Ny need for Windows 2008 R2 Enterprise for an Exchange 2010 Enterprise server

exchangeexchange-2010windows-server-2008-r2

I'd like to save the extra thousand or so and just have Windows standard server 2008 r2. Is there any reason I'd want to have Windows Enterprise 2008 r2 with Exchange Enterprise 2010? This will only be an Exchange box with possibly file server. It will not be a domain controller. I'm going to get Exchange Enterprise so I can't change it but I don't know I need enterprise OS. What do you think?

Thank you.

Best Answer

The only real reason you'll need to use Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise edition for Exchange is if you want to use the high availability DAG features of Exchange 2010.

The requirement of the Enterprise edition of the operating system is because DAGs use pieces of Windows clustering to do their thing, which is not available in the Standard edition.