ZCA 8 Appliance: Anyone Using in Production

Running our Appliance (ZCA), ZCS on VMware, or any other virtual machine software? Post your thoughts here.
Travis Kensil
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ZCA 8 Appliance: Anyone Using in Production

Post by Travis Kensil »

We are currently on 7.2 Patch 1 on RedHat 5 (64bit) and very interested in the appliance concept of Zimbra. From past experience the Appliance always severely lagged behind in terms of development often being versions behind the NE edition. Wondering if anyone knows will VMWare's priority be to keep the Appliance at latest code constantly moving forward from v8?
Also, is anyone actively using the Appliance v8 in a production capacity or has plans to? Would be curious to hear of initial feelings about this product versus NE edition.
Thanks!
cavj1
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ZCA 8 Appliance: Anyone Using in Production

Post by cavj1 »

We're testing now to migrate from E2K3 to ZCA8. Working on figuring out a migration strategy and split domain. So far basic config has gone smooth. I will try to update this thread as I move along or send me a private message and I'll give you my e-mail address. I'm fairly new to Zimbra so you'll have to bear with me as I go through the process of getting the ins and outs of the product...
Joe
dagar
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ZCA 8 Appliance: Anyone Using in Production

Post by dagar »

Travis,

I too am curious about the ZCA. Currently running 7.1.3 on RHEL 5 64bit. (on top of Vmware)

Did you do a test migration? If so how did that go?

Is there a migration strategy from NE to appliance?

Anyone from Zimbra care to chime in?

Derek
cavj1
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ZCA 8 Appliance: Anyone Using in Production

Post by cavj1 »

I am using it in production for about a dozen users. Migration has been pretty simple once the split domain configuration was setup and working properly. That took some time. The directions were a bit loose around the edges. I have a few documentation corrections in to Zimbra support.
Some things to be aware of...Alias's show up in the GAL.

Active Sync will not sync shared calendars/contacts.

SSO with Outlook has be a rough go. I have it where it authenticates against AD but it does not pickup the Kerberos ticket from the signed in user so it asks for a password each time you open Outlook.
Joe
dagar
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ZCA 8 Appliance: Anyone Using in Production

Post by dagar »

Joe,

Where did you migrate from?

I am on Zimbra 7.1.3 NE with about 80 users. I am using mostly the web client. It would be nice to try for SSO with the web client, I will have to search the forums and see if that is possible.

In the next month I will start some test migrations of the new appliance. Kind of curious if anyone has gone from NE to appliance.

Derek
cavj1
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ZCA 8 Appliance: Anyone Using in Production

Post by cavj1 »

Hi Derek
We're migrating from E2K3 to ZCA8. I wish we were using the web client but my ECM solution requires Outlook so my hands are tied to M$ Office licensing.
Joe
cavj1
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ZCA 8 Appliance: Anyone Using in Production

Post by cavj1 »

41 users in...so far...not so bad.
Some gotcha's Exhange Suggested Contacts migrate over but no longer auto populate when creating a new e-mail. As most users complains go..."You lost my contacts"...sarcasm mode on:...Riiiiggghhhtt those are you contacts.

Out of Office...No Rule to forward mail from ZCO and keep the original message in the users Inbox...Now who thought of that great idea????

Delivery Receipt...yeah...not there.
Joe
Travis Kensil
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ZCA 8 Appliance: Anyone Using in Production

Post by Travis Kensil »

Derek,
We have not done any testing yet just exploring the concept as this would allow us to eliminate another RedHat license as well as centralized support from Zimbra from the entire stack perspective. Really wish VMWare and Zimbra would merge support contracts into one, how cool would it be to be able to get support from one group for the entire stack all the way down to the Hypervisor!
In October 2012 I sent an email to support about the upgrade path if we were to go from 7.2 NE on RedHat to 8.0 Appliance and received the following answer:
[QUOTE]

The appliance is production ready and is also fully tested/supported (and unlike versions prior, contains all of the same features and functionality of ZCS). Unfortunately, at this time we don't have a fully tested/documented method of migrating to the appliance from another version of ZCS. At this time, I would suggest upgrading your existing ZCS infrastructure to ZCS8 and then migrating to the Appliance at a later date. We're currently working on that procedure now, and should have a process soon that I can send you. You would essentially need to bring up the new system and join your existing infrastructure, use zmmboxmove to move mailboxes to the new server, promote it to an ldap master, and then shut down the old system. Once I have that documentation ready, I'll send it out. If you have any other questions in the meantime, please let me know.
Tony Publiski

Zimbra Support

[/QUOTE]
Travis Kensil
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ZCA 8 Appliance: Anyone Using in Production

Post by Travis Kensil »

Sent an email to Zimbra again for an update on this, there has now been an RFE/Bug files on Zimbra's Bugzilla for this, for those in our situation or interested in the process, please vote/comment for this RFE/bug.
https://bugzilla.zimbra.com/show_bug.cgi?id=79872
cronos
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ZCA 8 Appliance: Anyone Using in Production

Post by cronos »

I originally deployed my personal email domain (myself, family etc) on an appliance. Services randomly crashed (not "often", perhaps once a week or so) and mail delivery was interrupted, requiring a restart. The appliance is also slow to boot/restart.
I moved over to CentOS, much faster. No issues. I'm now running my personal domain on Ubuntu which is faster still.
Personally I wouldn't touch the appliance with a bargepole. When you consider the Ubuntu install consists of "apt get " and then install, why bother ?
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