[BBLISA] OSS campus mail

[Rick Martin]

Hi all.

Is anyone using open source software to support campus email?
Any offer to share info on hardware/software configurations
would be greatly appreciated.

Background:

Running Exchange over a couple dozen servers, our campus mail
went down for three days.  A "raid-50" failed, and restoring
it was a nightmare.  The CIO got hot, and she wants the whole
thing re-implemented to deliver uninterrupted service.  First
order of business is a survey.

I got drafted to evaluate OSS because I run a couple of 
department servers with sendmail + mimedefang + NAI + SA and such 
for about 1,500 users.  The whole campus is a much bigger deal.

The campus will likely buy into some all-encompassing product, as 
they are unwilling to give up any feature currently implemented 
in Exchange, at least for the faculty users.

Of course the trade-off for license fees is programmer time for 
integrating many pieces to achieve the result.  I can make 
Scientific Wild-Ass Guesses, but could really benefit from anyone
who has been there and done that.  Mainly we need a feel for how
much time and money go into implementing, training, and upkeep.

Thanks in advance.

Rick Martin
UMass-Boston, CS Dept.
617-287-6440