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Two things that I think keep getting missed are:
1. The per user client licensing of these systems causes the to become
extremely cost prohibitive when you start to talk about scaling them
into 6 figures worth of users. For the cost of one year of licensing GW
or MS-Exchange we could hire 4-5 engineers to develop a completely new
system. So, if we have all that money, why haven't we hired 4-5
engineers in the past? Simple, we don't have the money.
2. These systems haven't been proven (at least in my mind) to scale to
this size. Everyone "knows someone who knows someone" who has done it,
but as a person who has been running very large scale email systems for
the past 10 years (think 5 times the size of mail.msu.edu) I can tell
you that in that "circle" of people, nobody actually runs GW, or Exchange.
GW and Exchange are designed to be small to large business class
applications. They do a great job of that. They scale to thousands of
mail boxes, but they don't scale to HUNDREDS of thousands of mailboxes.
They just simply weren't designed to be enterprise class solutions.
There is a reason Comcast just went with Zimbra. There is a reason
AOL's solution is "home grown". It's because they have systems and
designs that are proven to be scalable.
I will never trust a mail system that stores it's messages in a
database. Meta-deta, sure, but not the message bodies. It's just
simply an unnecessary resource hog. There, I said it.
Ray Hernandez wrote:
> John,
>
> In all fairness, I don't think you read my email fully. I _am_ using the
> GW 7 web client. That is the latest client available to me, and as far
> as I can tell the latest version your dept has rolled out. While iCal
> support is nice, it is not CalDav. From my perspective, iCal is a file
> format spec and CalDav is a server protocol. GW does not seem to support
> CalDav, until maybe version 8 or 9.
>
> This is where I am locked into using the GW client. I can't use any
> other client to alter/view my GW calendar. I can use the GW web client
> to do so, but I prefer using something else. The argument that it is
> going to have X feature "in the next version" doesn't really help me
> today. If every user on campus started holding their breath for things
> to be fixed/added in the next version of any software, we'd start having
> a lot of people passing out at their desks.
>
> I'm not trying to knock GW at all, I think it is a great piece of
> software. I am merely trying to point out that it isn't all wine and roses.
> --Ray
>
> On Feb 27, 2008, at 5:31 PM, John Evans wrote:
>
>> Ray,
>>
>> Your assessment is not entirely fair. The older version of the client
>> that you are using had very limited support for iCal. The version of
>> GroupWise that we have on our servers (and the client on our
>> department's desktop) provides full iCal support. Additionally, in
>> the near future, you will be able to publish and subscribe calendars
>> (including your own personal calendars) along with free/busy information.
>>
>> And NO, you are NOT "locked" into using the GroupWise client in order
>> to use your GroupWise account. Other clients will work just fine.
>> Our department supports only the use of the GroupWise client because
>> of support issues; that doesn't mean that other clients will not work
>> with GroupWise.
>>
>> For years, Novell has been providing products that adhere to open
>> standards and operate on multiple platforms. For instance, Novell
>> GroupWise can operate on Linux and Windows servers as well as NetWare
>> servers. How many other email solutions do? Novell products should
>> at least be considered when investigating solutions no matter what
>> environment(s) you manage.
>>
>> ...John
>>
>> (Scott - our Breslin server has been online for over 354 days and the
>> Kellogg server for a mere 218 days.)
>>
>> >>> Ray Hernandez <[log in to unmask]> 2/27/2008 4:02 PM >>>
>> As a Groupwise(GW) user, I think it is just OK. Groupwise doesn't
>> seem to support caldav. This is annoying to me because the biggest
>> thing I use GW for is email and calendaring. It locks me into using
>> the GW client.
>>
>> While the GW web client is, to me, preferable to using the desktop
>> client. I find it lacking in customization. If we are serious about
>> adhering to open standards, as I think we should, I don't see that GW
>> offers us much more than Outlook/Exchange.
>>
>> I don't think GW is a bad piece of software, but it could be better.
>> --Ray
>>
>> On Feb 27, 2008, at 3:45 PM, Scott Foreman wrote:
>>
>> > I missed this post ... I couldn't agree with Don more, GroupWise
>> > has been the most stable, scalable email platform I could ever want
>> > to administer. Run on SLES or OES2 makes it all the better. One of
>> > our Novell servers has been up for over 200 days, the last time we
>> > patched and rebooted was for the daylight savings update in October
>> > or November. I also heard at a conference that if you pay for SLES
>> > maintenance through Novell that you could install and run GroupWise
>> > for free but this probably works differently since we have a site
>> > license. The GroupWise 7.x web interface is very robust and easy to
>> > use, also includes calendaring.
>> >
>>
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