Dear All, I dont have any knowledge about Exchange hosting, I just want to ask, As i know that exchange is very heavily on the AD, how come can the exchange is hosted by other company? Is we find someone host the exchange, how can manage the user? Just want to know. Thanks you our answering

Well, it depends how hosting company is managing their environment to manage hosting. 1. They can either go with manual method, explained in below series of articles... http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/Shared_Hosting_Exchange_2003_Part1.html http://www.msexchange.org/articles_tutorials/exchange-server-2007/migration-deployment/shared-hosting-exchange-2007-part1.html 2. Second option is, they can use HCM tool available from Microsoft specially for creating hosting environment. http://www.microsoft.com/hosting/solutions/hostedmessaging.mspx http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/serviceproviders/default.aspxAmit Tank | MVP Exchange Server | MCITP: EMA | MCSA: M | http://ExchangeShare.WordPress.com

Most hosting companies have to maintain a separate Active Directory. When you create a new user in your own Active Directory, you have to have the user provisioned in the hosting company's directory as well. Many hosting companies provide you a Web interface so that you can do this yourself. Though I don't know of any companies off the top of my head that do this, I would say there are some that can maintain some type of directory sync with your Active Directory. Personally, I'm not a big fan of hosting, but it does make more financial sense (depending on the features you will get from your provider). Depending on the number of users you currently support and your estimated "per mailbox" costs, the hosting provider may save you a lot of money.Jim McBee - Blog - http://mostlyexchange.blogspot.com

then, how to create distribution list,and control the mailbox size? how to calc the "per mailbox" cost?

Hi Ball,As suggested by Jim, generally the provider gives you a web interface to manage DL, Quota on mail size etc. Hosting solutions are good butmake sure to explore all the funcationlities provided by them. Shared hosting is not that good from my experience and prown to down time. Dedicated hosting would give you better control.Regards,Tariq

Hi Ball,Per mailbox cost would be quoted by the provider. The cost per mailbox vary depending on the storage size, days or years to archive old messages etc. Generally you can negotiate when the number of mailbox count is high.Regards,Tariq

The hosting provider would probably provide you a Web interface for doing things such as managing DLs and configuring mailbox properties. Regarding calculating costs "per mailbox", that is difficult to do. This is because there ends up being a lot of intangible costs associated with running a mail server, such as your time.I have been asked before to figure out how much it costs to host an in-house Exchange server. Here are some factors you need to consider. I usually calculate this for a 4 year period of time because that is about how often most organizations replace server hardware and update their software.1) How much does ALL of the hardware cost that you use to maintain Exchange? The Exchange servers? Reverse proxy servers? Firewall specific hardware that might be used to support Exchange? Do you have dedicated domain controllers for Exchange? How about little things like switch ports, cabling, rack space, etc....2)What are the environmental and electrical considerations for those servers? Electrical? Air conditioning? For small businesses, I estimate about US$50 per month per server. 3)What does the storage cost (if you use external storage or SAN storage versus internal DAS storage)? DAS storage can be in the neighborhood of US$2.00 to US$10.00 per GB. 4) This is the hard part. What does YOUR time cost? How much time per day do you spend backing up the server, patching it, performing Exchange server maintenance that you would NOT have to do if you did not have Exchange.5) What is the software licensing (per seat CALs forExchange, plus Exchange Server software, plus Windows Server software)So, you kind of get the idea, this is some of the costs you would consider. Factor it over a period of 4 years, then find out how much it then costs on a monthly or yearly basis to support a mailbox. I have not seen any industry standard costs in a while. I have seen estimates of anywhere from $100 to $200 per mailbox per year, but those are older figures and the figures you often read are skewed by a specific vendor to make a certain case.Jim McBee - Blog - http://mostlyexchange.blogspot.com

Hi Ball,See Microsoft Exchange Online Service, here is a demo (Admin experience | Exchange):http://www.microsoft.com/online/demo/demo.aspxmore information:http://www.microsoft.com/online/exchange-online.mspxThanks,Elvis