I currently have a small office of about 50 users, that may max out at over 100 over the next few years. I currently run 2008 standard and exchange 2010 standard.
I need to make sure that the server has as little down time as possible in the event of a disaster such as hardware failure or software corruption. So much of our business is contained on the mail server these days, Contact, Calendars , Email , Notes and so many users require Tablets and Smart phones to access these things.
What is the best way to make sure either no, or very little down time occurs at a reasonable cost.
Here are my ideas.. I am looking for tweaks to my ideas, or alternative methods.
Idea1 (Should not have any downtime)
2 - Identical Servers $12000
2 - 2008 Server Enterprise - $5000
2 - Exchange 2010 Server Standard - $2500 - not including licensing for each
Both Servers setup identically. Ie CAS
DAG setup with database mirrors.
PFsense fireware for loadbalancing and Failover for Client access and incoming mail.
Idea2 (downtime would exist but would be limited to the time it takes to copy the vm and database to another server)
1 - Server $6000
1 - 2008 Server Enterprise $2500
1 - Exchange 2010 standard $1200
Hyper-V setup with Exchange in a VM, and the database in a normal Raid-6 partition.
If the Hardware or software fails I could reload the VM On another Server, (I have other servers that could temporarily run exchange in a pinch)
Daily backups are currently kept in two week rotation.
edit- Clarity