Education Setting IPSwitch > Zimbra Open Source

[wizard210]

Greetings.

I've just entered into this position for a school district. They've never had a real network guy before. Currently their email solution is using a local ISP to provide their email.

Their email is IPswitch. I do not have any control over the email system, only thing I can do is set mailbox size, change passwords, and create users.

We currently have around 250 mailboxes that we would need with possible growth in the future.

Would the Open Source edition of Zimbra be enough for my district. We would want the capability to share calendars. Have a desktop client.

I'd also be looking at archiving (mailarchiva)

[phoenix]

Originally Posted by wizard210

Would the Open Source edition of Zimbra be enough for my district.

Of course it would, many school districts use it.

Originally Posted by wizard210

We would want the capability to share calendars.

It can do that.

Originally Posted by wizard210

Have a desktop client.

There's one available plus the Web UI.

[wizard210]

My next question would be what type of hardware should I be looking at.

I have an old HP Proliant Server ML150.

1.6 processor
two 80 GB HDD with bays for expansian.
2GB that can go to 8GB.

OS CentOS?

[fcash]

Originally Posted by wizard210

Their email is IPswitch. I do not have any control over the email system, only thing I can do is set mailbox size, change passwords, and create users.

We currently have around 250 mailboxes that we would need with possible growth in the future.

Would the Open Source edition of Zimbra be enough for my district.

If you do not need native Outlook access to the Zimbra server, nor do you need to sync Blackberries or iPhones or Android phones, nor do you need an integrated backup setup, then the OSS edition will work fine.

We would want the capability to share calendars.

That works fine in the OSS edition.

Have a desktop client.

Why? The web client is far superior to any separate desktop client. And the Zimbra Desktop application is just a repackaging of the web client.

I'd also be looking at archiving (mailarchiva)

That you would have to do on your own. The OSS edition does not support archive. The Network Edition does, though (along with native Outlook support, Blackberry sync, Exchange ActiveSync support, and a few other features).

We're using the OSS edition for our student e-mail (pilot starts this month); and Network edition for our staff e-mail (2100 accounts).

[pondi]

Originally Posted by wizard210

My next question would be what type of hardware should I be looking at.

I have an old HP Proliant Server ML150.

1.6 processor
two 80 GB HDD with bays for expansian.
2GB that can go to 8GB.

You have 250 mailboxes today and 80 GB of harddrive is to small if you want to expand, but off curse it depends on the users.
In our environment we are seeing a trend that users will generate a lot more data after moving to Zimbra. This is because Zimbra is a collaboration tool and not just a email server.

The ML150 is not a powerful server and i think you will get performance issues after a while in production. 250 account dont require more than 6 gig of memory to run smoothly. I think Zimbra recommend 4 gigs as the minimum.
Remember that you want a server with 64-bit. This will give you a big improvement in performance and 32-bit is in a "phase-out".

Originally Posted by wizard210

OS CentOS?

We are currently running Ubuntu and will still do this in the future. Zimbra and Ubuntu is good friends and works brilliantly. Also I think CentOS is not supported by Zimbra. RedHat is thought.

[phoenix]

Originally Posted by pondi

We are currently running Ubuntu and will still do this in the future. Zimbra and Ubuntu is good friends and works brilliantly. Also I think CentOS is not supported by Zimbra. RedHat is thought.

CentOS isn't 'officially' supported but it is a binary compatible rebuild of RHEL and works very well with Zimbra - many of the forums users run CentOS (including me ).

[wizard210]

Originally Posted by pondi

You have 250 mailboxes today and 80 GB of harddrive is to small if you want to expand, but off curse it depends on the users.
In our environment we are seeing a trend that users will generate a lot more data after moving to Zimbra. This is because Zimbra is a collaboration tool and not just a email server.

The ML150 is not a powerful server and i think you will get performance issues after a while in production. 250 account dont require more than 6 gig of memory to run smoothly. I think Zimbra recommend 4 gigs as the minimum.
Remember that you want a server with 64-bit. This will give you a big improvement in performance and 32-bit is in a "phase-out".



We are currently running Ubuntu and will still do this in the future. Zimbra and Ubuntu is good friends and works brilliantly. Also I think CentOS is not supported by Zimbra. RedHat is thought.

Due to budgetary concerns in our district and the State(PA) we are looking to cut costs. So getting a new 64 bit server is not kinda out of the question. Currently I'm looking at different hardware upgrades to this server.

I know 32 bit is being phased out but if I can run it until we can move to 64 bit then I'll do it. Looking at this it looks as though I can run 64bit on this server

HP Proliant ML150 G3 | Ubuntu

I do like Ubuntu but I haven't been able to find a good tutorial for install Zimbra onto 10.04 LTS

[spectra]

Originally Posted by wizard210

Due to budgetary concerns in our district and the

I do like Ubuntu but I haven't been able to find a good tutorial for install Zimbra onto 10.04 LTS

I can help you there.
I have the following all running nicely:

1.
root@mail:~# lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 8.04.4 LTS
Release: 8.04
Codename: hardy

Linux mail 2.6.24-28-server #1 SMP Wed Nov 24 09:30:54 UTC 2010 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Release 7.0.0_GA_3077.UBUNTU8_64 UBUNTU8_64 FOSS edition.

2.
root@mail:~# lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 10.04.2 LTS
Release: 10.04
Codename: lucid

Linux mail 2.6.32-28-server #55-Ubuntu SMP Mon Jan 10 23:57:16 UTC 2011 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Release 7.0.0_GA_3077.UBUNTU10_64 UBUNTU10_64 FOSS edition.


The install is quite simple thanks to some good information put together by folks on the forum. Reach out to me if you need it and I will post it all.