If you haven’t upgraded to Exchange 2007 yet, you might be looking to make the migration from 2003 to 2010.  If you’re ambitious, you may be ready to go from Exchange 2007 to 2010, to take advantage of one or more new features.

The primary new feature that existing and prospective clients are interested in is the new, built-in high availability feature that Microsoft says will allow you to economically deploy an email messaging continuity service within your organization.  We admit it sounds promising, and at worst, pretty cool.

Things to consider:

• Virtualization Pitfalls: If this will be a “local solution” and you’re going to virtualize the servers, they still need to be on at least two independent virtual hosts to avoid a single point of hardware failure.  Please note that very often email servers are not ideal candidates for server virtualization.
• Remote Site Considerations: If this will be a disaster recovery solution with servers in multiple locations, the number of considerations increases.  For example bandwidth for data replication, physical server access and security.
• Is it going to work? Exchange is a highly specialized enterprise communications system requiring expertise to properly implement and maintain.  Regular failover tests are 0ften overlooked, but are a necessary part of maintaining a reliable design.  Lastly this is a brand new feature that you might call “bleeding edge.”
• Unpredictable costs add up: Microsoft says this is a cost effective solution, but you may want to ask, compared to what?  Your additional costs for the increased number of servers will include some or all of the following unpredictable costs: travel, hardware maintenance and replacement, server maintenance, high availability/disaster recovery testing, solution specific administration, training, hosting, bandwidth and expertise costs (1099, Outsource IT or FTE).
• Alternatives: There are managed SaaS (Software as a Service) options such as Dell’s Message One product, or more inclusive messaging suites like Proofpoint and Mimecast that offer email continuity solutions.  They are fully managed at a fixed cost, and most importantly are proven solutions you can rely on.  Furthermore, options like Google Apps Premier for Enterprises offer a true Cloud Computing solution (high availability inherent) all rolled into the cost of the product, which is a fixed cost per user, per year.

Overall this seems like a feature best implemented after it is proven out as a preferred solution.  Even then it may only be advisable for large enterprise organizations who can truly realize the benefits and have the dedicated staff to expertly maintain the design.