This week I'd like to talk a bit about a web server service I've been playing around with a bit. You see one thing I've found in my time working in IT is that Microsoft Exchange server is very expensive. If you have a small to medium sized venture it can be prohibitively so, depending on how much you are willing to throw into your IT budget. For example, I do some work for KTDID Event planning (LLC) and as a small company they did not want to pay the high price for Exchange. In a search for an alternate solution I stumble onto Zimbra Open Source which is a free as in cost email server software. I'm only going to discuss the solution at an overview level, but links are provided if you would like to look into further detail.
Zimbra is made by VMware, the same people who brought you ESX/ESXi and a load of other virtualization products. The product has a rich feature set, that is comparable to Exchange. Outside of just sending mail Zimbra does include calendars, a 'briefcase', 'Zimlets', and a Social add on. I found the brief case feature particularly useful as it gives your user a drop box, which for an event planner is nice as they're moving around a lot. Zimlets are also interesting as it gives you the ability to link outside services into the client such as LinkedIn. Overall just looking at the surface it looks pretty good.
The install is also rather easy, though it does require you to jump over to a supported Linux distribution, or Mac OS which may put you outside of your comfort zone depending on your background. For my deployment I chose to use the latest Ubuntu Server LTS as I have found this distribution pretty friendly to manipulate. You can find a full list of supported OSes here in the downloads section: http://www.zimbra.com/downloads/os-downloads.html . More or less the installation is scripted and on their wiki you can find decent instructions on the process. It is important to have your DNS configuration set up ahead of time and as a good practice I would suggest installing this on it's own virtual machine or physical box to avoid port/service conflicts and to segregate the resources. Once installed the initial configuration is also prompt driven in the terminal window as well and is fairly self explanatory, though the wiki mentioned above can help you with it in detail. As a note though, do avoid installing postfix on your own thinking you'll need it for the service, as zimbra installs it's own version of it on its own.
Configuration of the server after you've completed the install is mostly done through an Administration console. You can get to it through https://<yourserver>:7071 . Here's what it looks like:
The console is pretty simple and gives you all of your configuration needs in a UI. You can implement a GAL, and even integrate the existing one if you have a Windows domain set up. And, you can also integrate with your existing domain for LDAP authentication if you don't want to use the built-in that is set by default. The console is also where your account management is going to take place, as well if you want to make any adjustments to the default settings for spam filtering, attachments, and anything else you feel the need to customize. I didn't feel the need to change a whole lot from the default myself as I have a pretty small deployment, but in the future adjustments could be made as necessary.
I suppose what might be the most important part of looking at this software is the end user experience. A fair amount of insistence on going with Exchange is based around the fact that most people are used to using Outlook as they have done for years. The good thing here is you can use Outlook using IMAP which will give your users the basic functions of the service including Mail, Contacts and Calendar and in the familiar format. As I discovered with my project, the user simply cannot tell the difference once its set up properly. I prefer to use the Zimbra Desktop client though for my own use as it gives you the expanded set of features. For your viewing here is a screen capture of the client:
The look of the interface isn't actually all that different from outlook, though I will admit it could use some prettying up as it does have a dull sort of appearance.
Overall I'd suggest taking a look at Zimbra if you are looking for a cheap/free solution for a small to medium sized business. The software fits the bill, and is easy both to deploy and administer if you're willing to get your hands dirty and do some Linux administration to maintain it. I use it myself and will continue to suggest it to others.
Ryan Koch
3X Systems
ryan.koch@3x.com
Zimbra is made by VMware, the same people who brought you ESX/ESXi and a load of other virtualization products. The product has a rich feature set, that is comparable to Exchange. Outside of just sending mail Zimbra does include calendars, a 'briefcase', 'Zimlets', and a Social add on. I found the brief case feature particularly useful as it gives your user a drop box, which for an event planner is nice as they're moving around a lot. Zimlets are also interesting as it gives you the ability to link outside services into the client such as LinkedIn. Overall just looking at the surface it looks pretty good.
The install is also rather easy, though it does require you to jump over to a supported Linux distribution, or Mac OS which may put you outside of your comfort zone depending on your background. For my deployment I chose to use the latest Ubuntu Server LTS as I have found this distribution pretty friendly to manipulate. You can find a full list of supported OSes here in the downloads section: http://www.zimbra.com/downloads/os-downloads.html . More or less the installation is scripted and on their wiki you can find decent instructions on the process. It is important to have your DNS configuration set up ahead of time and as a good practice I would suggest installing this on it's own virtual machine or physical box to avoid port/service conflicts and to segregate the resources. Once installed the initial configuration is also prompt driven in the terminal window as well and is fairly self explanatory, though the wiki mentioned above can help you with it in detail. As a note though, do avoid installing postfix on your own thinking you'll need it for the service, as zimbra installs it's own version of it on its own.
Configuration of the server after you've completed the install is mostly done through an Administration console. You can get to it through https://<yourserver>:7071 . Here's what it looks like:
The console is pretty simple and gives you all of your configuration needs in a UI. You can implement a GAL, and even integrate the existing one if you have a Windows domain set up. And, you can also integrate with your existing domain for LDAP authentication if you don't want to use the built-in that is set by default. The console is also where your account management is going to take place, as well if you want to make any adjustments to the default settings for spam filtering, attachments, and anything else you feel the need to customize. I didn't feel the need to change a whole lot from the default myself as I have a pretty small deployment, but in the future adjustments could be made as necessary.
I suppose what might be the most important part of looking at this software is the end user experience. A fair amount of insistence on going with Exchange is based around the fact that most people are used to using Outlook as they have done for years. The good thing here is you can use Outlook using IMAP which will give your users the basic functions of the service including Mail, Contacts and Calendar and in the familiar format. As I discovered with my project, the user simply cannot tell the difference once its set up properly. I prefer to use the Zimbra Desktop client though for my own use as it gives you the expanded set of features. For your viewing here is a screen capture of the client:
The look of the interface isn't actually all that different from outlook, though I will admit it could use some prettying up as it does have a dull sort of appearance.
Overall I'd suggest taking a look at Zimbra if you are looking for a cheap/free solution for a small to medium sized business. The software fits the bill, and is easy both to deploy and administer if you're willing to get your hands dirty and do some Linux administration to maintain it. I use it myself and will continue to suggest it to others.
Ryan Koch
3X Systems
ryan.koch@3x.com
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