[Cialug] E-mail system suggestions

[Richard Harms]

Memories of PMDF addressing syntax and VMS scare me.

I've been considering switching our workplace to Zimbra from Exchange  
2003 for quite a while now. I finally setup the open source edition  
on a Mac mini I picked up a few weeks ago and have been seriously  
impressed by it. The setup time was literally < 10 minutes. I'm using  
it for another domain name I have at home, and have dumped a few  
large mailing lists into it - my mailbox right now has around 20K  
messages, and the speed is very impressive (syncing local client via  
IMAP, and searching using their web interface - OWA though a non-IE  
browser looks like a joke compared to the functionality that Zimbra  
gives you). I've tried it with OS X's Mail as an IMAP client, and  
Thunderbird, and its worked flawlessly. Their desktop client, even  
though very beta, works OK from Windows.

As soon as they release 5.0 later this fall, I'm planning on trying  
our their professional edition (in order to get Outlook and iSync  
support), and if all goes well, we'll be moving around 60 users to it  
from Exchange, probably in January. If we can eliminate everyone's  
perceived need for Outlook, it'll be one significant step closer to a  
non-MS desktop for a large portion of our desktop systems.

Having dealt with Unix (sendmail, postfix, etc.), Novell (GroupWise)  
and Windows (Exchange) based systems for a long time now, Zimbra is  
the first time I've felt completely comfortable trusting my email to  
a commercial solution. I've spent some time looking around behind the  
scenes, and to see familiar pieces like postfix, MySQL, Java, Lucene,  
OpenLDAP, mail messages stored in simple, plain text files, really  
makes me feel good that if worse came to worse, I can get my mail out  
of the system intact.

-rh

On Aug 31, 2007, at 9:19 AM, Daniel A. Ramaley wrote:

> Due to the recent retirement of the only person who fully understands
> the baroque e-mail system we have here at Drake[*], something better
> needs to be built. Naturally, due to the ease of integration and  
> better
> support i'd prefer an open source solution running on Linux. So i've
> started researching what is available. Any suggestions on projects i
> should look at? So far i want to test eGroupWare and Zimbra.
>
> The official requirements are an "integrated system covering e-mail,
> campus calendar, address books/contacts and cell phone/PDA downloads".
> Why they want all those unrelated things in one monolithic product, i
> don't know. But there it is. I expect whatever we go with will also
> have to have some form of commercial support plan available as well.
>
> [*] For those of you familiar with Drake, yes we're still running PMDF
>     on VMS on an old Alpha.
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
> --
> Dan Ramaley                            Dial Center 118, Drake  
> University
> Network Programmer/Analyst             2407 Carpenter Ave
> +1 515 271-4540                        Des Moines IA 50311 USA
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