Exchange 2003 used several recipient types, but it was often difficult to determine exactly what type a given object was. For example, a mail-enabled user and a mailbox-enabled user looked ident...
Updated Jul 01, 2019
Version 2.0
Blog Post
I am just not too crazy about having generic user accounts floating around in AD. To me it makes more sense and seems a lot cleaner to have the ability to create a mailbox for a resource or group without having an associated user account.
This becomes especially important with group accounts, as we are a large environment (25,000 users) and we need to simplify their management. The way we handle groups is that we have automatically populated groups based on HR data. We also provide manually populated groups where a department, or division, etc can request a net manual group, our helpdesk will create it, and the requesting manager/technician can manage the membership and other options. They have the ability to drop all mail destined to the group on the floor, deliver it to all members, deliver it to a specific user, or deliver it to a group mailbox.
Given that these are configurable by the group manager and may change over time, it would be a nightmare to script this by flipping between using Public Folders for the group mailbox and delivering to each member, etc. This actually leads to another thing... It would also be nice to have the ability to forward a group to another account (altRecipient for a group in LDAP).
We have been running Exchange with about 3,000 of our users, until recently when we migrated all 25,000 off of our UNIX system. So far it is working really nice, but our UNIX mail system was definitely more flexible in how it dealt with mailboxes. In this respect, E2k+ has really taken a step back from E5.5. Because of these limitations, we are actually considering deploying a small UNIX mail system to deal with our groups. The rigidity of Exchange requiring a user for each mailbox just can't compete with the flexibility of a nice UNIX based mail system.
This becomes especially important with group accounts, as we are a large environment (25,000 users) and we need to simplify their management. The way we handle groups is that we have automatically populated groups based on HR data. We also provide manually populated groups where a department, or division, etc can request a net manual group, our helpdesk will create it, and the requesting manager/technician can manage the membership and other options. They have the ability to drop all mail destined to the group on the floor, deliver it to all members, deliver it to a specific user, or deliver it to a group mailbox.
Given that these are configurable by the group manager and may change over time, it would be a nightmare to script this by flipping between using Public Folders for the group mailbox and delivering to each member, etc. This actually leads to another thing... It would also be nice to have the ability to forward a group to another account (altRecipient for a group in LDAP).
We have been running Exchange with about 3,000 of our users, until recently when we migrated all 25,000 off of our UNIX system. So far it is working really nice, but our UNIX mail system was definitely more flexible in how it dealt with mailboxes. In this respect, E2k+ has really taken a step back from E5.5. Because of these limitations, we are actually considering deploying a small UNIX mail system to deal with our groups. The rigidity of Exchange requiring a user for each mailbox just can't compete with the flexibility of a nice UNIX based mail system.