A Web Based Solution to Replace Exchange? 75
benthemeek asks: "A friend of mine works for a company that has more than 6k users connecting to a Outlook exchange server instance through VPN from various homes all across the country. The executives at his company would like to move to Active Directory and a web based solution for these users. When Outlook Web Access was priced out, it was judged very expensive and they opened the floor to other options. They want a LDAP enabled, web based email and calendar that could hopefully plug in or replace Exchange, and if the solution can be load balanced between more than one server to ensure reliability and uptime, that would be even better. Slashdot readers come from many walks of life and I am sure some of you have gone through a similar experience and could give some insight to this problem. The fan boy in me would like to see a complete Open Source to meet this need, but that may not be possible. Have any of you done similar migrations, and to what solution did you go to?"
Nothing to see here, please move along. (Score:1)
google, not yet but soon (Score:4, Funny)
*All dates are pure speculation pulled right out of my arse, can I get a job as an analyst?
Ummm... Easy... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Ummm... Easy... but costly (Score:1)
$28 x min
Re:Ummm... Easy... but costly (Score:1)
Re:Ummm... Easy... but costly (Score:5, Informative)
I'm no IT expert so maybe it's just me, but I'm thinking that perhaps since it has the same features, a small business would want the small business edition for $2900 per year for 100 users, for a total 3 year cost of $8700 with upgrades and OS licenses included.
However, since we are talking about a business with 6000 users, let's look at that cost:
See, you can twist the numbers either way. I'll leave it to the mods to decide who was more realistic. Microsoft may have some volume licensing that I'm not aware of, but why should I track down the exact price when you wouldn't?
Of course, if I was the CFO, I would go with secret option number 3: spend $150,000 to hire a full-time developer for a year to make an ultra-customized version of the zimbra open source edition that will meet my company's exact needs.
Re:Ummm... Easy... but costly (Score:2)
Zimbra Collaboration Suite 3.0 - Open Source Edition cost = $0
Re:Ummm... Easy... but costly (Score:2)
Yes. There are still very large numbers of Exchange 5.5 installs. The very-large-telco I left about 6 months ago had just started migrating from 5.5 to 2003.
Re:Ummm... Easy... but costly (Score:2)
$10,000?
$70,000??
For email?!?
Please, pretty please, tell me you're just kidding. There are many FS/OSS alternatives. email is not supposed to cost $10,000 a year, and anyone who chokes $70,000 a year for email is... well...
it's not email: it's groupware (Score:2)
I know you can run a business on POP3 mail, but for big organisations you want more: you want shared mailboxes, you want shared calendars with meeting requests, you want tasks. You might want single instance storage, and you might want to be able to ensure you can archive mail for x years for SOX compliance. Exchange is very, very good at this. It's not the only solution out there, bu
Not exchange, outlook (Score:2)
Or is the problem the cost of the interface, but you are going to replace the whole server anyway?
The executives at his company would like to move to Active Directory
Seems like you really just need a web based interface?
Re:Not exchange, outlook (Score:1)
the only expensive thing i can see for OWA if they are already on exchange is if they want to run front and back end servers. But then again if they have 6k users and are running Exchange then they more than likely have paid this cost already, or they have a botched setup.
and some one will have to remind me because i d
Re:Not exchange, outlook (Score:1)
Re:Not exchange, outlook (Score:1)
all i am saing is that if they already have outlook/exchange and it isn't a boched setup then they might be looking the wrong direction..
you also have to look at the man hour cost of migration to a completely new system vs fixing what they have.
Try CommuniGate Pro (Score:2, Interesting)
It does have LDAP services included/external support
It is paid, but is lot cheaper than exchange. and runs over whatever platform you like even QNX, BeOS, etc...
Re:Try CommuniGate Pro (Score:2)
And as an added bonus with Communigate Pro, your mail server will just stop working sometimes. For no reason. Because the code is filled with timebombs. Google Communigate and timebomb, or check out this entry [goolsbee.org] about playing Russian roulette with your mail server if you use Communigate.
Not a company I would ever do business with.
Zimbra (Score:2, Interesting)
ExchangeIt (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.nitix.com/products/os/exchangeit.php [nitix.com]
Linux-based MS Exchange replacement. Due to the whole autonomic computing paradigm, it is much easier to set up than any competitors.
The downside is that it comes with its own OS, which could be an obstacle to some people. From my experience, though, companies don't care about the OS, they are just as happy to throw an entire box at the problem.
Virtualization? (Score:2)
Re:Virtualization? (Score:2)
It should be noted that NITIX has it's own virtualization solution
Re:ExchangeIt (Score:2)
Horde (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Horde (Score:2)
Re:Horde (Score:2)
For now I've been using PhpGroupware instead which basically has the opposite problem. Overall it works great but the email module seems pretty clunky, especially for higher volume mail users.
