A Web Based Solution to Replace Exchange?

benthemeek asks: "A friend of mine works for a company that has more than 6k users connecting to a Outlook exchange server instance through VPN from various homes all across the country. The executives at his company would like to move to Active Directory and a web based solution for these users. When Outlook Web Access was priced out, it was judged very expensive and they opened the floor to other options. They want a LDAP enabled, web based email and calendar that could hopefully plug in or replace Exchange, and if the solution can be load balanced between more than one server to ensure reliability and uptime, that would be even better. Slashdot readers come from many walks of life and I am sure some of you have gone through a similar experience and could give some insight to this problem. The fan boy in me would like to see a complete Open Source to meet this need, but that may not be possible. Have any of you done similar migrations, and to what solution did you go to?"

Comments

google, not yet but soon

[lurker4hire]

Google will probably offer an appliance to do this, like their search appliance, within a year*.

*All dates are pure speculation pulled right out of my arse, can I get a job as an analyst?

Ummm... Easy...

[eno2001]

Zimbra.com Look at the demo. It can be made to integrate with AD's LDAP. It has calendaring, e-mail and contacts. And there are Outlook/Exchange migration tools. Also check out the forums on Zimbra.com. This should really be a Slashback...

Zimbra?

[Zocalo]

I've not looked at it in any great depth recently, but Zimbra is aiming to be what you are looking for and is now up to v3.0 so should be fairly mature. Zimbra's webclient is AJAX based rather than ActiveX, so unlike Exchange's Outlook Web Access even non-Microsoft browsers get all the pretty bells and whistles in the interface. You also have a much broader range of stand-alone clients to choose from without loosing much, if any, of Exchange's level of functionality.

If you stick with Exchange on the backend and just want to replace Outlook then Evolution is probably your best (if not only) choice as it implements most of Outlook's functionality. It also support other mail client standards like IMAP and POP3 of course, so will seamlessly integrate with any almost other backend mail server too. Packages for UNIX are readily available and the Windows port is also stable, and although there isn't a pre-rolled installation package just yet, that can't be too far off.

Are you sure what you're asking for?

[CXI]

Is the purpose just to get rid of the VPN? Outlook can be setup to connect via HTTPS to an Exchange server with fully functionality, using NTLM authentication, so no VPN required. Also, Exchange can be configured to serve email via IMAP if you don't want to get everyone Outlook (except they already have it according to your question).

Have you considered the fact that web based services are not necessarily going to provide the event notifications or other features users are used to getting? Guess who will be blamed when everyone starts missing meetings or showing up late? As an example, in Exchange's web based Outlook you can't set your delegation settings through it or view multiple calendars at the same time or do a lot of other things. You really need to know the feature set that's required by the users before you could even consider any kind of a move. Have you thought about archive files? If you go web based you'll have to keep all that data on the server and you'll probably have to migrate it there from each user's PC one at a time.

Saying you want to move from Exchange to something Active Directory integrated with the ability to load balance is also a little weird given that Exchange already does all this.

I'd tell your friend to go on record that any major change is probably a bad idea, and instead he should research how to make the existing system work the way they want it to. Your question really doesn't indicate WHY they want to move, which is critical to the choices to be made. Open Source isn't the proper solution to every problem, and yes, you might actually have to spend some money to get the functionality you need! (Ok, send in the slashdot shock troops to mod me into oblivion for not following the party line...)

Horde 3.0

[Jizzbug]

You really should check out The Horde Project. Horde (and it's webmail client IMP) has been around for a very long time. Development is very active and open.

Horde went through a major rewrite/restructuring for the 3.0 effort. Horde 3.0 is definitely a web-based Exchange-killer (and Sharepoint-killer).

If you use Cyrus IMAPd as your IMAP backend, you even get shared mailboxes. Horde's other modules also have excellent sharing support. Shared calendars, mailboxes, todo lists, addressbooks, etc. Turba, the addressbook module, supports LDAP directories. Horde's other modules also have support to grab bits of info from LDAP.

I highly recommend Horde. I used to use it a lot more than I do know. When that was the case, I was also a regularly submitter of patches to the project (I helped mostly the last year 3.0 was still unreleased).

While Hula may look prettier, I find Horde to be much more functional.

Of course, there are plenty of things to be done... So, start using it and start submitting patches!

Re:Ummm... Easy... but costly

[kbielefe]

You forgot to post the link to the Microsoft pricing and information about needed upgrade frequency. Does that include operating system licenses? Do you really go for 5 years without upgrading? 3 years seems like a more realistic upgrade cycle based on the release frequency.

I'm no IT expert so maybe it's just me, but I'm thinking that perhaps since it has the same features, a small business would want the small business edition for $2900 per year for 100 users, for a total 3 year cost of $8700 with upgrades and OS licenses included.

However, since we are talking about a business with 6000 users, let's look at that cost:

Zimbra 6000 x $28 x 3 years = $504,000 with upgrades and full support included Exchange $1100 + (5995 / 5 x $500) = $600,600 with no upgrades

See, you can twist the numbers either way. I'll leave it to the mods to decide who was more realistic. Microsoft may have some volume licensing that I'm not aware of, but why should I track down the exact price when you wouldn't?

Of course, if I was the CFO, I would go with secret option number 3: spend $150,000 to hire a full-time developer for a year to make an ultra-customized version of the zimbra open source edition that will meet my company's exact needs.