RHEL vs SLES?

[quietas]

OK, i'm coming down to final recommendation for my execs and need some advice.

I'm trying to decide which to OS to go with, RHEL or SLES. I have a primarily Windows domain, the mail server will be outside on the DMZ, but authenticating against the PDC.

For ease of operation, best support, and best Zimbra support, where should I shovel my cash?

Personally I lean towards SLES due to my OpenSuse usage, but I'm all for whatever will work best with Zimbra for the long term.

[brian]

Both are equally supported, we tend to have more testing done on RHEL platforms internally.

[bonoboslr]

I would strongly advise zimbra + RHEL. Like brian has mentioned, Zimbra do most of their testing on RHEL and there is better support if you wish to use clustering or utilize professional services. Zimbra is a RedHat partner, so you be sure that you are amongst the majority if you go with RHEL.
All better for support.

[gmsmith]

Another vote for RHEL. We have had a couple customers who started on SLES and migrated over to RHEL/CentOS. They are happier now

[bdial]

i've run zimbra on sles and opensuse with no problems

[Baylink]

Another vote for RHEL. We have had a couple customers who started on SLES and migrated over to RHEL/CentOS. They are happier now

Can you expand on your experience of CentOS? Which version, and how's that working out for you? :-)

[gmsmith]

CentOS is great. Be aware that it is NOT support by Zimbra. So you are on your own (well forum support) if you choose to run it. We have a few instances of CentOS 4 and 5 and ZCS 5.x no issues.

[Baylink]

Someone needs to clarify that with the sales staff. :-}

Whomever does needs to note that CentOS *is* RHEL; it's built from the same SRPMs with the same build scripts.

[quietas]

My thoughts had been SLES with NE as a primary server then run an instance in VMware with FOSS for archiving old users.

[y@w]

Personally I lean towards SLES due to my OpenSuse usage, but I'm all for whatever will work best with Zimbra for the long term.

Really? I used openSUSE for a while and that's what made me not want to use SLES I mostly fought with Yast the whole time I used it, though it's gotten better in version 11. We have worked with OSX, RHEL, CentOS and Ubuntu installs and all work great, but I'd recommend going with RHEL if your execs are looking to migrating into an HA configuration sometime down the road. I wouldn't want you to back yourselves into a corner