BINFO Thesis Morillo David 010078751D

8/12/2019 BINFO Thesis Morillo David 010078751D

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UNIVERSITY OF LUXEMBURGFSTC Bachelor in Computer Science

Comparing Microsoft Exchange Server2013 to Zarafa 7.0 and Zimbra

Collaboration 8.0

byMORILLO David

Student number : 010078751D

A thesis submitted in partial fulllment for thedegree of Bachelor in Computer Science

Academic responsible : Dr. WAGNER Cynthia, University of

Luxemburg , RESTENA Foundation

Local responsible : TOMPERS Claude, RESTENA Foundation

May 2014Academic Year 2013-2014
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Declaration of Authorship

I, DAVID MORILLO, declare that this thesis titled, Comparing Microsoft ExchangeServer 2013 to Zarafa 7.0 and Zimbra Collaboration 8.0 and the work presented in it

are my own. I conrm that:

This work was done wholly or mainly while in candidature for a Bachelor in Com-puter Science degree at the University of Luxembourg.

Where any part of this thesis has previously been submitted for a degree or anyother qualication at this University or any other institution, this has been clearly

stated.

Where I have consulted the published work of others, this is always clearly at-tributed.

Where I have quoted from the work of others, the source is always given. With

the exception of such quotations, this thesis is entirely my own work.

I have acknowledged all main sources of help.

Where the thesis is based on work done by myself jointly with others, I have madeclear exactly what was done by others and what I have contributed myself.

Signed:

Date:

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Abstract

School administrations these days are looking for a better solution in the world of mailservers. Most school administrations only store mailboxes, but they need more features.

They are asking for functions like calendars and address books, the possibility to havea shared calendar and shared address books.

In the framework of this Bachelor Thesis my task was to compare different mail solutionsand to identify their main features, but also to detect major issues, to meet the newrequirements for the educational environment (such as mail, calendar and address book).Therefore, three solutions were tested.

The main purpose of this document is to analyse and explain which of these solutionshas the best suited features and tools for school administration problems. I will describein detail about how the testing was done and present a recommendation based on the

analysis. I will write about the deployment plan as well as the migration process to

elaborate the recommended solution.


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Abstract

Les administrations scolaires ces jours cherchent une meilleure solution dans le mondedes serveurs de messagerie. La plupart des administrations scolaires stockent seulementdes botes aux lettres electroniques, mais ils ont besoin de plus de fonctionnalites. Ils

demandent des caracteristiques telles que des calendriers et des carnets dadresses. Lapossibilite davoir un calendrier partage et carnet dadresses partages, cest dont les

administrations scolaires ont besoin.Dans le cadre de cette these baccalaureat, ma t ache etait de comparer les differentessolutions de messagerie electronique et didentier leurs fonctionnalites principales, maisaussi de detecter les problemes majeurs pour repondre aux nouvelles exigences de

lenvironnement de leducation (comme messagerie electronique, calendrier et carnetdadresses). Trois solutions ont ete testees.

Le but principal de ce document est danalyser et expliquer laquelle de ces solutions a les

caracteristiques les plus adaptees ainsi que les outils face aux problemes de ladministration

scolaire. Jecrirais sur le plan de deploiement aussi bien que le processus de migrationdes donnees pour elaborer la solution recommandee.


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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank director of RESTENA Foundation Mr. DUHAUTPAS Theo

for giving me the opportunity to perform this internship at RESTENA Foundation . Iespecially thank my local responsible Mr. TOMPERS Claude for helping me each timewhen I needed support. He helped me by advising me on, how to solve problems andhow to deal with them.

I would like to thank Mr. STIEFER Marc who helped me a lot in this project, tounderstand the world of email and DNS(Domain Name System). He was a great help tomy project, without him, I would not have understood the real world of mail servers andhow they work. I would like to thank Mr. WINTER Stefan for helping me in complex

situations, by advising and explaining me aspects on rewalls. I would like to thank MrPR EMONT Bruno for giving me advice in Java language, that I needed for testing afeature in Zimbra. I would also like to thank Dr. WAGNER Cynthia and Ms. BALIC

Anne for helping me writing this thesis.

Thanks to the whole team at the RESTENA Foundation , they are great people. Theymade me feel good and happy while working there. It was very comfortable being in

this internship with this team. They are all kind people and were always willing to helpme. It was a pleasure working at the RESTENA Foundation .

Thank you.

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Contents

Declaration of Authorship i

Abstract in English iii

Abstract in French iv

Acknowledgements v

List of Figures ix

List of Tables x

Abbreviations xi

1 Introduction 11.1 Denition of the project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

2 Environment 22.1 Mail concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22.2 Existing mail solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32.3 Test network and conguration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

3 Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 53.1 Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53.2 Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

3.2.1 Sharing calendar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73.2.2 Shared mailbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73.2.3 Shared address book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73.2.4 External authentication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73.2.5 Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83.2.6 Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

3.3 Advantages & Drawbacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93.3.1 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

4 Zimbra Collaboration 8.0 11

4.1 Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114.1.1 Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

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Contents vii

4.2 Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124.2.1 Sharing calendar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134.2.2 Shared mailbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144.2.3 Shared address book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

4.2.4 External authentication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144.2.5 Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154.2.6 Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17


5 Zarafa 7.0 205.1 Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205.2 Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

5.2.1 Sharing calendar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215.2.2 Shared mailbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235.2.3 Shared address book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235.2.4 External authentication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235.2.5 Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245.2.6 Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25


6 Comparison & Recommended solution 276.1 Comparison of the installations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276.2 Comparison of the features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

6.2.1 Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306.2.2 Stability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316.2.3 Remote Administration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316.2.4 Failover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326.2.5 Backup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336.2.6 Pricing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

6.3 Support Contracts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356.4 Recommended solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

7 Data migration & Deployment plan 387.1 Migration process and roll back procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387.2 Deployment plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407.3 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

8 Conclusion 438.1 Global conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438.2 Personal Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

A Appendix 45A.1 TRAVAIL DE FIN DETUDES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45A.2 CD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45


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Contents viii

B Zimbra Custom Authentication 46B.1 RestenaAuthenticator.java . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Bibliography 52


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List of Figures

2.1 Mail concept[59] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

4.1 Zimbra Administration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124.2 Zimbra web interface share calendar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

5.1 Zarafa shared folder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225.2 Zarafa shared folder window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

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List of Tables

6.1 Compare - Hardware requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276.2 Comparison of administration features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286.3 Comparison of user features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296.4 License price comparison per mailbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346.5 Pricing comparison of the three suites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

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Abbreviations

MS M icrosoftOS O perating SystemIP I nternet P rotocol

AD A ctive D irectoryAD DS A ctive D irectory D omain ServiceDC D omain C ontrollerLDAP L ightweight D irectory A ccess P rotocolDB D ata B aseDNS D omain N ame SystemMX Records M ail EX changer RecordsSMTP S imple M ail T ransfer P rotocolSSL S ecure Sockets Layer

TLS T ransport Layer SecurityRADIUS R emote A uthentication D ial In U ser ServiceTCP T ransmission C ontrol P rotocolIMAP I nternet M essage A ccess P rotocolPOP P ost Office P rotocolSSH S ecure SH ellESXi E lastic Sky X i ntegratedGAL G lobal A ddress ListMTA M ail T ransfer A gentMUA M ail U ser A gentFQDN F ully Q ualied D omain N ame

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Chapter 1

Introduction

1.1 Denition of the project

The aim of this bachelor thesis is to compare Microsoft Exchange collaboration suite toZimbra and Zarafa.

