[OGo-Users] Re: Greeting from Bhutan!

[Adam Tauno Williams]

> Right we have mixed platform in the organizations with some using
> lotus domino, some using exchange and others. I have personally worked
> quite intensively with lotus domino and notes on windows platform. And
> for me to learn and use open source on linux platform is going to be
> pretty challenging and i am relishing the prospect. Without further
> ado, i will go on with the questions: 
> 1. Does opengroupware come with a mail software?? or does it have to
> be integrated with other mail softwares? 

It uses the local SMTP agent (included with every LINUX distribution,
use whatever you want) and an IMAP server.  For the IMAP server Cyrus
IMAP is recommended as (a) Cyrus IMAP scales very very well and (b)
supports SIEVE so you get all possible features.  But you should be able
to use any IMAP server, even Domino or M$-Exchange, although I'm not
aware that these have been tested.  The only IMAP server I am aware of
that is really a problem is UW, which you wouldn't want to use anyway.

In short, use Cyrus.  It is included with most distributions.

> 2. Is there any issues when expanding opengroupware to around 20,000
> users? 

It depends on the configuration and what you mean by 20,000 users.
20,000 occasional users is different than 20,000 *concurrent* users.
You can load balance OpenGroupware's daemons across n-number of boxes,  

The real limitation/bottleneck is the PostgreSQL backend.  Depending
upon your usage patterns it may or may not scale to the point you need.

As for mail,  Cyrus IMAP [on decent hardware] will look at a mere 20,000
users with an amused shrug.  I know of sites that host 15,000 users on a
single box without issues. (Of course you need a solid storage solution
for that much of anything).

> 3. I am not sure about this feature , but does opengroupware has its
> own document management module. If not, i was thinking of trying
> alfresco, and is there a way where we can integrate this? 

Yes, it does.  Document management is handled via projects.

> 4. If I have to use different softwares, is there a way where the user
> management can be centralized by one of the softwares or another third
> party software? 

You can authenticate user's against LDAP, including Active Directory.
> 
> I hope the questions are clear, however in summary what i want to know
> is what would be the best model to execute mail, groupware and
> document management using open source softwares. And how much would it
> cost on the human resource, time and money to execute, if anyone has
> tried this before.