ms exchange alternatives
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| herzeleid Oct 23, 2007 3:19 PM |
I know, this is a tired question, but I'm throwing this question out to the IT gurus here, having realized that in trying to displace ms exchange, a key point is the shared calendars. You say email, and Unix users think smtp, pop, imap and webmail, but pee cee users think "shared calendars" - misnomer it may be, but I've got to live with it. There are a couple of approaches that I can think of - The first approach would be to simply install a linux-based ms exchange clone. There are huge commercial apps like scalix (too monolithic for my taste), and other choices like zimbra or openexchange. My experience so far with these sorts of products is that the commercial versions are priced so as to make them impractical for small business, and the "free" versions are either lacking functionality or are exceedingly difficult to install and get running. Has anybody here had any experience with the scalix, open exchange or zimbra? The other approach would be to install the one missing piece, the calendar server, and use that along with the existing mail system of choice. This seems to be an area of some OSS interest and activity, but nothing as yet appears production quality. If there were one which was ready for prime time, it would be a lightweight alternative to a full-blown ms exchange clone, which would be just right for some shops. So, does anybody here have any experience with any OSS calendar server? |
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| rijelkentaurus Oct 23, 2007 3:28 PM |
Citadel? citadel.org. You can install it on a base Red Hat server in just a few minutes. SugarCRM? It has an email interface that can be connected to POP, etc, and all of the contacts right there, and a shared calendar...and chat, I think. Not sure about that. It's a web interface and I think an Outlook connector is available. Both are GPL3. |
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| rijelkentaurus Oct 23, 2007 3:29 PM |
From the screenshots on the website, Citadel also allows Kontact to connect quite beautifully to all of the groupware features, using GroupDAV. Cool stuff. | ||
| rijelkentaurus Oct 23, 2007 3:33 PM |
And since I'm blabbering off...if you're happy with email out on the web, I use Network Solutions for my family and it absolutely rocks. You can access email, contacts, calendar and all of that stuff from anywhere anytime. Much better than Exchange, if for no other reason than it's located on servers that are redundant and never down. The default storage is 500mb for each user, so it really depends on the usage. I think it's less than $20 for 100 emails. | ||
| techiem2 Oct 23, 2007 3:50 PM |
We use the Horde Framework for our email setup here at the college. We have it setup with a shared address book of students and a shared address book of staff (you can also share your own address books). It's also easy to setup shared calendars and define permissions for them. PM me if you want an account on my private install to look at/play in (though I don't have a system wide shared address book setup on mine). |
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| NoDough Oct 23, 2007 4:50 PM |
I setup a Zimbra server for evaluation purposes. From the time I started to the time I had a working server was about 2 hours. Not bad. This is long time Microsoft shop, so it's a hard sell for me. However, my boss was very impressed by Zimbra's interface goodies and its professional look. He is also very impressed that Yahoo! has taken such a shine to it. If we end up replacing our Exchange server here (which is a long shot) I strongly suspect that Zimbra will be the replacement. |
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| herzeleid Oct 23, 2007 5:20 PM |
Thanks all for the flood of answers folks - I'll look into these to determine viability.