RESTENA Foundation wants to implement a new solution for their stored mailboxes,to meet the new school administration requirements. At the moment only mailboxes arestored on the servers. My project is to identify which one of those three solutions ts thebest in their actual environment and meets all requirements, such as shared mailboxes,shared calendars and shared address books. Besides these general requirements the

collaboration suite shall additionally fully support Microsoft Outlook [36]. The usedapproach to identify the best solution out of the three suites is to test them, whichmeans, I will install each collaboration suite and verify if they work properly and if themain features are supported. After testing the solutions, I point out the advantages anddrawbacks and after comparing them. A recommendation will be drawn by analysingfeatures like performance, stability, pricing, etc. The migration procedure is to movethe old mailboxes into the new solution and to have a roll back procedure in place tomigrate back, taking into account the data integrity of the mailboxes. At last I presenta deployment plan for the recommended solution with the technical specications of

the servers such as quantity of the servers, the size of the servers, the fail-over and thebackup techniques, as well as the licensing model.

Chapter 2 will contain information and details about the environment I worked in andgive a description of the mail concept. Chapter 3 describes the Microsoft ExchangeServer 2013 installation process, how it was tested, its features, the problems thatoccurred while testing and its advantages and drawbacks. The same is done in chapter4 for Zimbra Collaboration 8.0 and in chapter 5 for Zarafa 7.0. Chapter 6 describes thefeature comparison of the three solutions. Chapter 7 describes the data migration anddeployment plan for the recommended solution. Chapter 8 presents a global conclusion

and presents some personal comments.

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Chapter 2

EnvironmentThis chapter will explain the basic concept of emailing, the currently existing mail

solution and the environment in which the tests of the three suites have been made.

2.1 Mail concept

A Mail Transfer Agent(MTA) is an SMTP [17] server, in other words, a mail transferagent is like the Mailman, without a Mailman we can not deliver any mails thereforewe need a mail transfer agent to successfully send mails when the mail is delivered, itis stored in a mailbox server which uses the POP [ 57] or IMAP [7] protocol. The next

gure explains the mail concept:

Figure 2.1: Mail concept[ 59]

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Chapter 2. Environment 3

We have two users, user A and user B and we have two MTAs. Both users A and B areusing an email client like Outlook [ 36] or Thunderbird [11] to manage their mailboxes.An email client can be called a Mail User Agent(MUA). To explain the process of sendingand receiving an email we take A is going to send an email to B. The user A logs in intohis email client, and writes a new email which he will send to B. The transmission of theemail is done with the SMTP protocol to the mail transfer agent of A. SMTP stands forSimple Mail Transfer Protocol. Every email message has a sender, a recipient, a titleand a text body. The protocol will take all these informations of the email message andput it all together in one text. The MTA gets the email message over the Simple MailTransfer Protocol. The email will be forwarded to another mail transfer agent, still byusing the same protocol. It arrives at the mail transfer agent of B. The email is thendelivered into the mailbox of B. In order that B can read the new email message, he hasto log in into his email client to open his mailbox. Depending on how B congured his

email client, it will either use the protocol POP or IMAP. If B congured his email clientto retrieve his mailbox with the IMAP then the mailbox of B will be left on the server.Every change that is made in the mailbox will directly be made on the mailbox server.For example if B deletes an email in his mailbox it will be deleted on the mailbox server.Using the IMAP protocol is good because B can use any device to read the mailbox andwill always see the same settings of his mailbox. The POP is different in a way thatthe mailbox is always downloaded from the mailbox server and is stored locally in theemail client of B, every action that is made in the mailbox will only be made locally andnot on the mailbox server, deleting a message from the mailbox while using Post Office

Protocol will not delete the message from the mailbox server. The POP and IMAPprotocol are only used for retrieving mailboxes and SMTP is used only for delivery of mails as you can see on the gure 2.1.

This was a basic explanation of the mail concept, for more information check the refer-ence of SMTP [17],POP [57] and IMAP [7].

2.2 Existing mail solution

The existing mail solution at RESTENA Foundation is the mail system called Cyrus [65].Cyrus is an IMAP Server that only stores mailboxes on the server. No calendar and noaddress books are stored in Cyrus. Their actual mailbox server is going to be integratedin the recommended solution, if it can be integrated, else it will not be used anymore.RESTENA Foundation has approximately 1000 mailboxes from school administrations.
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Chapter 2. Environment 4

2.3 Test network and conguration

I was doing my testing on a separate network at RESTENA Foundation . At rst I hadto install an ESXi [68] server on a desktop computer. ESXi is an operating system thatis used for building and managing a virtualized IT infrastructure. Using this OperatingSystem for my testing was a very good choice, since I can have multiple virtual machineswith each having their own Operating System running and all this in one server. To testthe three solutions, three virtual machines are created in the ESXi server, this way Idont have to install three different servers with three Operating Systems. One physicalserver was enough to test all three solutions. This made my testing easier. As saidbefore, rst I had congured an ESXi server on a desktop computer but this turned outto be too slow to handle the virtual machine of Exchange Server 2013, so I was provideda real server where I could install the ESXi, since Exchange Server 2013 was using toomuch memory. I used therefore version of ESXi.I installed and congured the new server which was easy to congure. I just had tofollow the instructions on the screen of the installation. I named the server with thename virtual-test.restena.lu . The server was connected to the test network of RESTENAFoundation . The subnet of the test network is a /28. The Domain Name System(DNS)server conguration was not made by me. I had to ask RESTENA Foundation tocongure the DNS server to add my server and my three virtual machines. The namesof my three virtual machines are, exchange-test.restena.lu , zarafa-test.restena.lu andzimbra-test.restena.lu . Later in the testing my three virtual machines got their DomainName [47], exchange.educ.lu , zarafa.educ.lu and zimbra.educ.lu . The DNS was conguredwith A [74] records and MX [75] records, which are needed for the mail system. An Arecord is to map a domain name to an IPv4 [ 60] address and a MX record is to map adomain name to a mail transfer agent. The server and the three virtual machines wereall connected to the test network. Each of them had an IPv4 and an IPv6 [10] addresson test network.

To summarize this chapter, a mail system always needs a SMTP server and a mailboxserver or have both in one system. An ESXi server is very simple to install and to

congure, it takes less then 10 minutes to set up and it is very helpful for a testingenvironment.
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Chapter 3

Microsoft Exchange Server 2013The Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 [33] is a commercial suite, this is the rst suite

that I tested because I have to compare it against Zimbra and Zarafa which is my mainobjective in this project. MS Exchange Server 2013 has a lot of features that meet therequirements of the school administration. This chapter will describe the installationof this suite as well as the issues encountered during installation. The test of the suitewhich will present all the information and results on how the suite was tested. A list of features and a section for the advantages and drawbacks.

3.1 Installation

Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 is a software that has to be installed on a WindowsServer. For testing this suite I used the operating system Microsoft Windows Server2012 [45]. It is installed on the ESXi server on a virtual machine. The installation wentwithout problem, I just had to follow the instructions. After installing Windows Server2012 i had to set it as Domain Controller(DC)[ 29]. A DC is running on a WindowsServer and is used to store users account data in a database and to authenticate theusers. It is combined with the Active Directory(AD)[ 22]. AD is a database that providesservices to the users, such as security policies, user authentication and is designed for alarge number of read and search operations. The AD is the core function of a WindowsOperating system. A Domain Controller is useful for system administrators becauseit allows them to set up permissions to users and to manage the users. It handleseverything that is related to users and grants or denies access to users to some resourcesthat are on the Domain Controller.A guide to make a Windows Server a Domain Controller, can be found on technet.net[49].

