Comments on: Still hosting email? Why?!?

By: admin

admin — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 19:24:57 +0000

There I go showing my ignorance again. I agree that CIS mandating Zimbra would be a poor choice. I’m sure there are a few dean/VP offices that would revolt against that mandate if it every came around.

By: Matt Pierce

Matt Pierce — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 19:19:33 +0000

Aaron, Linux isn’t the only platform you can run GroupWise on. Of course you can still run even the newest GroupWise, Version 8, on Netware 6.5, but besides Netware and Linux, GroupWise does run on Windows. I’m not saying you need to go this route, I was just saying that for other groups, such as us, and several others on campus heavily vested in Netware products, it is best that we stay with what we have. For those of you looking to get it, maybe the Zimbra option would be best. I just don’t want to see CIS/Campus mandate that all departments across campus must be put on Zimbra hosted by CIS and no other choices are available. This would help to insue mass chaos amongst IT Admins as well as users/staff/faculty/cutomers. Just my two cents. Hope ya’ll get what you need. Thanks again for your input. – Matt

By: admin

admin — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 17:59:19 +0000

Thanks for the feedback! I agree that GroupWise is definitely a viable email option. I am looking to offload email, so I obviously overlooked some really good host-your-own options that are available. Possibly the only reason I would be hesitant to adopt GroupWise in my environment is that don’t run any production services on Linux. Using GroupWise would increase the heterogeneousness of our servers, thus increasing administration overhead. That said, if you already have Linux expertise in-house, GroupWise could be an excellent option for email.

By: Matt Pierce

Matt Pierce — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 16:05:46 +0000

Aaron, what about Novell’s GroupWise as a solution? For us at the same Higher Edu, we pay $10 per FTE for the Novell Suite. This includes licensing for SLES (Suse Linux Enterprise Servers) or Netware Servers (Unlimited amount), GroupWise, Identity Management, and Zenworks. Might be more, but I think I hit on teh majority of it. Included with our “subscription” if you will, we get GroupWise Mobile Server for free and Novell’s Instant Messenger for free. So, with that said, let’s discuss GroupWise. I already have it installed and in place and Server Admins to manage it and all other Netware/SLES/Windows Servers. With what the main campus IT group is now doimg with IronPort devices, this only enhances our email for users, besides using the MAIA mailguard system on our side, which might not be needed once teh IronPorts are up. I have a user base already tuned into using the GroupWise Client on their desktops and we also provide Web Access. Maintaining this server is preety simple. Do all the maintenance tasks that are recommended, and backup your server and you should be fine. We have little user complaints if at all. It is somewhat compatible with MS Outlook if you had users who wanted to use it if they had the MS Office Suite, but we do not do that because GroupWise provides a better client for their server product. We house our own Mobile Server, which came free with GW, for our users that have supported devices. This product is being re-done which will use the ActiveSync protocol and then support more devices, such as the iPhone. I am very happy with our solution, and would prefer not to go with the current campus IT solution. I guess it’s just dependent upon each group as to how they feel about email and the management of it. Some of us don’t feel the way you do, and like the fact that we have control over what we have and provide. Our users have or will have @xxx.edu alias’s setup on their accounts so that all email external to our domains looks as if it came form teh main campus alias that we are all given, which helps in various ways. Main Campus Directory lookup, centralized email so if t hey leave one area to go to another, the simply change the forwarding inside their main campus email to point to their new location.
I write this not to argue, as I can see your point, and it is a good one, for those like you who don’t want to manage this thing called Email. I simply wanted to point out the otherside of the fence for those of us who do like to do so. Thanks for your Blog and readers time. – Matt