[Charlug] Replacing Windows

[Justin Moore]

Interested in getting some thoughts from you guys here...

When I started my current job two years ago, our company was running (7) 
Windows 2000 Server machines in various roles. I've been moving services 
to new Linux machines when the time seems right and have been super 
happy so far with the money we're saving on licensing proprietary 
software to do rudimentary tasks. My next services to move are backups 
and email.

Backups: We're current using an extremely outdated version of Yosemite 
TapeWare which came with a DDS drive purchased many years before my 
arrival here (circa '98) to backup to a Sony DDS-4 tape drive. It still 
works (most of the time), but to me it just seems to be getting more and 
more flaky as time passes on and no patches have been released for it 
since around the turn of the century. I really love the ease-of-use, 
which is something I'm not so sure I'll find in a Linux solution. Simply 
install it once on a server and then on each of the clients you wish to 
backup, then walk through creating a backup much like using windows 
explorer to pick and choose which files from which machines to backup. 
My ideal solution would work in a similar fashion - I've looked at 
bacula.org but it doesn't seem to fit the bill. Having client software 
for Windows and Linux is a must. It doesn't necessarily have to be free 
or Open Source (although that is ideal), the main thing I want to avoid 
is annual licensing fees. Suggestions?

Email: Rght now, we're using Ipswitch Collaboration Suite (ICS) which is 
a dream from an admin perspective. It's fairly light both in performance 
and price when compared to Exchange, but even at $1200/year it seems a 
bit ridiculous for a small company like ours (~40 mailboxes). I've been 
a bit interested in the Scalix Community Edition, but haven't had a 
spare machine to give it a test yet. Does anyone have any experience 
with the Scalix product or anything similar? I'm really *not* interested 
in trying to turn a white-box Linux install into a mail server. If I was 
the only one admin'ing the thing, that might be ok, but a few of my 
non-IT colleagues typically manage user accounts and things when I'm 
away and without some sort of user-friendly interface, they will be as 
lost as Chris Weinke in the Carolina starting linup. *ducks*

So - anyone care to offer some advice and suggestions?

You guys are the closest LUG to me (I'm in Shelby) and I'd really like 
to try to make it to a meeting sometime to put faces with some of the 
names I've seen be so helpful on this list and just network with some 
fellow Linux gurus.

Thanks,
Justin Moore
aka wantmoore
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www.wantmoore.com