Hi, we have been running/maintaining a Zimbra 8.6.0 OSE Ubuntu 14.04 implementation for many years (long story why...). We support a several small businesses with our service.
We have reached the point where we are biting the bullet, moving forward and setting up a migration. We are not a shop that is setup to build from source so we are quite interested in the Zextras Zimbra 9.0 build.
Question is, should we target Zimbra 9.0 (via Zextras build) or Zimbra 8.8.15 OSE?
Recent discussion/recommendation from the Zextras sales team was to stick with Zimbra 8.8.15 OSE since the official Zimbra 9 plan does not include OSE releases (thus the handy Zextras build). The Zextras sales team says that any patches released by Zimbra for 9.0 would require doing a complete re-install of a Zextras build when it was updated. Whereas patches for 8.8.15 are installed with the usual patch installation method.
However, recent posts here suggest that it isn't a big deal to bring in patches as it would be an installation "update" rather than an entire re-installation.
I worry about the future of the 8.8.15 OSE branch and don't want to get stuck on an obsolete platform again.
So.....Zimbra 9.0 or Zimbra 8.8.15? What do you think?
Hi, we have been running/maintaining a Zimbra 8.6.0 OSE Ubuntu 14.04 implementation for many years (long story why...). We support a several small businesses with our service.
We have reached the point where we are biting the bullet, moving forward and setting up a migration. We are not a shop that is setup to build from source so we are quite interested in the Zextras Zimbra 9.0 build.
Question is, should we target Zimbra 9.0 (via Zextras build) or Zimbra 8.8.15 OSE?
Recent discussion/recommendation from the Zextras sales team was to stick with Zimbra 8.8.15 OSE since the official Zimbra 9 plan does not include OSE releases (thus the handy Zextras build). The Zextras sales team says that any patches released by Zimbra for 9.0 would require doing a complete re-install of a Zextras build when it was updated. Whereas patches for 8.8.15 are installed with the usual patch installation method.
However, recent posts here suggest that it isn't a big deal to bring in patches as it would be an installation "update" rather than an entire re-installation.
Maybe some misunderstanding here. Our build supports the zimbra9 patches as patch therefore you can apply those as usual. Some patches require a new build and in that case our support is slower than 8.8.15 because of all the internal cycle for CI/CD/QA.
I worry about the future of the 8.8.15 OSE branch and don't want to get stuck on an obsolete platform again.
So.....Zimbra 9.0 or Zimbra 8.8.15? What do you think?
You can also consider to give a try to CarbonioCE (we aro going to release a new beta in 10 days) and to use it in production when a GA version will be released (within a couple of months). That's definetely a way to be sure you have an OpenSource platform with a long future ahead.
Bests.
Thanks Paulo,
I appreciate your clarification on zimbra 9 patch support. That is good to hear. Seems like someone should tell the sales team 😀.
I also appreciate your promotion of CarbonioCE. I have looked into it as a possible migration target already. While we are turning the Zimbra release knob a long way, we aren't quite ready to turn another knob and switch horses just yet.
Interested to know if there are any other factors to consider between 8.8.15 and 9.0?
There is one thing that may not be immediately clear, if you go from OSS 8.8.15 to OSS 9.0, you lose the ability to use webmail on cell phones, that responsive theme has been eliminated by zimbra in version 9. However, ipad continues to work, the width must be just enough where a responsive theme is not needed.
Right now I am trialing zextras suite which includes the ability to use the iphone / android built in exchange mail app and so far so good! but of course it will cost a few dollars per year.