Zimbra? (Score:5, Informative)
If you stick with Exchange on the backend and just want to replace Outlook then Evolution [gnome.org] is probably your best (if not only) choice as it implements most of Outlook's functionality. It also support other mail client standards like IMAP and POP3 of course, so will seamlessly integrate with any almost other backend mail server too. Packages for UNIX are readily available and the Windows port is also stable, and although there isn't a pre-rolled installation package just yet, that can't be too far off.
Re:Zimbra? (Score:1)
Evolution doesn't do Windows... yet (Score:2)
Stay tuned though; Tor Lillqvist's pretty unstoppable.
Re:Zimbra? (Score:2)
Re:Zimbra? (Score:2)
Isn't ActiveX about controls for objects which is what the features have in IE that is missing in other browsers?
Re:Zimbra? (Score:2)
if (Browser == IE) {
ShowUltraCoolRendering
} else {
ShowCrappyRendering
}
We're talking Exchange here. Corporate world. Where 99.9% of the browsers are IE, and the corporations have the ability to disallow anything but IE.
Other then the AntiTrust isssues
And remember, this is Exchan
More expensive, but more functional (Score:4, Informative)
The basic idea is you build a Windows terminal server (more likely several - fault tolerance and all that), install Outlook on it, and use Citrix's web interface to provide a launch point. Outlook runs on the server, and any user with an ICA client (Citrix's client) can run it - even your Mac, *nix, and (gasp) DOS users.
That takes care of users inside the firewall. Outside, you have to have a VPN solution. Or, you can use the Citrix Access Gateway to provide access. By itself, it acts just like an SSL VPN, only cheaper (the box is $2500 and concurrent user licenses are $200 or so at retail). When used in conjunction with something called Advanced Access Control (AAC), you can provide secure access to any Citrix-delivered or web-delivered applications WITHOUT a VPN client. AAC turns the CAG into an HTTP/HTTPS/ICA proxy. It features RSA integration and all that jazz. As a side-bonus, AAC + CAG support smartphones, PDA's, and Crackberry's (though that last has an ugly UI).
Not the cheapest solution and it is certainly not as easy as I describe, but it is definitely capable of doing what you need - without having to retrain your users on a mail application. It is easier to say "go to this URL, log in, and click the Outlook icon" than it is to say, "here's PINE - Hope you remember how to use telnet"
To provide robust access anytime, anywhere
Re:More expensive, but more functional (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:More expensive, but more functional (Score:1)
It's amazing the amount of money companies will ask for, when it comes to these type of solutions. I will admit that Citrix is a great product, but considering how much more it costs over Terminal Services, and RRAS (both only costing CALs that you have to pay for anyways with a Citrix solution) I could never justify the costs for the added features, no matter how integrated and seamless it is.
Re:More expensive, but more functional (Score:2, Insightful)
But why pay for your solution twice when M$ already gives you all the session level support you'll need.
Bill G.
Scalix (Score:2)
Re:Scalix (Score:1)
Are you sure what you're asking for? (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you considered the fact that web based services are not necessarily going to provide the event notifications or other features users are used to getting? Guess who will be blamed when everyone starts missing meetings or showing up late? As an example, in Exchange's web based Outlook you can't set your delegation settings through it or view multiple calendars at the same time or do a lot of other things. You really need to know the feature set that's required by the users before you could even consider any kind of a move. Have you thought about archive files? If you go web based you'll have to keep all that data on the server and you'll probably have to migrate it there from each user's PC one at a time.
Saying you want to move from Exchange to something Active Directory integrated with the ability to load balance is also a little weird given that Exchange already does all this.
I'd tell your friend to go on record that any major change is probably a bad idea, and instead he should research how to make the existing system work the way they want it to. Your question really doesn't indicate WHY they want to move, which is critical to the choices to be made. Open Source isn't the proper solution to every problem, and yes, you might actually have to spend some money to get the functionality you need! (Ok, send in the slashdot shock troops to mod me into oblivion for not following the party line...)
Re:Are you sure what you're asking for? (Score:2)
Re:Are you sure what you're asking for? (Score:2)
Yeah, don't use too many IMAP clients with Exchange.
Besides losing Contacts, Calendar and all the cool stuff^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^huseful collaboration-oriented features you get with Outlook (even using it with RPC over HTTPS) and OWA, Exchange's IMAP implementation loads-up very poorly after just a few IMAP client connections.
