Entire Sites + Domain Migration

[creamecake]

Hi Techies,

We have 10 offices (1 HO + 9 sites) with 10 different Domain names. (eg; dom1.com, dom2.com to dom10.com) where dom1.com is the HO. Some of of the sites are using Ex2k3 + AD, some are Ex2k7 + AD and one site is postfix + ldap, and few sites are having hosted mail service.

Now we are planning to move this entire domain to a single domain called "abc.com". So we are really looking for a opensource solution for our entire Infrastructure.

Existing Mailing Infra Details;
1. We have around 50 blackberry BES users.
2. Most users are using MS Outlook (few Entourage and Evolution Clients), most operating systems are Windows7 and XP, few are Mac and Ubuntu
3. Outlook Web Access is working for travelling users
4. 5% of our users are always on travel
5. Outlook anywhere is working for mobile users
6. Calendar service is used
7. Contacts used even on mobile devices
8. 10% of users are using mobile services (Iphone, symbian, microsoft mobile)
9. Each sites is having around 5 GB of mail transfer + HO is having around 10GB of Mail data per day.
10. Almost 50% of the entire emails is having attachments with an average size of 7MB, some may go upto 25MB.
11. Current Mailbox Sizes (even after creating PST files often)
a. 5% of users is having 20GB mailbox size
b. 15% of users is having 10GB mailbox size
c. 45% of users is having 5Gb mailbox size
d. 35% of users is having 2GB mailbox size
12. As each location is having its own domain name and mail server, the mails are dispatched directly to those servers, and these 2000 user accounts are spread across these 10 servers (eg: HO is having 400, siteA is having 500, SiteB is having 100, etc).
13. HO is having 4Mb/s connection for mailing, few sites is having 2Mb/s shared connection, some others 1Mb/s shared connection.
14. In HO, we are using Barracuda for Spam & Virus Filtering.
15. In HO, Currently we are storing Mailboxes in EMC SAN.

Objectives of the Proposed Solution;
===========================
1. Unified single domain called abc.com
2. All sites will be having local Mail servers
3. All External Mails to our company should come to our HO, then re routed to the sites users mailboxes or to the HO internal users mailboxes
4. Each sites users mailboxes should be stored in the local mail server located in that corresponding site
5.All mails to HO and Sites should be centrally backed up from the HO.
6. easy recovery of individual mails
7. Should have a quick disaster recovery
8. When the user is transfered, mailbox should also move to the new location
9. Global Address book should be available from Desktop / web / Mobile devices
10. Should support Blackberry BES service
11. Should support Calendering
12. Mail, Contact, Calender, etc should work from Windows, Mac and Linux desktops
13. Web mail support
14. Feature like Single Instance Storage for optimal storage in case of multiple instance of a mail
15. Smooth Migration
- Existing mails should be available in the new setup
- Auto response when a mail hits the old email-id, informing then of the new email-id
- Minimal downtime


For the collaboration suite, Zimbra is on the top in our priority list of opensource solution. We would like to know the following things as of now;

1. Whether we could achieve all the objectives of our requirement
2. How much will be the approx cost for a 2000 mailbox network edition pro.
3. Does we need any more plugin/3rd party packages to achieve our objectives
4. Is there anyway (along with addons/plugins/3rd party pkgs) to go with Zimbra Opensource solution to achieve our objectives.
5. How can we setup the Zimbra Server in HO to accept all mails coming to our domain, and re route to the Site's Mail Server as per the location of User,s Mailbox.


I would like to hear from anyone who had experienced in similar kind of implementation. Please advice me about the thing which i want to take care, and if possible which will be the best way to achieve this.

Thanks in Advance...

[creamecake]

Nobody is there to put a comment! even no one from Zimbra!!! then really amazing how could you provide support if we purchased the network edition???

[mmorse]

Welcome to the forums,

FYI the forums entail free community based help, paid users have additional support sites - though I realize you haven't purchased yet / of course it's in their best interest of sales@ members to browse here as well.... (they do have Service Engineering/Professonal Services people to address these questions).

Anyways, touching on a few of the bigger points:

>Some of of the sites are using Ex2k3 + AD, some are Ex2k7 + AD and one site is postfix + ldap, and few sites are having hosted mail service.
Migration wise:
Migrating from Microsoft Exchange to Zimbra Collaboration Suite
User Migration - Zimbra :: Wiki
You also have to decide how you want to do auth, against Zimbra (built in LDAP) or another external LDAP/AD.

