I'm currently helping a small dental office with about 15 users who are stuck using IceWarp from 2003 on an Exchange 2003 server located in their closet. They prefer not to move to the cloud. I'm experimenting with SmarterMail but I'm open to any other on-premise server alternatives. I plan to virtualize the server, but I'm curious if there are any other good options, and whether I could convince them to consider the cloud. Are there companies out there successfully running without cloud solutions?
6 Answers
You should definitely consider looking for alternatives to IceWarp. SmarterMail and MDaemon are both viable options. Just don't push them towards the cloud if they’re against it; that’ll only waste your time in the long run.
It’s interesting how often the perception of public cloud puts people off. You might want to suggest a VPS instead, as a Virtual Private Server sounds a lot less intimidating than the cloud.
Honestly, sometimes you encounter clients that are just not worth the trouble. No matter how solid your recommendations are, I bet there are a ton of unexpected challenges you've never even considered. You might find yourself bearing the blame for things that go wrong, which could become a nightmare.
I've been a SmarterMail user for years, but I'd recommend holding off right now due to recent vulnerabilities that have been discovered. The SmarterMail team is addressing these issues, but communication has been lacking. They just faced an attack that took down their community forum. It’s worth waiting a bit to see how things develop before committing.
Good call. It might not be the best option at this time.
SmarterMail could be a solid choice. I've worked with it before and it performs pretty well. Also, consider MDaemon; it has support for modern email protocols like DKIM and DMARC. Pairing it with a cloud-based spam filter could enhance security by minimizing the exposure of SMTP traffic. Alternatively, renting a hosted server might be a good fit since it wouldn’t involve the costs of putting new hardware in their office.
You could look into Synology MailPlus. I just set one up with a Synology NAS for a client, and it's working out well!
That definitely sounds concerning, thanks for the heads up!