Just curious about that one, what platform/distro did you install on? How long ago? When I looked at the zimbra support forums there seemed to be a lot of folks struggling... |
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| NoDough Oct 23, 2007 5:50 PM |
I installed to the latest stable x86 Debian. I remember that the docs on Zimbra's home site were geared toward Red Hat, and I found a guide somewhere for a Debian install. Wish I could remember where. This was between two and three months ago. |
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| Sander_Marechal Oct 23, 2007 6:13 PM |
herzeleid: You forgot the most important piece of information. Can you force a change of client? If you're looking for a solution that 'll work with Outlook then you're always going to have problems and/or be stuck with pay-for plugins like Openxchange has. If you can force a change of clients, I'd go for a CalDAV server (just an Apache WebDAV serving iCal files for a few twists) and plain IMAP for e-mail. The question then reduces to "What good iCal client are out there?" I've been testing the Lightning calendar plugin for Thunderbird. It looks and works great but it's not suitable for production use yet (importing events via e-mail has timezone problems). It works for me though. |
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| devnet Oct 23, 2007 6:14 PM |
We use Zimbra at rPath as a drop in replacement for Exchange. Works well across the board. This is from someone coming from nothing BUT exchange *(including administration of said exchange servers). If you'd like to check out the Zimbra server, download their VMWare image...you'll have a drop in replacement in no time...and BTW, you'll be using technology made by rPath when you do ;) |
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| herzeleid Oct 23, 2007 8:04 PM |
I've got a SLES 10 test box, I'm installing zimbra now to check it out... | ||
| rijelkentaurus Oct 23, 2007 8:16 PM |
I forgot about Merak Mail Server, which runs on Linux or Windows. Of course, it's not free nor is it Free, but it beats the devil out of Exchange. I am testing out Zimbra, Citadel and Merak Linux on some VMs as we speak...well, as we write...well, I'm configuring the base VM. :) Almost done. |
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| herzeleid Oct 23, 2007 8:26 PM |
ah, I've downloaded merak too, and was looking at kerio - saw them at linuxworld. | ||
| rijelkentaurus Oct 23, 2007 8:35 PM |
I haven't used Merak on Linux (yet), but I have a large client (worldwide client worth many millions...not a huge player, perhaps, but hardly a small business) who uses the Windows version and it's really nice. The web interface (IceWarp) is great. How many users do you have? | ||
| herzeleid Oct 23, 2007 8:41 PM |
> How many users do you have? Well that's a tricky question - I'm doing this in large part for the sake of potential future clients. I feel that if I can come up with a good ms exchange substitute that I am confident about, I can keep my little consulting business going well. Of my current clients, The user base numbers are approximately as follows. (Perhaps in some of them I can force a change of mail client, but others definitely not) 5 20 50 200 14000 |
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| rijelkentaurus Oct 23, 2007 8:57 PM |
I guess the next question is what they do...we have law firms of less then 20 people who push the envelope of Exchange's 70ish GB database limit, and client three times that size that don't even push 2 gigs. I am not certain of Merak's database limits. Citadel's is about 256TB, so it's pretty well impossible to grow larger than that. I'd feel confident with Merak on anything but the 14000...but that's because I've never dealt with that many clients. Per MS recommendations, that would be at least 3 Exchange servers, however, so if you split Merak or whatever up over that many it'd be far easier to deal with. When you work in the price difference at 14000 users...Merak is $6500 for unlimited users on the full suite, MS is gonna run...well, at $50 a license (a deal) it comes to $700,000. Plus Server 2003 costs. You can even run Merak on Linux, and you could use Unbreakable Linux (free for just updates) from Oracle, a name they trust. It has its merits. Then you have to consider that you're only gonna get your hands on Exchange 2007 (the license may or may not still be backwards compatible) which requires a 64 OS...man, Merak is looking good! As is Citadel, as is Zimbra...and no wonder MS is worth billions!! | ||
| tuxchick Oct 23, 2007 9:18 PM |
Half-starved carrier pigeons outperform MS Exchange, sheesh. How can anything other than mass brainwashing explain why so many businesses use it? | ||
| rijelkentaurus Oct 23, 2007 9:29 PM |
Businesses depend on people like you, me and herzeleid to steer them to a good choice...while I can't recommend something other than Exchange fast enough (I even tell people to check out Google Apps!), my work's owner is committed to Exchange...as expensive as it is, he gets a slice of that pie, a slice of the hardware money, and the continued service of keeping that hunk of garbage running! Greed keeps the consultants committed to Exchange, and the reliance on consultants keeps businesses stuck to it. It ain't because of the great performance...and even if it was the Gold Standard of mail servers, it's not worth that kind of money! |
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