ETA for VMWare image of 5.0?

[bhwong]

Hi Raj,

I took 2 days to complete the downloading and installation of ESX 4.0, Ubuntu 64bit server and Zimbra 5.18. But I multi-tasked instead of sitting there waiting for the process, so it take much longer.... but 13 minutes to do all these? You're the expert. What can I say?

btw, thanks for pointing out to me the problem with Mac OS X and how irresponsible Zimbra can be... to release a version on a platform without testing that it works without major issue. I'm glad that I made the right decision to install the matured v5.18 instead of the untested v6. Let the pioneers root out the bugs first.

[phoenix]

Originally Posted by bhwong

VM from a trusted source is important for I won't want to use a VM from any end user for spyware might have been inserted into Zimbra to spy on our emails etc. Also, less experienced users might have installed some incompatible modules that conflict with Zimbra too!

So it has to be authorized by Zimbra with some kind of warranty that the setup is 100% working. See it from the business point of view.

Then you're far better downloading Zimbra and installing it on your own VM, it doesn't take that long.

[bhwong]

Originally Posted by phoenix

Then you're far better downloading Zimbra and installing it on your own VM, it doesn't take that long.

Since it doesn't take that long, why does it takes so long for Zimbra to install it on a VM and make it available to the public?

[brian]

The previous VMWare image we supplied was intended for trial installations to get customers a quick taste of what ZCS can do and provided a very nice marketing tool. Providing a production vmware image was never really an option for a couple reasons.

First sizing a vmware image for a production mail server is not a one size fits all, this path eventually leads to several sized images which increases testing times and overall maintenance that takes away from the core product.

Second Zimbra is in the business of providing a great email server product, providing an integrated image with OS requires partnerships with OS providers to appropriately support both components.

The appliance approach we took for production servers was an installable ISO, combining rPath OS and ZCS, in which you deployed on a server with pre-allocated storage to fit your needs. The OS was supported by rPath and overall was a great combination. For many different reasons support was dropped, if we were to provide this combination again I still feel rPath is still the best solution on the market.

The core ZCS product installed on the OS of the customers choice is still by far the most flexible and maintainable solution we can offer, allowing you to deploy in either a virtualized environment or directly on a physical system.

[y@w]

In reality, if you want something that you can just click "run" to demo Zimbra, you should just check out the live demo they have on their site..

Live demos of Zimbra's open source email and group calendar software

If you are interested in learning how to administer the product, then spending an afternoon learning how to install it is more than worthwhile.

[bhwong]

Originally Posted by brian

The previous VMWare image we supplied was intended for trial installations to get customers a quick taste of what ZCS can do and provided a very nice marketing tool. Providing a production vmware image was never really an option for a couple reasons.

First sizing a vmware image for a production mail server is not a one size fits all, this path eventually leads to several sized images which increases testing times and overall maintenance that takes away from the core product.

Second Zimbra is in the business of providing a great email server product, providing an integrated image with OS requires partnerships with OS providers to appropriately support both components.

The appliance approach we took for production servers was an installable ISO, combining rPath OS and ZCS, in which you deployed on a server with pre-allocated storage to fit your needs. The OS was supported by rPath and overall was a great combination. For many different reasons support was dropped, if we were to provide this combination again I still feel rPath is still the best solution on the market.

The core ZCS product installed on the OS of the customers choice is still by far the most flexible and maintainable solution we can offer, allowing you to deploy in either a virtualized environment or directly on a physical system.

Hi Brian,

From my understanding, 1. VMware image size can be expanded at will without any issue. 2. A common recommended or standardized OS platform will ease both your support complexity and our deployment confusion. For example, Ubuntu has this logger error problem that don't exist in Red Hat Distribution.

Also, since it is recommended that Zimbra Server should be hosting only Zimbra without other server functionality, it will be more productive to merge both into a single consistent installation since the focus is on Zimbra, not the underlaying OS.

Having a VM image to start with will speed up our deployment and avoid mistakes made during the setup. Hope you will consider.