Tag: exchange enterprise cal

Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 still has the usual 2 versions of the server product, but it now also comes with two versions of CALs, Std and Enterprise. Here I hope to highlight the main differences between the 2 servers editions and also explain why there are more CALs, how they differ and when you’ll need them.

Exchange Server 2007 comes in both Standard and Enterprise versions, as did previous versions of the product. Standard is aimed at the small to medium business while Enterprise is for the larger companies that need the increased functionality.

Exchange Server 2007 Edition Offerings
Feature	Standard Edition	Enterprise Edition
Storage Group Support	5 storage groups	50 storage groups
Database Support	5 databases	50 databases
Database Storage Limit	16 TB per database	16 TB per database
Single Copy Clusters	Not supported	Supported
Local Continuous Replication	Supported	Supported
Cluster Continuous Replication	Not supported	Supported
Standby Continuous Replication ***	Supported	Supported

***Offered via Service Pack 1

As you can see, the Enterprise Edition is aimed at the higher end companies who have many thousands of users and/or require high levels of redundancy via the clustering options.

The CALs also come in Standard and Enteprise Editions, but they can be used with either server version so you can have Std Server with Enterprise CALs, an Enterprise Server with Standard CALs or a mixture of the two.

The Standard CAL(surprisingly!) offers the standard functionality you’d expect from Microsoft Exchange- access to email, shared calendars and Outlook Web Access (OWA).

The Enterprise CAL is an additive meaning it must sit on top of an already purchased Standard CAL. The Enterprise CAL offers extra features including Unified Communications and ForeFront Security. A full comparison can be found here.