After installing Windows Server 2012, the installation of Microsoft Exchange Server 2013can start. The installation took approximately 20 minutes and 30 minutes to congure

MS Exchange Server 2013. There were no problems at all during the installation andthe conguration.

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Chapter 3. Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 7

it works. The secure IMAP uses Secure Sockets Layer(SSL) [12] to provide a secureconnection.

Creating a distribution group [28] is simple and no issues occurred. A distribution group

is a group where you can add users to a group.

3.2.1 Sharing calendar

It is not very complex to share a calendar. In the web interface just have to select thecalendar and to check for an icon named SHARE . This is sharing a calendar while usingthe web interface and not Outlook.In Outlook it is sufficient to select in the menu Share to share a calendar and follow theinstructions.

I did not test any other email client for the sharing of a calendar since a requirementwas that it works with Outlook. Exchange Server 2013, has an option to share calendarwith people via a web address. This way users dont need Outlook, or to be of the sameorganisation to access a shared calendar. There is no need to login in order to see thecalendar since it is a public calendar. Only people knowing the web address can accessthat shared calendar.

3.2.2 Shared mailbox

A shared mailbox is a mailbox that more user can access and congure permissions forit. For more information check for shared mailbox [ 41]. Creating a shared mailbox issimple by following the instructions in the official documentation [ 25]. I tested it andworked but only administrators can create shared mailboxes. A shared mailbox can onlybe opened by users that have the permission to open it. I could not nd out how toopen a shared mailbox in Outlook and the only way to access it was by using the webinterface.

3.2.3 Shared address book

A shared address book in Exchange Server 2013 looks more complicated. You need tocreate an Address Book Policy[ 23](ABP) to make it work. I tested it and it works. Itsnot an easy process of creating an ABP, but it is necessary for sharing an address books.

3.2.4 External authentication

The RESTENA Foundation has a freeRADIUS [55] in place therefore I needed to checkfor compatibility of Exchange. This is not possible by default. After asking this question


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[8] in the serverfault website a reply was that Exchange Server 2013 uses the ActiveDirectory of the Windows Server, which means that it only accepts Active Directoryand nothing else. It will only be possible to change the authentication in the WindowsServer itself. One possible solution would be to use an external authentication servercalled SAMBA4 [58]. Due to time issues I did not try to test, because I still had to testthe two other collaboration suites.

3.2.5 Features

In the following list I give a list of important Exchange server 2013 features, startingwith the administration features.

Anti-malware [35] Delivery Reports [27]

Queue Viewer [38]

Administrator console

Administrator web interface (Exchange Admin Center)

Email Address Policy

Global Address List(GAL) [ 34] Distribution Group & Dynamic Distribution Group

Administrator roles

Permissions for administrator roles and user roles

Multiple domain (Accepted domains)

Multiple Server Role

Certicates Hybrid deployment [35]

Shared mailbox

User features:

Web access (https://exchange.educ.lu/owa)

Outlook compatible

Works with any email client that supports POP/IMAP


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Calendar

Address Book

Task

Automatic replies

Text messaging notications (For calendar appointments)

Trusted emails

Inbox rules

Message properties

Auto complete mail addresses

Shared Calendar & Shared Address Book

3.2.6 Problems

There were no problems while testing Exchange Server 2013 because everything is click& play and follow instructions. The usage of Exchange Server 2013 is very simple. It isstraight forward since it was easy to install and to congure.

3.3 Advantages & Drawbacks

The advantages of Exchange Server 2013 are:

Easy to install and easy to congure

Accepted Domains

Database centralized with the Windows Server DC

User account automatically created when creating a mailbox

The security of user account with the Active Directory of the Windows Server

Multiple administrator roles

Access anywhere your mailbox with the web interface

Easy management of the Exchange Server with the Exchange Admin Center

Monitoring of the Exchange Server 2013 with the Windows Server

Very user friendly


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Sharing of calendar works the same on the web application than on Outlook

The drawbacks of Exchange Server 2013 are:

The conguration of an Address Book Policy is complicated

Shared mailbox can only be accessed via the web interface(OWA)

Works only with Windows Server Operating Systems

The Windows Server has to be up to date

Need one or more powerful servers

Not Open Source

External authentication only works with another system that uses Active Directory

High load time after a system restart

No integration with Cyrus

3.3.1 Summary

After testing the Exchange Server 2013, it can said that the testing of this suite went verygood. The only thing that does not work is the shared mailbox on Outlook, which I couldnot nd out why I could not access the shared mailbox on Outlook. The authenticationover a freeRAIDUS server that uses the RADIUS [ 56] protocol does not work, sinceWindows only accepts AD databases. It could work with a RADIUS server that uses anAD as a database.


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Chapter 4

Zimbra Collaboration 8.0

The Zimbra Collaboration 8.0[ 72] is a commercial suite too but which is based on Open

Source. . The chapter will describe the installation of this suite and describe theproblems during the installation. The testing of this suite will give all information andpresent results on how the suite was tested. A list of features of Zimbra collaborationsuite will be given and a section regrouping the advantages and drawbacks of this suitewill summarize this part.

4.1 Installation

Zimbra Collaboration 8.0 does not support Windows. It runs Linux. I used Ubuntu10.04 LTS Server [64], I chose this because I had problems with OpenSUSE [ 52] and withSUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 [61], for more details about my problems see section4.1.1.

The installation of Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Server did not show any problems. I only neededmore congurations than Windows Server. I just installed Ubuntu by default, I didntadd any role to the server. It is not like Exchange Server 2013 where I had to create aDomain Controller rst. This is not needed in Zimbra.

The installation took approximately 15 minutes to install Zimbra on Ubuntu. Theguide to install Zimbra is from the official documentation [93].

4.1.1 Problems

The problems occurred with the Operating System OpenSUSE and SUSE Linux Enter-prise Server 11 while installing Zimbra.

On OpenSUSE I was not able to install Zimbra but I kept getting errors which I tried

to x, but I always got more errors after xing one. I tested this Operating System

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Chapter 4. Zimbra Collaboration 8.0 12

because the RESTENA Foundation has a pre-installed OpenSUSE system therefore Iwas asked to try to install Zimbra on it.

The second time installing Zimbra, I used the OS SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11.

I installed everything and tested some features but as soon as I turned off the virtualmachine of Zimbra and turned it on again, nothing worked anymore. This was a seriousissue, I tried xing it, with no success. I decided to change to Ubuntu, a free OperatingSystem. Here I did not encounter any issues.

4.2 Testing

Zimbra has like Exchange an administration console and an administration web interface.

The console has the same function as the web interface to manage Zimbra. I used theconsole more often on Zimbra than on Exchange. Zimbra, is the mail server that Ihad the most issues with. Here is a screen shot of the web interface of the ZimbraAdministration:

Figure 4.1: Zimbra Administration

It is pretty simple and straight forward to create a user and its mailbox. There is afeature that Exchange does not support. It is called Zimlets [90] and allows to addsome applets like Google Translate or social applets to a user mailbox. Zimlets are littleapplications that can integrated into Zimbra. You can even create your own Zimlet butI did not have the time.

To continue the testing of Zimbra for sending and receiving mails from the Internet, Ihad to add a domain alias since when I installed Zimbra I did not give it the same nameas the domain name that I used. Adding an alias domain name to Zimbra, was easier

than in Exchange. On the sign in page I observe some difference to Exchange whichallows to choose in which version of the web mail to sign in. Can choose default,mobile


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or tablet version.This is a nice feature, because most people will check their mailbox with the mobilephone when they are not at home. I tested the sending and receiving of mails andworked without a problem. Of course this was tested only locally. Zimbra uses Postx[53] as an MTA, which is congured by default in the Zimbra installation. You do notneed to congure Postx. Every change on the Zimbra Administration or on the consoleautomatically changes in the Postx. Zimbra has an integrated anti-virus and anti-spamsolution.

