Davit2005 Posted March 26, 2012 Posted March 26, 2012 We are looking at Zimbra to replace our limited email system, looking at the appliance as we allready have ESXi host. We want to limit END USER confusion so not really looking at using outlook for clients but jus using Web based interface so there is little difference when they go home and access from the web (I've been there with exchange) . If end users want to install the Zimbra client at home thats upto them but I don't think we will be installing on workstations at school. The existing system is all web based but one user has outlook configured. Don't fancy the idea of supporting yet another piece of workstation software :-(. Our internet connection is way to slow for cloud based email systems.
Little-Miss Posted March 26, 2012 Posted March 26, 2012 We have Zimbra, not a fan honestly....but maybe that because the LA host it. Have you looked at live@edu?
AngryTechnician Posted March 26, 2012 Posted March 26, 2012 The newer versions of Exchange have much better webmail interfaces, so might be worth another look if you've only used older versions. Most of our staff don't even use Outlook in school, the webmail is good enough that they don't need anything more.
CyberNerd Posted March 26, 2012 Posted March 26, 2012 We used to run Zimbra for students didn't have any issues with it, integrates nicely with AD, has a decent content filter (homemade)- at the time we put it (2006 ish) in it had a few more feature than exchange too. It was a few years back now - we upgraded the internet connection and went cloud.
Davit2005 Posted March 26, 2012 Author Posted March 26, 2012 We have Zimbra, not a fan honestly....but maybe that because the LA host it. Have you looked at live@edu? I rolled out Live@EDU for students at last place. Quite happy with it once configured it all, I would be more than happy to go down this route again if it was upto me and our internet speed allowed. The setting up of live@EDU is quite labour intensive allthough I still got the majority of commands that I used written down so should be easier than last time I set up. Exchange would be too costly for us for end users, had experience with Exchange 2007 at last place and found it better than 2005 on the Web interface. Internet connection speed is an issue so cloud based for 450+ users wouldn't be ideal. VMWare Zimbra seems like ideal. I would think that having the same system for both students and staff would be beneficial in a support view whatever happened, apparently Zimbra do a cut down license for students.
Davit2005 Posted March 26, 2012 Author Posted March 26, 2012 One more thing on the Zimbra When building the Zimbra how much room do you allow for the Mail Storage per end user? I guess you could have different groups with various storage limits i.e Students, Staff and Staff - Extra Storage.
Michael Posted March 26, 2012 Posted March 26, 2012 Little-Miss is spot on. Zimbra itself is pretty good, but the hosting/service is just as important. This is why I am currently deploying Live@Edu as it offers a superior service, it's free and more user friendly. Mailbox sizes are a lot more realistic compared to an LA hosted solution too.
Davit2005 Posted March 26, 2012 Author Posted March 26, 2012 We will be hosting Zimbra ourselves in house :-), so at least we can talk direct to VMWare on any support issues. I setup a trial about a year ago but didn't get much chance to play. So I guess I will download the trial again and setup a little test network to demonstrate. As I've said, I wouldn't mind going down the Live@EDU route as I've done this before but our Internet speed is sh*** at the moment so any cloud based solutions would be a problem. And end decision will prob not be mine but I will have to support and prob implement the system whatever happens :-( .
Sylv3r Posted March 26, 2012 Posted March 26, 2012 We had Zimbra for our student users but migrated to Live@Edu this year, and the students seem to prefer it. Will also consider Live@Edu or Microsoft 365 for our staff users over the summer.
Davit2005 Posted March 26, 2012 Author Posted March 26, 2012 We had Zimbra for our student users but migrated to Live@Edu this year, and the students seem to prefer it. Will also consider Live@Edu or Microsoft 365 for our staff users over the summer. I saw the MS push for 365 and wondered how it was going to effect the Live@EDU online apps i.e. Word, Excel, etc. Will Microsoft charge for 365? Will 365 offer better callobration between end users?
bossman Posted March 26, 2012 Posted March 26, 2012 We have been using Zimbra for the past 6 years for both staff and students, it has been one of the best decisions we made, AD integration is good and we host it ourselves, it has never been down for any other reason than to upgrade. I have thought about cloud mail but then one loses a certain amount of control which could cause you problems in the future. It has quite a lot of features too many to mention but you will not be disappointed, one thing to remember is that if you take it to the cloud you have one single point of failure and that is your internet connection.
jamesbmarshall Posted March 26, 2012 Posted March 26, 2012 I saw the MS push for 365 and wondered how it was going to effect the Live@EDU online apps i.e. Word, Excel, etc. Will Microsoft charge for 365? No charges for students or staff to access SharePoint Online with the Office Web Apps See: New Lower Prices For Office 365 - UK Live@edu Blog - Site Home - MSDN Blogs
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