Server service wise (and I won't speak to hardware sizing specifications just yet, 5-10GB that incoming or intra? and 7-25mb is a good start but do we have volume # info, peak in x time etc? ie things that may prompt consideration of a 2nd zimbra mta instance etc - and definitely give the HO a nice box)

HO: (All services)
LDAP Master (openldap)
MTA (postfix)
AntiVirus (amavisd + spamassassin)
AntiSpam (amavisd + clamav)
Store (aka mailboxd - jetty + mysql + lucene etc etc)
Logger
Convertd (if NE, this lets you view documents as HTML using an apache engine)
Stats
Spell (apache aspell checker for the web-client)
(SNMP if desired)

Do you want to consider HTTP/IMAP/POP proxies (ngnix/memached) as well? This hides the server names etc. Even without proxy they can still hit a generic mail.domain.com url for the web-client and be routed to their proper box at sign-on, but without proxy you'd have to configure thick clients accordingly. Cons would be more single points of failure/traffic to HO. But note you can also treat HTTP and IMAP/POP separately (ie turn it on for only one type).

I'd start by reading: Working with Zimbra Proxy

Also:
Configuring IMAP and POP Proxy Server
Configuring ZCS HTTP Proxy

>All External Mails to our company should come to our HO
Simple, point the DNS MX record for the domains (10/11?) involved at the HO server(s).

LO's:
LDAP Replica (to reduce lookups to the master/more self sustaining if HO unreachable)
Store
Spell
Convertd (if NE)
MTA (Again you don't have too, but if you want them to function on their own. If you always use it for outgoing to reduce load on HO (rather than just manual flip over during outages) be sure any SPF rules in DNS cover it etc.

>4. Each sites users mailboxes should be stored in the local mail server located in that corresponding site
>8. When the user is transfered, mailbox should also move to the new location
zmmailboxmove

>5.All mails to HO and Sites should be centrally backed up from the HO.
>6. easy recovery of individual mails
CLI zmrestore restoreToTime Network Edition only - Zimbra :: Wiki
Again there's plenty of open source solutions too Backup and Restore Articles - Zimbra :: Wiki
>7. Should have a quick disaster recovery

Start by defining 'quick' at your business. HA and BCP discussions are a matter of what you can afford server wise, the time you can afford in outages, what things are critical, where your storing the backups (are you grabbing all system & /opt/zimbra directories or just talking ZCS's built-in hot backups etc). Is each LO gonna get their own copy of their own server/mail or just the HO? If just mounting 10 /opt/zimbra/backup dirs on the HO EMC SAN don't forget bandwidth restore time - I've seen people with backups down the the second, but didn't account for site wide restores that would take several weeks.

Whether that's multiple ldap copies, multiple mta's, standby/clustering/drbd servers for mailstores etc, there's also some server-to-server sync solutions in the works and other full global solutions being discussed. So for the above I'm pretending you just have 10 ZCS servers/1 per site, please read through some other threads and work out a solution you're comfortable with.

>10. Should support Blackberry BES service
If you want push there's open source wise there's solutions like Funambol, if going network edition there's Mobile Sync. (ActiveSync support for iPhone/Android/WM/whatever) For Blackberry there's ZCB (requires another win box for BES of course).

>12. Mail, Contact, Calender, etc should work from Windows, Mac and Linux desktops
IMAP, POP (if you really have too), Zimbra Desktop, there's also ZCO if you want to quickly add support for things besides standard mail functions to outlook (opinions of this connector vary).
>13. Web mail support
There's basically 3 (well a few more) experiences web-client wise right now: Advanced AJAX, Standard/Lite HTML (for the most part), and Mobile Web.
>9. Global Address book should be available from Desktop / web / Mobile devices
Check. (ease of setup so depends on client, auto in mobile sync/ZCO or pointing at an ldap url in TB etc)
>11. Should support Calendering
Check. (big CalDAV supporters)

>14. Feature like Single Instance Storage for optimal storage in case of multiple instance of a mail
This is available per mailstore (uses hard links) if the message is delivered at the same time. ie LO1user1 emails LO1user2 LO1user3 LO1user4 HOuser1 LO2user1 > that's 3 copies).

>Auto response when a mail hits the old email-id, informing then of the new email-id

Have a read of Managing Domains - Zimbra :: Wiki

The easiest would be to drop your requirement for the auto-response, and instead focus on deliverability to the new account (aliases & catchall sections in above doc).

Replies would then come from the new domain (or can even have it auto appear as the old domain name when they reply aka masquerading but I'd avoid that since you want to spur usage of the new).

If your really intent on the message back to the sender you're going to be talking variations of either:

A) Point the MX's for those old 10 domains at the new main MTA and setup a catchall > mapped to 10 or so accounts with generic out of office messages set telling them to send to same@newdomain.com

B) Creating a distribution list per old address (while free that's still 2k lists) > mapped to 10 or so accounts with generic out of office messages set telling them to send to same@newdomain.com

C) Provision 4k users > each with a FWD to proper address and an OOO message specifying "Your mail to user@olddomain.com has been delivered to user@newdomain.com, this is just to let you know so you can watch for a reply and update your own contact book." = more $ See https://buy.zimbra.com for a basic check, but you should contact sales for a actual quote, especially if in edu/gov sector.