It uses AMaViS [2] solution to Scan incoming emails on spam. It has the anti-virusClamAV [ 5] and the anti-spam solution called SpamAssassin [ 3]. These are installedwith the Zimbra installation by default. Every incoming email is checked with AMaViS,rst checking for spam and than for virus. For outgoing email only a spam scan is done

and no virus scan.I tested with Outlook and it is working too. I used the IMAP protocol like in Exchangebut without the secure IMAP, since I did not know how to make a self signed certicatefor Zimbra. Therefore I just used IMAP.


The sharing of a calendar is fairly easy as in Exchange, where your calendar in the web

mail has a sharing option.

Figure 4.2: Zimbra web interface share calendar

The share properties are similar to Exchange. You even have the option like in Exchangefor a web address to link to the calendar. Using Outlook to share a calendar is the samelike in Exchange. I tested it and it works properly. An observation is that you can setan appointment in the calendar to private so that people accessing the shared calendar,


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cannot see the private appointments.When sharing a calendar with a person or a group, the person or group will get anemail to ask, if they want to accept the shared calendar. This function is the same asin Exchange.


The sharing of a mailbox in Zimbra is easier than in Exchange. You just have to createa user mailbox and than login with that user. When signed in, go to Preferences whereyou will have an option Sharing . There you can choose what you want to share in themailbox and set permissions. The sharing properties are similar to the sharing propertiesof a calendar.

After sharing a mailbox with selected users a new Inbox will show up in their mailboxor Outlook. It works with Outlook I tested it.On Exchange I couldnt nd, how to get an Inbox of a shared mailbox. As said beforesharing on Zimbra was easier then on Exchange.


The sharing of an address book in Zimbra is simple and does not require an ABP(AddressBook Policy) like in Exchange. You just have to right click your address book and choose

Share Address Book . Afterwards you will get again the similar preferences like sharinga calendar or mailbox. In Outlook go to your address book and right click the addressbook that you want to share, afterwards choose that address book the Share option. Itested it and worked without a problem. You can have people in your address book thatare private. Those will not be shared.


Like in Exchange I had to test, if it possible to use an external authentication. It ispossible with Zimbra to have an external authentication that works with freeRADIUS2[55].

To add an external authentication in Zimbra you have to create a custom authentication[94], which means you have to code in Java. I started to search about it, but I couldnot nd any help. I later got some help and found that I can use the ApplicationProgramming Interface(API) of JRadius [6]. I needed that API to make the connectionbetween Zimbra and the freeRADIUS2. But this all lead into additional problems, thatI could not x with the time that I had left. So I opted for another solution in external

authentication, using a SAMBA4 [58] server. It is a server that acts like a DomainController in Windows, it is a free software and it is Open Source. You can store users


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in an OpenLDAP [50] database and authenticate the users with SAMBA4. I decidedthat I should try with it.

The installation of SAMBA4 was done on a new virtual machine. After setting it up, I

congured Zimbra to use my new SAMBA4 server as an External Active Directory, itworked after having a few issues with it. I authenticated one of my users from Zimbrawith the SAMBA4 server. I logged in with that user using the web interface and itwas successfully logged in. Afterwards, I tried to login with a user that was not in mySAMBA4 server, but only in Zimbra, and I could not login because SAMBA4 could notnd the user in the database of SAMBA4.Unfortunately, I could not make it work with a freeRADIUS2 server, but it should bepossible with the custom authentication that Zimbra has.

4.2.5 Features

The most important features are listed below. First I give administration features andthen the user features.Administration features:

Multi-domain administration

Different Global Address Lists for each domain

Different authentication methods for each domain

Domain Administrator

Global Administrator

Administration console

Search across domains

Messages and messages with attachment(s) that are send to multiple users are only

stored once

Native anti-virus and anti-spam

Automated spam training

Monitoring and status view with graphics

Attachment blocking

Install and Manage Certicates

External LDAP or Active Directory user authentication


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Custom authentication

Class of Service [91]

Remote administration

Zimbra Administration web interface

User features:

Web access (http://zimbra.educ.lu)

Web access looks similar to Outlook

Version of the web client, can choose from Advanced/Standard(HTML)/Mobile or

Tablet

Themes

Multi-language support

Address Book

Calendar

Tasks

Trash folder for Mail/Address Book/Calendar and Tasks

Auto complete email addresses

Spell checker

Retention policies

Send message later

Hover over an attached image, shows a preview of the image

Export/Import messages in zip les

Trusted addresses

Mark as spam

Sort messages by size

Print multiple messages

Export/Import calendar to iCalendar format

Export/Import contacts to CSV(Comma Separated Values) format


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Personal distribution lists

Add pictures to contacts

Customize free/busy message

Mark an appointment as private in the calendar

Multi-conditional search function (AND,OR,NOT, etc)

Save search

Attachment content search

Sharing Calendar/Mailbox and Address Book

4.2.6 Problems

I noticed that the Zimbra Administration web interface as some bugs, for example itshows on the rst page all the services that are running and those that have stopped.After a system restart the Zimbra Administration web interface will always show someservices as stopped but they are not stopped. This must be some web interface bug.

Custom authentication problem:

I coded for more than one week and searched for help or clues on how to code thiscustom authentication. I used Wireshark [76], to nd out where the problem was inmy code, but it did not help. I could not nd anything useful analyzing the packets. Icould not nd any solution as their was no support at all on the web. I tried to ask forhelp in the official forum of Zimbra, but no one has ever answered. I tried very hard tomake this work, but due to time constraints I had to take the decision to stop codingwithout solving the issue. The source code of my custom authentication can be foundin the appendix.

SAMBA4 problem:

When I rst installed SAMBA4, I thought that it did not install any OpenLDAP withit. LDAP stands for Lightweight Directory Access Protocol . It is a protocol for users toaccess organizations and resources in a network. It is similar to an Active Directory.I installed OpenLDAP, but this lead to conicts and problems. The reason why itwasnt working, is because Zimbra was not accepting the credentials of the SAMBA4administrator. It always said invalid credentials even though I was sure that it wasthe correct one. So I started to search with Wireshark, but it did not help me a lot.After analyzing it came up that maybe it does not work because SAMBA4 has installedan OpenLDAP by default. After checking I realized that it does by default installOpenLDAP. All this time I had two OpenLDAPs running on one system, which provoke


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a conict. I found out about this conict by looking which port was used by SAMBA4when starting the SAMBA4 services. The port 389 was already used before startingSAMBA4. That is why it wasnt working correctly. So I recreated a SAMBA4 server bydeleting the old one, this time without installing an OpenLDAP. Afterwards it nallyworked. I now could authenticate Zimbra users with an external authentication whileusing a SAMBA4 server.


The advantages of Zimbra are:

Can be installed on an free Operating system like Ubuntu

Multiple administrator roles


Easy management with the Zimbra Administration web interface

Sharing in Zimbra is very easy

Does not need a powerful server to run Zimbra

Native anti-virus/anti-spam

Fast up time after a system restart

Custom authentication

A better web interface for administration than Exchange

The log les are easier to nd than on Exchange

The drawbacks of Zimbra are:

Some bugs with the Zimbra Administration web interface

Installation of Zimbra has more conguration to do than on Exchange

Very hard to congure the custom authentication

Not fully supported on Outlook, need the Zimbra Client to have a fully supportedemail client.

