Symantec and Dell have teamed up to provide Windows shops with an integrated bundle of hardware, software, and services designed to take the pain out of deploying Microsoft Exchange in a secure and reliable way. The bundle, called Secure Exchange, includes Dell servers, storage, and technical services plus security and backup software from Symantec, and starts at about $55,000 for a 500-seat deployment, the companies announced this week.

Because of these tremendous needs and the increasingly “mission critical” nature of e-mail, there exists a huge selection of available products. However, navigating these solutions can be a mind-bending exercise. Dell and Symantec are seeking to stop the brain pain by offering a suite of pre-integrated, jointly engineered solutions tailored for organizations with 500 to 2,000 e-mail users. The companies say it’s the first reference architecture of its kind.

Dell’s experience with Exchange and its six-year OEM agreement with Symantec has enabled it to develop a reference architecture for Exchange deployments to get the right mix of CPU, memory, disk, and bandwidth in the right places. Depending on the scalability or performance goals of a customer, Dell may push for the adoption of Microsoft’s Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Firewall or Microsoft Cluster Server (MSCS) software into the mix. Secure Exchange customers have a choice of using Storage Area Network (SAN) or direct-attach storage technology.

For more information: http://www.itjungle.com/two/two092006-story02.html