D) Additionally you can setup things in zimbra's postfix (but not in the zimbra ldap itself) but we won't discuss them here right now as outside of NE support, easier 'management wise' would be the next option:

E) Setup a standalone open source edition server (talking a separate ldap instance/will be managed in a different admin console etc) to handle all the old domains (with every account provisioned and fwd to new domain etc)

[creamecake]

Really thx mmorse, now its a great start for me. Let me go through all these things, if i went in to dark i will knock ur door. hope u will be there to shed some light.

[LMStone]

Originally Posted by creamecake

Really thx mmorse, now its a great start for me. Let me go through all these things, if i went in to dark i will knock ur door. hope u will be there to shed some light.

One challenge you will need to address is your requirement for local mailbox servers in each location AND all offices under one domain.

Sure, if you had reliable LAN-speed point-to-point connectivity between your offices, you could do that, but I'm guessing the reason you want local mailbox servers is because each office's Internet connectivity is poor.

Zimbra isn't architected that way; Zimbra expects to have all the servers in a Zimbra farm be connected at LAN speeds.

You'd be better off installing Zimbra Desktop 2 (currently at RC1 level) in the remote offices with poor connectivity and keeping all the Zimbra servers in a data center. Users there could also use their iPhones if needed.

Ideally, having reliable Internet connectivity at all of the offices (doesn't need to be high-speed, just reliable) and having users use the web interface or their mobile devices (other than Blackberries) will be your most cost-effective and reliable deployment strategy.

Hope that helps,
Mark

[creamecake]

Hi morse/stone

We were trying Zimbra Opensource and NE with different kind of Installations. Try to emulate different scenarios and now got an overall idea about the ZCS.

Now we are in a dilemma in setting up our scenario. I am attaching a picture which explains simply what we are trying to achieve (concept as same as in my first post).

It will be really helpful if you could shed some light

we need to know how to setup our installations for the following;
1. All sites and HO users should have email@dom7.com (regardless of where ever his mailbox resides, every user must have email id with our single domain name dom7.com)

2. site1Admin should see and manage only SITE1 users (means the users who is storing their mailbox in the MB_Site1.dom7.com server).
3. site2Admin should see and manage only SITE2 users
4. site3Admin should see and manage only SITE3 users
5. mainAdmin should see and manage everything (means the admin of the mail.dom7.com, in HO)
6. All users should see entire Address Book (HO + Sites)


Kindly advice me in proceeding further!

[creamecake]

any comments!!!
we need some hints to go forward! pls shed some light!

[creamecake]

Still expecting some comments!!! Pls!

[LMStone]

It's a nicely done diagram, but as I mentioned in my first reply, Zimbra isn't architected that way. All of your Zimbra servers should be in one rack, like in a data center.

If it were me, I wouldn't worry about a domain admin having access to users other than those based in their local office. Don't users travel between offices? What happens when user A who normally works in location Z travels to office X and has a problem? The Zimbra admin at office X won't be able to help. What happens if user A gets a transfer?

If each of the offices has different policies or configurations, you can use Classes of Service to take care of that.

Hope that helps,
Mark

[creamecake]

Originally Posted by LMStone

It's a nicely done diagram, but as I mentioned in my first reply, Zimbra isn't architected that way. All of your Zimbra servers should be in one rack, like in a data center.

Thx of that. Eventhough you said it in the beginning, as we were totally new to the ZIMBRA, we took this much time to feel it

If it were me, I wouldn't worry about a domain admin having access to users other than those based in their local office. Don't users travel between offices? What happens when user A who normally works in location Z travels to office X and has a problem? The Zimbra admin at office X won't be able to help. What happens if user A gets a transfer?

Here we have to mind it, bcoz, as we have 10 site offices and 10 admins we are worrying about
a. all this 10 admins are technically in diff levels
b. all of them are in to windows
c. 90% of them are against to Linux
d. Ego clashes will be there...
e. If someone want to give a trouble to another admin, they can do it easily...

For these reasons i dont think it is practical/workable way for us

If each of the offices has different policies or configurations, you can use Classes of Service to take care of that.

Ok i understood that, thx


Hope that helps,
Mark

Now one more thing. Is there anyway like we create all the users from HO and give permission to "site1 admin" to administer normal things related (like changing password) to a useraccount, by grouping those accounts (site1 accounts) to a distribution list or so?