Topic: A Serious Exchange 2003 Alternative

[shawnbishop]

Good Day

I have been installing SME Server at my Clients for the last 3 years, and it is a fantastic product..Now the real test has come up

A new customer runs MS Exchange 2003 with 1000 users, they are having endless hassles etc...they have looked at going to Exchange 2007 but costs etc ( in these times) is prohibitive...so they are looking for an alternative...

I would like to use SME Server, I have used SME for ordinary IMAP and POP mail etc / Samba / FTP etc...but they want a alternative that offers Calendaring / Address Book etc...

And this is the part that makes me cringe, they need to use Outlook, but I cannot be installing 1000 clients such as OX-connector etc

I saw a mention of funambol, I am not to sure what this is?? ( Push mail)

I did see an alternative last year called PostPath, but they have been bought by CISCO..and their website doesnt help..

Does anybody have experience doing this etc?? or I saw another alternative called Kerio??

I would appreciate your opinions...

[Stefano]

Hi

if:
- you must use outlook but you can't/want to install 1000 connector
- you need something with calendars, address book ecc

you have to remain with exchange..

every other solution could have a low cost (in money) but a high one in terms of time, customer/user satisfaction.

It's sad, but it's true

outlook is designed to work with exchange or without.. in the first case you can use calendar secc, in the second no.. no if you don't use connectors or thirdy party sw so sync.

all, naturally, IMHO

Ciao
Stefano

[eastend99]

Have a look at zarafa: http://www.zarafa.com
I do not have references for this software with implementations over 1000 users

The SME implementation is still beta but (with a little tweaking here and there) working.
http://wiki.contribs.org/Zarafa

Marcel

[jdavey]

I've used Zarafa for a customer and they are pleased as punch. However, there are some short comings:

No Spell check
No "Next" or  "Previous" links in the message pane.
Signature doesn't work consistently

It will work with Outlook, after a fashion, but only for three accounts with the Open product. If you need a local copy of Outlook for more users, you'll have to go with the Commercial version.

That said, it works well - I will be switching to it for my in house messaging solution once I flush out the mobile part (Thanks!!! Darrell May!). But for a group of users that are used to using Outlook locally, if your don't want to use one of the many connectors, you're stuck with Exchange.

If you have users that are used to a webmail product, then Zarafa for a calendar solution, or roundcube without a calendar are both excellent choices.

1&1 has a nice webmail product that I've implemented for a few customers, and it runs less than $5. (US) a month per user.

[Brave Dave]

for my money the question is always

• Do you want shared diarys ?

If you answer yes to this then yes it is exchange - why hit your head right ?

Ok, but beyond this

• How many want shared diarys ?

Maybe one alternative here is the Google Calendar - it's cool - I don't use outlook, thunderbird is the way to go, but the rest of the working world seems hooked on outlook and google calendar supports Sync to outlook

So once you step away from shared diaries
You would have rocks in your head to use anything else but SME and IMap - in this config we have shared email, virus & spam scanning and full email backup - which part isn't better than exchange

[kevinb]

Please excuse my ignorance … what is “diarys”?

We have been successful in sharing calendars with T-bird but have never found a good solution for sharing contacts.

[billmakr]

Desknow is a great alt that offers fantastic features at a great price. You can use the web enabled interface for all things outlook/exchange plus many more features in the collaboration/groupware arena. If you MUST use outlook however, then a syncml client would be required. Please look at it as the feature set may cause you to rethink the need for outlook.

[billmakr]

bth Desk now can be installed on SME. try this link to see:http://forums.contribs.org/index.php?topic=37071.new;topicseen#new

[smeghead]

Yup, SME sure is a great 'bit o kit'!

Exchange deployments of this size should not be a problem as long as the clients IT peeps know how to configure it properly; there are many permutations.

It's very important to use the correct hardware otherwise Exchange won't scale worth a damn, it's a resource pig too.

I usually use SME as a frontend for Exchange to eliminate most of the junk before Exchange sees it, the processing overhead for SMTP, SPAM & virus scanning is therefore shared across multiple systems.  You could choose not to load A/V on Exchange if using a frontend box (of course Exchange can do all this too using a bridgehead/perimeter type setup if you want to spend the $$$).

If the client already has Exchange then might as well use SME & Exchange at what they both do best; but make the Exchange box a beast.

[shawnbishop]

I have had a look at Kerio Mail server...

Just saw the post on DeskNow and will have a look at it..

[calisun]

I don't understand why would anybody still use outlook. Outlook was great in the days of dial-up connections. It would connect, send mail, receive mail and disconnect so you can read and write email offline. But now with always on connections, why would anybody use outlook?

One can achieve same things (group calendar, group notes, sharing of contacts) with web based groupware contribs that are freely available on this site.
One thing I install the most for people are Horde contribs: Kronolith, Nag, Mnemo, and Gollem
Worth taking a look at.

And once people get used to use web based groupware, they love the fact that they can use all the groupware functions from any computer in the world, all they need is internet access and web browser.

[byte]

Moving this topic to the SME 7.x contribs forum, it is more appropriate there. Thanks!

[mmccarn]

I have had a look at Kerio Mail server...

I'm running a Kerio server supporting about 200 users on two domains (with a SME server in front for spam and virus filtering).

It works mostly OK, but the required Outlook plugin becomes really unhappy if any single folder grows to contain more than 6000 items.

[soprom]

I saw a mention of funambol, I am not to sure what this is?? ( Push mail)

I understand that such a project of yours does not include changing the whole structure (client/server) and Outlook must stay in place.

funambol will be comparable to OX-connector etc. It is a connector.
You might also want to see or write to http://www.bynari.net/ and http://www.toltec.co.za/ for migration tips or strategies. They can also use the Kolab server.

My experience with both funambol and toltec connectors is on a smaller scale but I would say that the "sharing intensity" us to evaluate. If users "really" share calendars and todos, then Exchange or a connector seem to be required. I found out that even with the possibility to share, users didn't bother or knew how to do it.

But again, this is on a small scale (using cyrus-imap).