Global Address List is not synchronized with Outlook



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4.3.1 Summary

The test of the Zimbra suite did not go as good as Exchange. I had more issues with itthan with Exchange. I learned a lot with Zimbra. It is a very good solution for schooladministrations. It has an easy sharing system for calendar and address book, which isa key feature for school administrations and it works with Outlook. It has the abilityfor custom authentication which could make it work with the freeRADIUS2 that theRESTENA Foundation has in place, but I could not nd any information about thisso I am not sure if it possible or not. The Global Address list is not synchronized inOutlook with the Zimbra server, I have to congure the Zimbra Connector Outlook [92]in order to make this work in Outlook. I did not test the Zimbra Connector Outlookbecause I found out about this feature too late and I had no time left.


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Chapter 5

Zarafa 7.0

Zarafa 7.0 [82] is a suite like Exchange and Zimbra. Zarafa is part Open Source part

commercial like Zimbra. Zarafa supports the Operating System Linux like Zimbra. SinceI had already Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, I used Ubuntu for Zarafa too. This chapter will describethe installation of this suite and if there were any problem during the installation. Thetesting of the suite will present all the information and results. A list of features thatthis suite has and also a section for the advantages and drawbacks are given.

5.1 Installation

The installation of Zarafa went pretty smooth compared to Zimbra. Zarafa does notinclude a full software package of a mail server. Zarafa leaves it to the administratorto choose which MTA, webserver to use. For the database I chose a MySQL database,for the webserver I chose Apache and for the MTA I chose Postx. These have to beinstalled before installing Zarafa.

I learned a lot more with Zarafa than with the other two suites. I had to setup myself the MTA server which was very interesting. I chose Postx because the RESTENAFoundation is using it too.

The installation of Zarafa took me approximately 10 minutes . This is less than forZimbra or Exchange. There were no issues during the installation process, everythingwent as planned. I just had to do more congurations for Zarafa than for Zimbra andExchange, since Zarafa is not shipped as a full software package.

5.2 Testing

Zarafa has like Exchange and Zimbra an administrator console. The installation of

Zarafa does not come with a web interface administration center. It has only a ad-ministrator console to manage Zarafa, since it does not have like Exchange and Zimbra

20


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Chapter 5. Zarafa 7.0 21

any MTA and anti-virus/anti-spam. It is one reason why you do not need a web in-terface for administration. You have to use the console to congure Postx and theanti-virus/anti-spam.

The community of Zarafa has created a web application for administration and is calledZ-Admin [63]. I did not try this web application, because I had Zarafa already installedand the documentation said that it is recommended to rst install the Z-Admin beforeinstalling Zarafa. I did not have the time to congure this Z-Admin and then installagain Zarafa. It has two web applications for the users to manage their mailbox. Onelooks exactly the same as an Outlook interface and the second one has a unique interface.

Before I could test, sending and receiving emails I had to congure Postx. I learneda lot by conguring Postx. The RESTENA Foundation is using Postx for their mailserver at the moment. That is the main reason why I chose Postx and not anotherMTA.

The Zarafa administration is managed with a script, called zarafa-admin . After creatingsome users I tested sending a mail locally to another user with my conguration of Postx, to see if I congured it correctly. The mail was sent and received. I noticedwhen I was looking in the address book to choose an user to send the mail to, I saw agroup called Everyone . Zarafa by default creates a group where everyone is in. It is adynamic group and will update itself when creating or deleting users. Zarafa does notcreate an administrator account, you can create one using the zarafa-admin script. An

administrator account can only have two levels. Level one is an administrator that canopen every mailbox on his domain and the second level is a system administrator, whocan access mailboxes within other domains.

After knowing how to congure Postx, I congured it to be able to send and receiveemails from other domains. I tested to send an email to my university email address andit worked, I received an email from my university email address too. I did not congureany anti-virus on my testing Zarafa, I only congured the SpamAssassin. My time totest Zarafa was not enough to try everything out. This is why I tried to test the mostappropriate features, since anti-virus was not part of the project I did not test it.


In Zarafa it is different than in both other suites. Sharing a calendar in Zarafa, it maylook a bit less user friendly. You have to right click the calendar that you want to shareand then choose Properties . There you will have the Permission tab, you have to addthe users or groups in the permission list. Only the users in the permission list are ableto see the shared calendar. The permissions that can be set for the shared calendar aresimilar to Zimbra. This will still not make the users or groups see the shared calendarnor get any notication that there is a shared calendar. In order that it appears, the


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users have to sign in into the web application and use either one of the web applications/webaccess or /webapp . Afterwards to get access to it they have to click on Open shared folder... :

Figure 5.1: Zarafa shared folder

A new window will pop up:

Figure 5.2: Zarafa shared folder window

There you have to add the name of the user that shared the calendar. You can click onName it will show you your address book. Choose the user that shared the calendar.After that select which folder type it is. Sharing in Zarafa is way more unfriendly thanin the other both suites. To share in Outlook like in the web application, users needto install a plugin called Zarafa Client [85]. Users do not need to use the plugin. Itis only needed if you want to have the permissions to share a calendar, that are in theZarafa web application. You can share a calendar in Outlook by simply right clicking


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the calendar that you want to share and choose the option Share , but if you use theplugin you will have the permission tab like in the web application. This is good becauseyou can have all the same features as in the web application, but also bad that you haveto install this plugin. Zarafa has another option to open shared calendars. Zarafa hasan iCal gateway [79], which enables users to view their Zarafa calendar using clientslike Lightning Calendar [ 48], Evolution [14] or Mac iCal [4].I only tested it with Lightning Calendar since I know how to use Thunderbird. I didnot try Evolution nor Mac iCal. You can open .isc les with Outlook too. An .iscle extension is a Universal calendar format which can be opened by several calendarprograms.Public calendars works too, but they have to be created in the Public Folder . Zarafadoes not have the feature with a web address, for a calendar. Only users that haveaccess to the shared calendar or public folder can see shared/public calendar. Sharing a

calendar only via a web address isnt supported by Zarafa.


Sharing a mailbox works the same way as sharing a calendar. Just right click the mailboxthat should be shared and add the permissions to the users or groups that should haveaccess to it. Afterwards the users that have permission to it have to add it in theirfolder list by adding a shared folder.

To share a mailbox in Outlook you need the Zarafa client plugin else you will not be ableto share it. If you have a shared mailbox that was created with the wep application youwill see it in your Outlook as a folder with the name of it. If users do not want to installthat plugin they can just use the web application and add the shared mailbox with theweb application and afterwards they can use Outlook to access the shared mailbox.


Select the address book that you want to share and add the permission. Users then

add it via the Open shared folder... in their folder list. This does not work in Outlookwithout the Zarafa Client plugin. In Outlook you can share an address book by rightclicking on the address book and then Share , but if you want to see the shared addressbook as a folder as it is in the web application, this does not work.


External authentication [ 81] on Zarafa works but only for LDAP and Active Directory.

I could not nd any information about a custom authentication to make it work forfreeRADIUS2. I dont know if it could work since at the moment there is no information


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about it on the web nor in the official documentation. It would work with my SAMBA4server. I could not try it because I did not have enough time to test it.

5.2.5 Features

I will not list all the features, I will list only the most important features. I start withthe administration features and then give the user features.

