Splitting components out

[cubidou]

Hi,

I have been looking at Zimbra as an potential solution to share calendars. I have a few Outlook users in my network, but the crust of it use various mail clients running mostly on Linux.

The thing is, I'd rather not change the architecture of my mail servers, for various reasons (the primary one would be "if it's not broken, don't fix it"), so I am wondering if I can somehow integrate Zimbra into it.

I believe there are two concerns: access to mailboxes and authentication. I can live with the whole Zimbra user interface, to the condition the mail client part of it can use a remote (or at least, external) mailbox.

Authentication should be easier: I use a LDAP database, so I can always find a way to connect the dots in order to make Zimbra use it.

Do people see either of those two issues as a major hurdle before I start hacking my way around them? I'm not afraid of writing code, but it can't take too much of my time and in the long term should remain possible to maintain. Stuff like Exchange or Scalix make it virtually impossible to actually use only the calendaring component.

Quentin Garnier.

[phoenix]

Welcome to the forums.

You can certainly use an external LDAP to authenticate zimbra users against. As I don't know the architecture of your current servers it's difficult for me to give any advice on integrating Zimbra into that environment (I'm probably not the best person to give that advice anyway). What is it that would prevent you from migrating your current set-up to Zimbra? Are we talking about the NE or OSS versions?

[cubidou]

Originally Posted by phoenix

Welcome to the forums.

You can certainly use an external LDAP to authenticate zimbra users against. As I don't know the architecture of your current servers it's difficult for me to give any advice on integrating Zimbra into that environment (I'm probably not the best person to give that advice anyway). What is it that would prevent you from migrating your current set-up to Zimbra? Are we talking about the NE or OSS versions?

Yeah, I'm sure I can use an external LDAP, but I'm likely to get into schema troubles. Nothing that cannot be dealt with though. I'm really not worried about that part.

As far as the mail server stuff go, I use Postfix and Dovecot as the core components, with various stuff connected around, amavisd-new, dspam, home-grown version of vacation(1), etc. Nothing big and fancy, but it works well, I can deploy a new server on any machine in less than half an hour, and I'd rather not change everything just for the sake of sharing calendars.

Besides, I recently inherited an installation of Scalix, and while I'm reasonably hopeful Zimbra won't compare to it in terms of administrator un-friendliness, I don't to switch to such a stand-alone solution, at least not until I know perfectly how it works. I could list my immediate issues with Scalix (and I'm sure there'll be people here that will assure me Zimbra doesn't have those limitations :-), but the point is, I'd rather go step by step.

As for the version, one of my requirement is the ability to let Outlook users access it, so NE would be the option. But again, step by step...

Quentin Garnier.

[JoshuaPrismon]

Originally Posted by cubidou

Yeah, I'm sure I can use an external LDAP, but I'm likely to get into schema troubles. Nothing that cannot be dealt with though. I'm really not worried about that part.

As far as the mail server stuff go, I use Postfix and Dovecot as the core components, with various stuff connected around, amavisd-new, dspam, home-grown version of vacation(1), etc. Nothing big and fancy, but it works well, I can deploy a new server on any machine in less than half an hour, and I'd rather not change everything just for the sake of sharing calendars.

Besides, I recently inherited an installation of Scalix, and while I'm reasonably hopeful Zimbra won't compare to it in terms of administrator un-friendliness, I don't to switch to such a stand-alone solution, at least not until I know perfectly how it works. I could list my immediate issues with Scalix (and I'm sure there'll be people here that will assure me Zimbra doesn't have those limitations :-), but the point is, I'd rather go step by step.

As for the version, one of my requirement is the ability to let Outlook users access it, so NE would be the option. But again, step by step...

Quentin Garnier.

My honest opinion is that you are much better off just going over fully. I know that you have been burned by Scalix. This especially true given what technologies you are talking about. Zimbra uses Postfix as the underlying MTA, dspam and SA for spam, and a much better version of vacation ;-)

Rather then being administrator unfriendly, I have found it much more efficent to administer the server with Zimbra opensource, but I still have the power to drop down to postfix if I need anything weird.

give it a try.

[phoenix]

I don't think you'd find it too difficult to convert to Zimbra. How many users are we talking about? Maybe you could us e a split domain with a gentle migration to Zimbra, why don't you have a look at this document and see if that would fit into your environment. Certainly if the intention would be to go to the Network Edition (for the Outlook connectivity) in the long term, the upgrade from the OSS version wouldn't be a problem.