It's per-seat licensin
OpenGroupware.org (Score:2, Informative)
RPC Over SSL? (Score:4, Insightful)
If you already have Exchange it might be worth looking at. Also, if they're all already using a VPN I'm assuming they have Outlook installed? If so this would be a really simple change with supporting them from what they already use.
Re:RPC Over SSL? (Score:2)
The 'gotcha' here is that all the clients must use Outlook 2003 in addition to the server running Exchange 2003, which may require some significant upgrades. 6k users... maybe half of them need upgrades. That would be about $50 per user in volume... $150,000. That, of course, does not include the REAL cost: deploying
Infoworld review of Scalix and Zimbra (Score:1, Informative)
Good comparison between the two leading options. We're thinking about this ourselves for our small business.
Definitely check out Scalix (Score:1, Troll)
Novell NetMail (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.novell.com/products/netmail/ [novell.com]
Have fun!
-m
Re:Novell NetMail (Score:4, Informative)
The web interface is one of the key improvements over NetMail.
Exchange 2003 or Postfix/Imapd (Score:3, Insightful)
Here are my suggestions:
1) Since they must already have an Outlook license, they could use Exchange 2003 in RPC/SSL. This is 100% Active Directory integrated, and they don't need a web client since Outlook can connect directly. Exchange itself is not so expensive, however they must also upgrade the CALs, which can boost the bill for 6k users.
2) A more reliable solution: Postfix and imapd. I strongly suggest Cyrus Imap as it saves each email as a separate file, which is incredibly efficient for backups and archives. For the frontend, most webmail are fine (Horde, SquirrelMail, Neomail) and includes the calendar stuff; https can be setup easily. This kind of setup can use Active Directory for the users authentication and can run on multiple servers (clustered or not). Note: in this setup the users could still use Outlook for which they paid a shitload of money.
A few notes:
-Users will complain if they have to move from Outlook to whatever web interface.
-Antispam and antivirus software are much cheaper and much more efficient if they go with the Postfix scenario.
-6k remote users is a lot, especially if they use this email as a primary business address. Therefore the IT dept must act as a small ISP. Why not calling a few ISP in the area and see what is their setup?
-If they go with the Postfix scenario, if they use x86 hardware I would suggest Linux with a recent kernel. However, if they have the opportunity to purchase hardware, I would strongly suggest Solaris 10 and a sparc machine (possibly two for a better uptime). At the present moment, I can't think of a better os/hardware match for a mail server.
Horde 3.0 (Score:4, Informative)
Horde went through a major rewrite/restructuring for the 3.0 effort. Horde 3.0 is definitely a web-based Exchange-killer (and Sharepoint-killer).
If you use Cyrus IMAPd as your IMAP backend, you even get shared mailboxes. Horde's other modules also have excellent sharing support. Shared calendars, mailboxes, todo lists, addressbooks, etc. Turba, the addressbook module, supports LDAP directories. Horde's other modules also have support to grab bits of info from LDAP.
I highly recommend Horde. I used to use it a lot more than I do know. When that was the case, I was also a regularly submitter of patches to the project (I helped mostly the last year 3.0 was still unreleased).
While Hula [hula-project.org] may look prettier, I find Horde to be much more functional.
Of course, there are plenty of things to be done... So, start using it and start submitting patches!
Re:Horde 3.0 (Score:2)
Oooh yeah, that's a ringing endorsement...
open exchange (Score:1, Redundant)
try that.. or you could try squirel mail http://www.squirrelmail.org/ [squirrelmail.org] and a phpicalendar solution
As luck would have it...... (Score:1)
I've just found out about this and am beginning a pilot... Installation is non trivial, but does it ever loo
Sun!!! (Score:2, Interesting)
Zimbra? Come on people, you want me to trust my user's email to a web2.0 company? what the hell?
Horde? For a user-base of this size? That's crazy! Where are you going to find enterprise-class support for a mediocre php web app framework?
The decent alternatives are Open Xchange [open-xchange.org], or Hula Server [hula-project.org]
But none of these compare to Sun's Messenging Server [sun.com]. Calendaring, IM, mail, all standards-compliant (even to the backend ldap serve
Kerio works for me. (Score:1, Informative)
Maybe you should talk to your Novell rep (Score:1, Troll)
Re:Consider your options (Score:1)
Don't forget training costs (Score:2)
Outlook Web these days looks and acts as much like the regular Outlook client as they could make it act... there's no way a user could need ANY training to migrate from one to the other, seamlessly -- other than to give them something they can put in their pocket with the URL of the Outlook Web site on it.
Check out CommunigatePro (Score:1)
In my company we use it extensively, and if you have clients that are used to outlook, there's a webmail skin o
Merak Mail Server (Score:2)
http://www.merakmailserver.com/ [merakmailserver.com]