Administration features:

Two web applications, /webaccess and /webapp

/webaccess has the exact same look like Outlook

A plugin for Outlook, Zarafa Client

Public Folders

iCal Gateway

Integration of a MTA of your choice

Integration of an anti-virus/anti-spam of your choice

Multi-language support

Multi-domain administration

Multiple LDAP servers support

External LDAP or Active Directory user authentication

Remote administration

Send delegation (SendAs or Send on Behalf, permissions for users/groups)

Attachment compression

Synchronisation with unix users

Distribution group called Everyone

User features:

Address Book

Calendar


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Tasks

Themes

Auto complete email addresses

Spell checker

Out of Office

Customize Out of Office message

Export/Import calendar to iCalendar format

Personal distribution lists

Add pictures to contacts

Mark an appointment as private in the calendar

Create and access shared Calendar,Mailbox and Address Book

Can book resources with the calendar

More calendar options than Exchange and Zimbra

Multiple calendars per mailbox

Export individual emails (In .eml le) Automatic move, copy, delete, redirect or forward incoming email with rules

Automatic save emails every several minutes

5.2.6 Problems

I did not have any problems with Zarafa, everything went as planned, even though Ihad to congure a lot more than for the other two suites.


The advantages of Zarafa are:

Full support on Outlook with the Zarafa Client plugin

Can be installed on an free Operating system like Ubuntu



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Does not need a robust server to run Zarafa

Full control of Zarafa

Integration of a MTA of your choice

Integration of an anti-virus/anti-spam of your choice

Very fast up time after a system restart

The log les are easier to nd than on Exchange

Shared mailbox is visible on Outlook

Fast installation process

Administration of Zarafa does not need an Graphic User Interface

The drawbacks of Zarafa are:

Does not have an web application for the administration

No white list ( message lters )

Advanced search does not include conditions like in Zimbra

No web link address option for sharing a calendar


5.3.1 Summary

The test of the Zarafa suite was surprisingly good without any issues. Zarafa does nothave a web application for the administration, which has to be done via the shell usingZarafa scripts. The installation of Zarafa went very fast. You can customize a lot moreon Zarafa than on Exchange and Zimbra since you can chose which MTA, webserverand database you want to use, therefore you are free to choose whatever suits you thebest. Zarafa has two web applications. This is good for the users, since they can choosewhich web application they like the most. The sharing is different than in the othertwo suites. A major plus with this sharing system is that it uses the same system foreverything that you want to share. The only thing that I do not like about the sharingin Zarafa is that users that get the permission to a shared folder, they do not get anotication email telling them that someone wants to share something.

I am very positive with the test of Zarafa, I did not think that I would not have anyissues with it. I thought I would get a lot of issues because I had to congure Postx.

Now that the three suites have been tested, I will compare all three and will give arecommendation.


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Chapter 6. Comparison & Recommended solution 28

an installer of over 1.3 GB and Zimbra with more than 650 MB. The Zarafa installerhas only 61 MB because it does not include a full software package like the other two.

From the comparison of the three mail server on hardware and installation aspects, we

can clearly say that Zarafa is much better than Exchange. Exchange Server 2013 needsa Windows Server which is not free. Zimbra and Zarafa can use an Operating Systemwhich is free and which is Open Source.

6.2 Comparison of the features

For the comparison of Exchange, Zimbra and Zarafa features, I will compare the mostrelevant features together in two tables and show, if they work and if they work on

Outlook. The rst table will show the administration features and the second table willshow the user features.

Administration features Exchange 2013 Zimnbra 8.0 Zarafa 7.0Administration console

Native adminsitration web application XAdministrator roles

Domain aliases Email Address policy Global Address List

Logging External LDAP user authentication X

External AD user authentication Custom authentication X X

Native MTA XNative anti-virus and anti-spam X

iCal Gateway X X Native Attachment compression X

Integration with Cyrus X X X

Table 6.2: Comparison of administration features

The administration features regroups only the most appropriate features that can beused to compare the three suites and that are well-suited for this project.

Zarafa does not have an administration web application and it does not have a nativeMTA, anti-virus and anti-spam. A web application for administration is visually goodand easier to understand but most actions to manage a system are faster while usingthe console. In the case of the Zarafa, it does not need to be a powerful server, since itdoes not need any graphical interface for administration. In contrary Exchange needsan Operating System that uses a graphical interface which asks a more powerful serverthan Zarafa only because it has a graphical interface.


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Not having a native mail transfer agent, anti-virus and anti-spam is not a problem atall, it is even better because administrators can freely choose which MTA, anti-virusand anti-spam they want to use. In my opinion this is one of the best features of allthree suites, because the administrator has more control over the system. The Zimbrasuite is the only suite that supports custom authentication. This is a good feature, butit is complex to set up. None of the three suites can integrate the actual IMAP serverof RESTENA Foundation called Cyrus, they have not been designed to integrate in thebackend an IMAP server.

In the next table I will show the user features of the different mail servers. The mostrelevant features will only be shown.

User features Exchange 2013 Zimnbra 8.0 Zarafa 7.0

Web access

Spell checker Outlook compatible

Away message Auto complete addresses

White list addresses XExport/Import messages X X

Multiple identities X XRequest read receipt Sort messages by size X

Advanced search XSearch mailbox with conditions

Calendar

Export/Import Calendar Share Calendar

Calendar synchronized with Outlook Mark appointments in calendar as private

Address Book Share Address Book

Global Address List synchronized with Outlook X Mark a contact in the address book as private

Shared mailbox Shared mailbox is visible in Outlook X X

Notify user(s) when shared a calendar or address book XAutomatic replies with Outlook X

Table 6.3: Comparison of user features

They all have a web access and are compatible with Outlook. The Exchange suite hasno problem with Outlook since it is made for Exchange, but for Zimbra and Zarafa thisis different. The feature like the Global Address List is not synchronized in Outlookwith Zimbra because it needs the Zimbra Connector for Outlook, otherwise the GlobalAddress List will not be synchronized and the connector has to be congured in theadministration. For Zarafa, to have a synchronized Global Address List with Outlookyou just have to install a plugin into the Outlook client that enables all features of the

Zarafa web application in Outlook.


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The shared mailbox option in Outlook for Exchange and Zimbra is not visible in theusers mailbox, only with Zarafa the shared mailbox is visible in Outlook because it usesfolders for the sharing tool. This makes it easier for sharing but the only problem withZarafa sharing is that when you share something with users or groups, they will not geta notication email about the share. Comparing the three suites together with the userfeatures, I say that Zarafa has all the requirements that are needed, even though youhave to install a little plugin into the Outlook to have all the features like in the webapplication. Exchange has all the features too and they work with Outlook by default.So in terms of user features Exchange and Zarafa are clearly the better choice.

I will now go a bit more in detail about technical aspects of those three mail collaborationsuites.

6.2.1 Performance

The performance cannot be really tested in this project since I was using virtual machinesto test those three mail servers, but in general, the performance of mail servers alwayshas to be in balance with the processors, memory and disk space. I used one ESXi serverto test the three suites which has 32GB of RAM and 280GB of disk space and 6 cores. Icannot really control the performance in my testing since I dont have the real databaseof 1000 mailboxes for each suite.Exchange needs 8GB of memory for minimal hardware requirements. This amount of

memory for a mail sever is to much in my opinion and scales even higher to handle the1000 mailboxes, whereas Zimbra needs 2GB of RAM and Zarafa the half of Zimbra. Idid not have any performance issues with Exchange nor Zimbra and Zarafa they wereall running perfectly without problem.

Something that has to be taken into account in performance is the used OperatingSystem to manage those suites. The performance also depends on the Operating System.Zimbra and Zarafa perform very good with poor memory and processor. Exchange needsa lot more processor power than the others. The memory of a server can always beupgraded but the processor power is much more delicate that is why Exchange needstwo servers because it needs a lot of processor power to be able to handle the 1000mailboxes whereas Zimbra and Zarafa can handle 1000 mailboxes in one server sincethey do not need that much of processor power. I do not have any proof to give forwhy Exchange needs more processor power, I asked in RESTENA Foundation for someadvice because I know that they used an Exchange server before. Exchange needs atleast two servers to handle over 500 mailboxes. Their actual mailbox server is handlingover 4000 mailboxes on one server using the OpenSUSE as an Operating System. Thisshows that Linux uses a lot less of processor power than Windows. I did nd some sizingfor Exchange 2013 [42]. Exchange 2013 needs approximately 48GB RAM or more tohandle 1000 mailboxes. I did not nd any sizing for Zarafa but I found some for Zimbra


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automatically and it is integrated into Exchange by default, so you just have to activateit and congure it.

