$0.00
Other			$0.00
Total			$40.00
Administration:
Human Resource:
FTE / PTE Salary Expense (Estimated)			$42,500.00
Other			$0.00
Total			$42,500.00
Support Coverage:
Operating System Support			$9,900.00	24x7 Contract
Product Specific Support			$0.00
Norton Anti-virus Maintenance			$18,750.00
Veritas Maintenance (per Year, 24x7)			$147.00
Total			$28,797.00
Total Functionality			64	Out of: 81
Startup Costs			$497,602.00
Reoccurring Operation Costs			$71,297.00

** We did not hear back with a price estimate at the time of writing.

Suse Email Server II
Suse 7 Linux
Feature Analysis:
Functionality Included
Functionality Available. Not included.
Functionality Available, poor implementation
Functionality Unknown
Functionality Not Available
Item	Score	Possible	Cost:	Detail:
Local Security Directory	3	3	$0.00
LDAP Synchronization	3	3	$0.00
Automated LDAP Maillist	2	3	$0.00
Online Backup	3	3	$0.00
Individual Mailbox Restore	3	3	$0.00
Flexible Internet Addressing	3	3	$0.00
Support for Administrative Delegation	0	3	$0.00
Internal PKI Functionality (SSL)	3	3	$0.00
HTTP	3	3	$0.00
IMAP4	3	3	$0.00
POP	3	3	$0.00
SMTP	3	3	$0.00
Clustering	2	3	$0.00
Archive All Outgoing Mail	3	3	$0.00
Archive All Incoming Mail	3	3	$0.00
Calendaring	2	3	$0.00
Anti-Virus Capability	2	3	$0.00	Can use Virus Def Files from Norton, MacAfee, etc.
Public Folders	3	3	$0.00
Instant Messaging / Chat Server	2	3	$0.00
Client Flexibility	3	3	$0.00
HTTP Administration	3	3	$0.00
Scalability	3	3	$0.00
Migration tool / Pop3 downloader	3	3	$0.00
Unlimited Message Store	3	3	$0.00
SPAM Filter (Server Level)	2	3	$0.00
SPAM Filter (User Level)	3	3	$0.00
Non-Standard Mail Interactivity	2	3	$0.00
Total	71	81	$0.00
Cost of Ownership:
Implementation:
	Rate	Amount
OS / Media Cost	$299	1	$299.00
Licensing Cost	$0	5000	$0.00
Additional Feature Cost (from Above)			$0.00
Total			$299.00
Hardware:
Server Hardware			$10,000.00
Other			$0.00
Total			$10,000.00
Training:
Instructional Material			$0.00
Human Resource Time			$0.00
Other			$0.00
Total			$0.00
Administration:
Human Resource:
FTE / PTE Salary Expense (Estimated)			$42,500.00
Other			$0.00
Total			$42,500.00
Support Coverage:
Operating System Support			$2,000.00	Unlimited Occurrences, 9-5
Product Specific Support			$0.00
Norton Anti-virus Maintenance			$0.00
Veritas Maintenance (per Year, 24x7)			$0.00
Total			$2,000.00
Total Functionality			71	81
Startup Costs			$54,799.00
Reoccurring Operation Costs			$44,500.00

Ok, so what's this all mean? Let's look at the same statistics, but graphed. First, let's look at the Functionality:

Now, these charts show Suse Email Server II to be much more functional - but only relative to the metrics that both servers were compared against. If all of the items that Microsoft Exchanged marked poorly on are not crucial to your organization's email plans then the metrics would not tell the entire story of how functional the product is for your requirements. Again, these metrics were assembled to be as non-biased as possible.

Now, let's move on to the Cost Projections:

From this chart, we can see that some of the greatest initial costs are from the initial licensing. However if we look at the cost break down for the ongoing costs, the largest costs are actually the maintenance of the Antivirus and Backup Products. A configuration without these would be a poor decision administratively but the price is just uncomfortable. Linux on the other hand lacks these costs, as they only require a virus definition file, which, for the most part, can be downloaded for free.

Other Issues:

As of this writing their remains several instances of incomplete data and other issues in these comparisons:

Support Contracts: The Microsoft Support contract is 24x7 and is limited to 15 occurrences where the Suse support contract is 8x5 and unlimited occurrences. We attempted to contact Suse for 24x7 but as of this writing have not heard back.

Both companies do have support options for 'per-occurrence' billing. Generally, support contracts are desired as a means of leverage to remedy issues with vendors. It's doubtful that either company would ever be required to assist. In any case, the typical attraction to contracting these services is that the contract can be leveraged as: 'Fix our problem or we'll go with another vendor.'

It is doubtful that the concept of 'leverage' would work, especially in reference to Microsoft. This is a comparatively small installation and considering that the federal government can barely handle successfully suing Microsoft, it's doubtful that a company could.

Human Resource Training: It is hard to ascertain what resources would be required to train an FTE to administer the Email System. Any additional (3rd party) functionality would require additional training even for experienced administrators. The human resource expense is equally hard to ascertain, as it would depend on the rate paid to the FTE, the FTE's previous level of experience and the FTE's ability to comprehend new concepts. Notably, the installation, configuration and administration guide for Suse Email Server II is less than a quarter inch thick compared to the three inch thick Microsoft Exchange Server Manual. I personally found installation, and most especially configuration, to be easier by far with the Suse Email Server Product.

Collateral Support: Another non-obvious consideration is that of collateral support: What are the skill sets of the other System Administration resources? If your network staff is primarily Windows NT Administrators, migrating to Linux for a production platform is probably not a good idea. If you're coming from Novell, for instance, I don't know why you would want to leave Groupwise, but if you did, it'd be an even change to either platform. Also, in the event of an unforeseeable disaster or personnel loss, would the existing System Administration resources be capable of covering the position?

All in all, an email decision should be made on the functionality required for your organization. This review has shown that overall functionality (based on the non-biased metrics we tested against) is higher with Suse. Initial setup price is amazingly high for Microsoft exchange but it's really the 3rd party maintenance that increases the reoccurring costs.

On a personal level, I am impressed with Open Source. The server was easy to use and the price savings is really easy to see. But even beyond that - the thoughts that stick in my head are about the Microsoft pricing and licensing. Novell licenses aren't the cheapest in the world, but the software strictly enforces the license limit. I cannot help but wonder if Microsoft lowered the price, would they still have such issues with licensing? How much does Microsoft pay to support the B.S.A.? Would they reduce piracy by making the pricing reasonable? If they better enforced the licensing with their software and didn't rely on the 'honor system', I don't think they would have such a piracy problem. I cannot help that the software piracy of Microsoft software probably has more to do with Microsoft's implementation and high prices than the morality of their users. This sort of situation alienates users, I am sure.