[TriLUG] I see an exchange server in my future

[Shane O'Donnell]

+1 for "Choose your battles".

You are about to deploy an email server.  This, by definition, means
that something will go wrong (Note: when you make any large technology
introduction/change, something will go wrong, and when every user has
a client that they will undoubtedly screw up and blame it on you, the
problem is even worse).

If you successfully pitch something else, anything and everything that
goes wrong will be your fault.  If you go with the boss'
recommendation, a lot of stuff that goes wrong can be explained away
as "this is Outlook and it's what you wanted".

Champion open source when it's a fair and open playing field.  If you
force the issue at the wrong time, both you and OSS in general run
unnecessary risks.

Shane O.

On 8/6/06, David McDowell <turnpike420 at gmail.com> wrote:
> There are some battles you have to choose to fight.  I faced the same
> issue 3 years ago exactly at my current job.  They had offsite hosted
> POP3 to Outlook PST files on their local machines.  The previous admin
> (a 100% non Linux person) had pointed them on the path to Exchange.  I
> knew I could give them in house IMAP using Postfix for centralized
> email storage/backups, but that simply wasn't enough.  There are
> supposed to be calendar plugins to web front-ends like squirrelmail
> but I've never used them.  At the time, I think there was something
> being developed called Hula???  SuSE's product was available then...
> but I personally didn't like it, nor can I stand YaST.  At any rate,
> after a little research, to meet all the requirements asked for,
> Exchange/Outlook was the best solution... and it helped that we
> already had Active Directory... *shrugs* so I've found other ways to
> utilize Linux... when I arrived at this job there were 5 Win servers,
> now we have 15 servers and 6 are Linux!  w00t!
>
>
> On 8/6/06, Kevin Flanagan <kevin at flanagannc.net> wrote:
> > I second that, notes is a horrible POS as an email app.  It can be
> > useful as an application platform, but NOT email.  Notes even has it's
> > own entry in the interface hall of shame.  That's not to mention what a
> > pain it is to administer, the things that were done to try to do good
> > things, each users mailbox is a database, make it really painful to admin.
> >
> > http://homepage.mac.com/bradster/iarchitect/lotus.htm
> >
> >
> > If your boss only wants email, it's easy, any IMAP server works fine, if
> > he wants calendar etc, and integrated, then it's much more difficult.
> > Other things mentioned here have come up again and again, I haven't
> > looked at them.
> >
> >
> > Good luck,
> >
> > Kevin
> >
> > Greg Brown wrote:
> > > I know plenty about Lotus Notes and can sum up my entire expirence in two
> > > words: RUN AWAY!!  Run far and quickly.  Notes is a nightmare.
> > >
> > > On 8/5/06, Douglas Ward <dward at nccumc.org> wrote:
> > >>
> > >> This month's issue of PC Magazine discussed Lotus Notes being
> > >> released as
> > >> open source (and that it was an alternative to Exchange 2007).  You may
> > >> want
> > >> to take a look at its integration with Outlook.  I don't know anything
> > >> about
> > >> it personally but I remember reading it in the magazine.
> > >>
> > >> On 8/5/06, Neil L. Little <nllittle at vnet.net> wrote:
> > >> >
> > >> > It appears that there will an Exchange Server in my future. The
> > >> boss man
> > >> > is wedded/addicted to Outlook and cannot be separated from it.
> > >> > I have been looking around for an Open Source alternative to avoid
> > >> > feeding the Evil Empire of Redmond, WA.
> > >> >
> > >> > My initial search has come up with several candidates such as
> > >> > Exchange4Linux, OpenXchange and OpenGroup.
> > >> >
> > >> > Can anyone suggest to me other alternatives or provide additional
> > >> input?
> > >> >
> > >> > The platform will most likely be Ubuntu.
> > >> >
> > >> > Thanks in advance,
> > >> >
> > >> > Neil Little, WA4AZL
> > >> > JARS Forever!!...er TRILUG too!
> > >> > --
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> > >> >
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> --
> > >> Douglas Ward
> > >> Director of Information Technology
> > >> NC Methodist Conference
> > >> 1307 Glenwood Ave.
> > >> Raleigh, NC 27605
> > >> Work: (919) 832-9560 ext. 227
> > >> Fax: (919) 834-7989
> > >> --
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> > >>
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> >
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>


-- 
Shane O.
========
Shane O'Donnell
shaneodonnell at gmail.com
====================