The Zimbra suite failover function looks more complex than the one from Exchange.

The Zimbra 8.0 suite uses the VMware HA [67] which stands for High Availabilty, if Iunderstood correctly then the failover system for Zimbra 8.0 only works if Zimbra isinstalled on an ESX or ESXi server else it would not be possible to use the VMwareHA. The failover of Zimbra is solid and good but you need an ESX or ESXi server tomake it work. This is a good failover system since RESTENA Foundation has alreadyan ESXi in place. I did not nd any other failover system for Zimbra 8.0.

The Zarafa suite has the Linux High Availability, called Heartbeat [21]. This programruns in the background and provides cluster infrastructure. Clustering is when twoor more computer are connected together and act like one computer. In order thatHeartbeat works, it needs a Cluster Resource Manager(CRM), like Pacemaker [18].Both Heartbeat and Pacemaker are Open Source and free. I found a guide on how tocongure it with an MySQL database, from the official Zarafa wiki [86] page. Withoutthe MySQL database there would be no data integrity since Heartbeat does not handlethe data integrity it only restarts failed servers.In my opinion the best failover of all three suites would be the one from Zimbra becauseit is handled by the VMware which is easier to congure then the other two suites.

6.2.5 Backup

Backup is a function for archiving/saving data from loss. Backups help to restore lostdata. Backups should normally be executed every day to prevent data loss.

The backup on Exchange is very simple because it uses the Windows Server Backup [46]which is integrated in Windows Server 2012. It only must be activated and is simple touse.

The backup for Zimbra is by using scripts [20] that run on the Zimbra machine. Scriptscan be written by the administrator to reect their active environment. Those scriptswill be executed every time a backup should be made.

The backup on Zarafa uses the Brick-level backups [ 83] which is a very interestingback up function. This backup system will save/record and the second time it backsup only stores the changed or new data. The backup looks more complicated thanExchange and Zimbra, but has some interesting features. The easiest back up of allthree would be Exchange in my opinion since you only have to congure the WindowsServer Backup. The best backup function in my opinion would be Zarafa, because youdo more conguration for it than for Exchange and therefore you know better what the

backup is really doing. Exchange you just have to follow instructions and congure alittle bit.


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other for the failover. Zimbra does not need two server to handle the 1000 mailbox. Tohave the VMware High Availability feature you need the VMware vSphere EnterprisePlus [70] license for the ESXi.For Zimbra the total cost to deploy it:2 x 6.000 Euro (One server) + 3.145 Euro (ESXi license) + 58.000 Euro (Zimbra licensefor 1000 mailboxes) = 73.145 Euro .

For Zarafa I need two servers like Zimbra. One for Zarafa and the other one for thefailover. Zarafa can handle 1000 mailboxes on one server. It can use the free OperatingSystem Ubuntu LTS like Zimbra.For Zarafa the total cost to deploy it:2 x 6.000 Euro (One server) + 28.000 Euro (Zarafa license for 1000 mailboxes) = 40.000Euro .

Comparing the pricing for the three suites:

Exchange 2013 Zimbra 8.0 Professional Zarafa 7.0 ProfessionalTotal 71.880 Euro 73.145 Euro 40.000 Euro

Table 6.5: Pricing comparison of the three suites

Zarafa is clearly the cheapest.

6.3 Support Contracts

Exchange does not have any support contracts, you have to pay per incident [43].Zimbra has support packages [ 89] that depend on which Zimbra license you have. Forthe professional version of Zimbra you have the support package called Premium . Thissupport package gives you support for unlimited incidents and phone support 24x7.Zarafa has the same system like Zimbra with support packages [ 80] but Zarafa doesnot include phone support 24x7 for the Professional version. Zarafa does include in the

Professional package remote support which Zimbre does not.

6.4 Recommended solution

I take for example the installation of the three suites, what bothered me the most wasZimbra because I had a lot of issues with the Zimbra installation. Taking this intoaccount I can say that Zimbra is not well suited. The fact is, when I was testing ZimbraI had the problem that all services stopped working, while Exchange and Zarafa did not

have any of these issues. Exchange was very easy to install compared to Zarafa, buttook longer to install. I mean Zarafa is easy to install when you know a bit of Linux.


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Exchange and Zimbra have both a native mail transfer agent whereas Zarafa does not.On Zarafa you are given the possibility to choose which mail transfer agent you wantto use. This is very interesting because this choice is better and provides more controlover the suite. Exchange and Zimbra install everything what is needed to make thesuite work without leaving much choice to the administrator but not Zarafa. This iswhat I like about Zarafa. Another point for the installation is that Exchange needs anOperating system that is not Open Source and not for free, whereas for Zimbra andZarafa they use Open Source and are free. A drawback about Exchange is that it needsat least 8 GB of RAM for the minimal requirements and at least two servers to handle1000 mailboxes.

Coming to the administration of the three suites, Exchange and Zimbra have both anadministration web interface which Zarafa does not have. This makes Exchange and

Zimbra more user friendly than Zarafa. Zarafa may have a web interface too but is notincluded in the installation of Zarafa. In my opinion this is not that negative, in contraryit can be better since the Operating System which is running with Zarafa does not needto have a graphical user interface. Exchange and Zimbra have a native anti-virus andanti-spam. Zarafa leaves again the option to choose which anti-virus and anti-spamto integrate. Conguring Exchange for the testing was easier than the other two onlybecause of the web interface. Even though I had no web interface on Zarafa I foundit easier to congure than Zimbra. Zarafa was the only one that had no issues whileconguring.

Concerning the compatibility with Outlook, Exchange is the best because Outlook isfrom Microsoft but what I did not like is that I could not see the shared mailbox usingOutlook. Everything else on Outlook was working without problem on Exchange. Zim-bra and Zarafa are Outlook compatible but on Zimbra the synchronisation with Outlookwas not working properly for example the Global Address List was not synchronized, tomake this work you need to install a Zimbra connector on Outlook and then an admin-istrator has to congure the connector on the Zimbra administration. Not to forget theconnector is not compatible with Outlook 2013. This is a very big drawback for Zimbrasince it has to work with Outlook. On Zarafa you only need to install a connector into

Outlook and then everything is synchronized with Outlook. The sharing on Zarafa is abit different than the other two. In Zarafa everything is shared with folders and thereforeit is easier to share after knowing how to share something and shared mailboxes can beseen with Zarafa on Outlook.

On Zarafa users have the possibility to use two different web applications. One thatlooks like Outlook interface and the other one is an unique interface. Here again leavingmore choices than the other two. If I had to choose now one of the the suite for themost appropriate functions for the school administrations it would be Zarafa becausewith Zarafa everything works for what the school administration needs, even if you haveto install some connector before on Outlook, but afterwards everything works like on


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the web application and it is synchronized. It is very easy to install the connector you just have to launch an executable le and follow the instructions.

Resuming the previous sections from performance to pricing you could see that Zarafa

was always one of the best ones. The price of Zarafa is nearly half the price of Exchangeand Zimbra. Zarafa has all the features that Exchange has to offer, plus it is more ex-ible than Exchange. Another good reason for recommending Zarafa over Exchange issimply because you have more freedom of choice and more control over the system. Ex-change only accepts authentication and databases that are Active Directory but Zarafaaccepts Active Directory and LDAP. Zarafa can be installed on a free Operating System,Exchange not. Zarafa needs less server hardware than Exchange.

