News
Meta Pegs Exchange Migration Costs at $30-$60/Seat
- By Scott Bekker
- April 18, 2001
Migrating to Exchange 2000 costs Global 2000 organizations $30-$60 per seat aside from Active Directory and Windows 2000 migration costs, according to research from consultancy
Meta Group.
Hardware expenditures, geographic distribution and Exchange 5.5 directory hygiene, however, can rocket costs to $100 per user, Meta warns.
Meta released the estimate this week as it announced the availability of its planning and modeling tool for identifying and controlling key cost drivers in Exchange 2000 migrations. Meta calls the product its Predictive Cost Modeling Tool.
Organizations must migrate to Windows 2000 and the Active Directory to deploy Exchange 2000, and Meta recommends simultaneous work on all three infrastructure fronts.
"We've found that most organizations are best served by concurrently designing Active Directory/Windows 2000 and Exchange 2000 architectures to ensure skill transfer and migration/operational efficiencies," Matt Cain, a vice president at Meta, said in a statement.
One of the main ways to control costs in Exchange 2000 is to reduce the number of Exchange servers, an option made possible by the improvements in stability and scalability in Windows 2000 over Windows NT.
Most organizations plan to consolidate the number of Exchange servers by 40 percent to 60 percent, according to Meta's research. Another Exchange 2000 cost savings is the single-seat administration of Exchange and Active Directory. –
About the Author
Scott Bekker is editor in chief of Redmond Channel Partner magazine.