Briefcase vs Samba Shares

[peng1can]

I haven't been able to find any detailed 5.0 documentation yet, but I'm trying to make some plans for our eventual 5.0 migration, and one of the features that simultaneously intrigues and worries me is the briefcase. Can someone confirm that the briefcase files will simply be stored somewhere withing the existing Zimbra mailstore? I don't suppose I'm lucky enough that the briefcase can serve up existing Linux, Samba, or NFS home directories?

Our current infrastructure mounts home directories via Samba on MacOS & Windows when the users login to a desktop or lab machine. This is in addition to any departmental shares of course. I think this is pretty typical, especially in a university environment. I think the briefcase could add additional confusion between when it makes sense to use the home directory and when it makes sense to use the briefcase. I *would* just turn off the briefcase, but as I've helped students switch to zimbra I've seen vast numbers of instances where students email files to themselves so that they can come to campus to print or edit them, so it seems like a very useful feature.

Assuming my guesses are correct, has anyone thought through how they might use or promote the briefcase to their users without causing confusion between this and any existing network shares, and adding additional disk/quota management hassles?

Thanks!

[mmorse]

Originally Posted by peng1can

Can someone confirm that the briefcase files will simply be stored somewhere withing the existing Zimbra mailstore?

It's part of your current zimbra storage.

Originally Posted by peng1can

I don't suppose I'm lucky enough that the briefcase can serve up existing Linux, Samba, or NFS home directories?

Not yet, but it's been thought of: /forums/administrators/10923-zimbra-5-0-beta-question-briefcase.html

[mmorse]

I for one will leave both current shares and briefcase, students are already competent enough to figure it out anyways.
Let them pick if they want the briefcase or ftp etc for remote access to their existing shares. And you could even make a deal about if the ability to combine the two ever crops up.
There is WebDav as well
/forums/administrators/11171-webdav-briefcase.html#post58137
/blog/archives/2007/08/zimbra_briefcase_1.html

[peng1can]

"students are already competent enough to figure it out anyways."

Meanwhile, *my* students have set up a protest group on Facebook to bring back IMP because "Zimbra sucks." I'm in favor of options, but in this case, managing multiple disk spaces and giving no clear reason to the users why you should use one or the other seems like a problem.

I'm thinking maybe there's a way to phase out the existing personal samba shares and just use the WebDAV briefcase. That would leave my Samba box for true "shares" and PDC responsibilities. But I wonder how much extra load that would put on the Zimbra boxes...

[mmorse]

-ouch that does hurt
In my experiences it's been the exact opposite, it's all about the campaign and building anticipation combined with how smooth the migration goes I guess.
Do you mind if I ask what college?

[peng1can]

We did all that. Preview releases, early adopters, educational campaigns, lots of emails, etc. The frustrating thing is that the responses from these whiners are just "it sucks" and "I hate it." Never a specific reason. As far as we can tell, they just don't like change (despite how horrible our old IMP install was). The only other guess we have is there are a lot of IE users out there with a lot of bad toolbars and spyware slowing their machines down. So, we're pushing harder to promote the Basic Client now.

[natrixgli]

Hi,

If it makes you feel better, I work at a nonprofit organization where most of our employees are older adults.. I have a faction of users who, much like your students, bash Zimbra at every opportunity they get.

Like your students, they rarely cite specific reasons they don't like it, it's just "Not Outlook" as far as they're concerned. I get complaints about speed (mostly from users who refuse to upgrade from IE6, or are running 6 + year old hardware...)

You just can't please everyone. The important thing is that the majority recognizes the fact that their being given the privilege of enjoying the world's most awesome mail client experience.

My personal opinion on people who resist change is that if they don't like change, they shouldn't use computers. For that matter, they probably shouldn't be in college, and probably shouldn't even bother leaving the house. Humans, like most species are given the ability to adapt for a reason - because stuff changes.



-n8