Every test that I have done on Zarafa was a success and worked as intended. Thereason why I do not mention Zimbra anymore is because it is not suited for RESTENAFoundation since it needs to be installed on an ESXi. Without the ESXi Zimbra can nothave a failover system. RESTENA Foundation does not want to virtualize their mailservers and a big drawback for Zimbra is that the connector for Outlook is not compatibleon Outlook 2013. Zarafa has a failover function that is completely for free. One morereason to choose Zarafa is that it starts all the services in less then 30 seconds whereasin Exchange and Zimbra it takes more time. Zarafa is the best choice for this solutionbecause the biggest reason is every required feature is integrated. Administrators havethe option to choose what to integrate into Zarafa from MTA to anti-virus. Zarafa canhandle over 1000 mailbox on a single server and the Zarafa connector for Outlook is

compatible with Outlook 2013 and lastly it does not need to run on an ESXi server.One last reason for me is the price, it is cheaper than Exchange and Zimbra.

Having said all this I would recommend Zarafa 7.0 for this project after testing it. Zarafais the best choice for RESTENA Foundation even if you need an Outlook connector, itis still the most appropriate for this solution.
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Chapter 7

Data migration & Deploymentplan

The data migration is used to transfer data between two systems which is generally thekey function for changing from the current system to the new system. This will keepthe data integrity. I need a roll back process which is needed in case if something goeswrong at or after the data migration to be able to move the data back.This chapter will describe which data migration method I used to move the mailboxesto the new system and describe the roll back process and a deployment plan to knowexactly what is needed to deploy this recommended solution for RESTENA Foundation .

7.1 Migration process and roll back procedure

I rst searched how I could migrate the old mailboxes to Zarafa because I did not knowat rst how to migrate mailboxes. After searching for a while I found a migration toolthat migrates mailboxes over the IMAP protocol. I chose this migration method overIMAP because with the mailbox and its properties are moved with it, including mailmessage status and ags like deleted and seen. I searched for more information aboutthis migration tool since I know that Cyrus is an IMAP server this migration tool would

be a good choice and it is a free migration tool.

The migration tool that I will use is called imapsync [19]. The tool will help me to movethe old mailboxes from the Cyrus server to the Zarafa suite while still keeping the dataintegrity of all the mailboxes. I did not test to migrate the real mailboxes from Cyrussince I was only there to test if it would work. the RESTENA Foundation created a testmailbox in their Cyrus server in order that I can test. The test mailbox information wasgiven to me and with this I could start the testing of the data migration. I had to createa copy of an existing test mailbox on my Zarafa suite having same name and password.The test mailbox was created on the Cyrus server with some folders and messages, suchthat I only had to create an empty mail and insert the information. After creating

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Chapter 7. Data migration & Deployment plan 39

the empty mailbox on my Zarafa suite I installed the imapsync package on the samemachine. I have now everything what is needed to make the migration but as I havenever used this migration tool I had rst to read the man page of the tool to nd outhow to use it.

To start the migration with rst a test. I have to run imapsync with some parameters:

$ sudo imapsync - - subsc r ibe - - syncin terna lda tes - - f as t- -hos t1 mai l . r e s tena . lu - -use r1 USER - -password1 PASSWORD--hos t2 za ra fa . educ . lu - -use r2 USER - -password2 PASSWORD--noauthmd5

This was enough to migrate the mailbox of USER from the Cyrus server to my Zarafasuite. I added the parameter noauthmd5 otherwise the migration would not work. Thereason why it does not work is because the CRAM-MD5[ 16] encryption is not supportedon Cyrus and Zarafa. By default CRAM-MD5 is used to encrypt passwords of the userbut since Cyrus and Zarafa do not have this encryption activated I can not use CRAM-MD5. I have to use the migration tool without using any encryption for the password.They have to be in clear text. After executing it, the data migration was a success, noissues were encountered. The entire mailbox was successfully migrated to Zarafa withall the properties of the messages, with all the folders and sub-folders. I searched on howto migrate without knowing the passwords of the mailbox, but instead to authenticateas an administrator this way I just need to know the name of the mailboxes and the

password of the administrators because we cannot know the passwords of the users,that is why the rst method that I used would not be a solution.

sudo imapsync - - subsc r ibe - - syncin terna lda tes - - f as t- -hos t1 mai l . r e s tena . lu - -use r1 USER - -au thuse r1 admin- -password1 PASSWORD - -hos t2 za ra fa . educ . lu- -use r2 USER - -au thuser2 admin - -password2 PASSWORD--au thmech1 p lain - - au thmech2 p lain - -noau thmd5--dele te2 - -expunge2

This is how to migrate a mailbox without knowing the password of the mailbox, usingonly the administrator account of the Cyrus server and the administrator account of myZarafa suite.

There is a problem with this method, the mailbox was not migrated to the right usersmailbox instead it was migrated into the mailbox of the administrator of my Zarafa. Icould not make it work with this method even after asking in the Zarafa forum [ 9], oneperson answered me to just use the normal method without administrator authentica-tion. I thought that maybe it was because of the administrator level that I was using so

I change the administrator level and tried again but did not change either. I had to nd


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another solution. I did nd another solution. Using the rst method without adminis-trator authentication but this time the users password would be a one-time passwordthat is valid for a period of time. This method was introduced to me by RESTENAFoundation since I did not know how to migrate mailboxes without knowing the pass-word of the users. They are using this method to migrate their mailboxes. This meansthat every user that will get a migration of their mailbox will get a one time password,this way I can migrate the mailboxes without any problem. Without this solution I donot know if it would be possible to migrate with imapsync since the support of Zarafadid not really answer me but I found a solution.

For the roll back procedure I only have to use the same tool again but change the orderfrom Zarafa to Cyrus. It worked. One thing that you have to keep in mind is if you haveto roll back after for example one month and users have calenders and address books

stored they will not be migrated with the imapsync tool. To migrate the calendars andaddress book you need to use the migration tool of Zarafa or else calendars and addressbook will be lost. I did not have the time to test the Zarafa migration tool so I do notknow how to set it up with it and if it works.

The time that it would take to migrate all the 1000 mailboxes depends on the size andnumbers of messages in the mailboxes and the performance of the machine where thetool is executed. I would not migrate all 1000 mailboxes at once because imapsyncconsumes a lot of CPU resources, it is written in the man page. I myself could nottest to migrate real mailboxes with real data in it but I asked RESTENA Foundation

how long it would take to migrate a mailbox. The average mailbox size in RESTENAFoundation is 650MB. A mailbox with 1.600 messages and 1.2GB in size takes around6 minutes to migrate on a server hardware of 32GB RAM. This would then take 4 daysto migrate all the mailboxes.

The data migration testing was positive. In general there should not be any problem tomigrate the mailboxes from Cyrus to Zarafa.

7.2 Deployment plan

The deployment plan for Zarafa is rst to have two servers one that will run Zarafa andthe second will be used for the failover. The server hardware is the same as the onethat RESTENA Foundation are using which costs around 6.000 Euro which is largelyenough to handle 1000 mailboxes. This is based on the experience and the knowledgeof RESTENA Foundation and from the official documentation of Zarafa Hardware re-quirements [ 87]. Two server of each that is 12.000 Euro in server hardware and then Iadd the price for the license of Zarafa which is around 28.000 Euro. The total price todeploy Zarafa is about 40.000 Euro .
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I set up the two servers in the server room and then install Ub

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