5
Not so Production ready
Problem reported by Scott Johnson - 3/6/2020 at 1:15 PM
Submitted
I want to give credit for the effort on the part of support.  They are cordial and responsive when they are in the the office ( new office hours now mean support 4 days a week ).  Having run and installed many MS Exchanges systems for the past 20 years I was excited that a new MAPI based system was going to be out.  That was almost 4 years ago.

This week I attempted a migration of an Exchange 2010 server.  Data moved fine and server install was simple and straight forward.Web interface is nice and manageable.  All went fine until you try to use like it is an Exchange Server.

  • After 16 hours MAPI still does not work on Outlook 2013, 16 or 19
  • Rules (events) engine in the email server is basic compared to Exchange
  • Handling of Multiple Domains for a single entity is equally basic
  • Distribution Lists or aliases also basic compared to Exchange
  • blah, blah blah
In a nutshell it is a okay EMail server (maybe even a great basic email server) but it is no Exchange and it is certainly not production ready.  

I always say you pay for your education. I certainly paid for this one.  In 30 years of Enterprise system management I have found few items I could not make work with enough effort.  This is one I am giving up on.

Back to firing up and old 2010 Exchange server and merging email for users. Last message I was left with  from support "Have a great weekend!" . Its is going to be fun.

4 Replies

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1
Heimir Eidskrem Replied
So you did no testing before you migrated?


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Scott Johnson Replied
This was the test.  Everything was test right up until we had to change DNS to do autodisvoery and try MAPI.  So I just have the 48 hours this server was up to move while support was working on why.  Rolled back to Exchange and all is good. Only 10 people on the this test so just a few hours of work to move selective emails back during the time everyone tried to make it work

As for the features the only one i did not test completely was the rules.  My bad (again you pay for your education).  The others, well I could create alternate solutions for.  The MAPI just plain sad.  

Prior to migrating was told to use ActiveSync be cause MAPI is beta and the was only 10 users. After migrating was told mailboxes are too large for ActiveSync and use MAPI.  How all of this came to be is after 24 hours a PC still had only synced about 25% using Active sync on SmarterMail. Same test on MS Exchange ActiveSync 18 hours.  MAPI on Exchange 4 hours.

Yes it is a large mailbox 44GB.  Not any different that I support for over 1000 users on MS Exchange.  Now told those are really large for SmarterMail. Quote from MS Office365 site "Office 365's Exchange Online plans provides 50 GB to 100 GB to every user".  Do this all the time.  Average user mailbox size is 25GB.  Want to play int he big-boy league best step up and do what they do.  Want to say it is an Exchange replacement best be able to deliver the feature set.

Not picking on the people.  They were nice and supportive. You just cannot make a basic Chevy into a Cadillac. They really should back off the big "The Exchange Alternative". It is just not true and this is an out right fib "An on-premises, enterprise-level email server that beats Microsoft Exchange, in functionality AND cost."
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Karl Jones Replied
I have to say that i have not updated my smartermail installations since Nov when it went public beta and there has not been a separation of builds since then. I am sure there have been fixes to existing bugs but as things stand, my users have been on the verge of ditching for months so i don't want to change anything to make things worse.
Activesync with moderately large mailboxes, with lots of folders, re-syncing, has been a pain and i stopped teamworkspace because features were removed from older versions of smartermail that made it less functional, not more.
Many of my users are older, less tech savvy, and unless it follows the KISS criteria they don't want to know. Getting them to upgrade to Outlook 2016 brings on anxiety because it's so different from Outlook 2010. At this point too it would be cheaper to buy Exchange as apposed to ongoing support and addon costs of smartermail.
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Netmate Replied
Yes it is a large mailbox 44GB. Not any different that I support for over 1000 users on MS Exchange. Now told those are really large for SmarterMail.
 What is the maximum mailbox size that SmarterMail can comfortably support?

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