Anyone use OS X Server for Email?

[lumencreative]

Does anyone here use OSX Server for Email? How reliable is it?

I currently use Office365 as I got a 12 month free trial but this is coming to an end shortly so looking for a reliable yet cheap alternative.

 

[irnchriz]

Does anyone here use OSX Server for Email? How reliable is it?

I currently use Office365 as I got a 12 month free trial but this is coming to an end shortly so looking for a reliable yet cheap alternative.

I use 10.9 server for email/calendars. Works fine for me, I have it all sitting behind a Zyxel USG firewall. This is fed by 2 broadband connections and it all sits on an APC UPS.

 

[lumencreative]

I use 10.9 server for email/calendars. Works fine for me, I have it all sitting behind a Zyxel USG firewall. This is fed by 2 broadband connections and it all sits on an APC UPS.

Thanks - I'm thinking of giving it a go although I'm just concerned about whether it's stable enough for a business and the lack of a webmail client bothers me a little.

At present, I have 16 accounts set up with Office365 which, even on their cheapest option, would cost me £600 per year. I could reduce these down to 5 accounts and use email forwarding for the rest but that would still cost me almost £200 per year so just need to weigh up whether it's worth the initial outlay for another Mac to run OSX Server.

 

[irnchriz]

Thanks - I'm thinking of giving it a go although I'm just concerned about whether it's stable enough for a business and the lack of a webmail client bothers me a little.

At present, I have 16 accounts set up with Office365 which, even on their cheapest option, would cost me £600 per year. I could reduce these down to 5 accounts and use email forwarding for the rest but that would still cost me almost £200 per year so just need to weigh up whether it's worth the initial outlay for another Mac to run OSX Server.

It is certainly stable enough but you really have to weigh up the risks and ensure that your infrastructure is resilient enough.

Basically sit down and work out a full disaster recovery plan based on:

1. Hardware failure
2. Network /infrastructure failure
3. Backups

Some examples

Hardware failure: osx server can be spun up on any mavericks compatible Mac, so if you have a backup you can restore it to another mac till the mini is fixed

Network/infrastructure failure: If you run off of a single WAN or even 2 WANs you might want to look at a store and forward service for incoming email.

Backups: how often, on-site, off-site etc

If you think you have all of that covered and at less than it is going to cost annually for Hosted Exchange then go for it.

 

[lumencreative]

It is certainly stable enough but you really have to weigh up the risks and ensure that your infrastructure is resilient enough.

Basically sit down and work out a full disaster recovery plan based on:

1. Hardware failure
2. Network /infrastructure failure
3. Backups

Some examples

Hardware failure: osx server can be spun up on any mavericks compatible Mac, so if you have a backup you can restore it to another mac till the mini is fixed

Network/infrastructure failure: If you run off of a single WAN or even 2 WANs you might want to look at a store and forward service for incoming email.

Backups: how often, on-site, off-site etc

If you think you have all of that covered and at less than it is going to cost annually for Hosted Exchange then go for it.

Thanks, it's good to know it can be restored to any Mavericks machine. Backups aren't a problem either. I think our web server has store and forward for incoming email but will double check

Also need to check if our broadband router has a sufficient enough firewall.

 

[irnchriz]

Thanks, it's good to know it can be restored to any Mavericks machine. Backups aren't a problem either. I think our web server has store and forward for incoming email but will double check

Also need to check if our broadband router has a sufficient enough firewall.

If you use super duper or carbon copy cloner and backup to an external disk you can potentially boot from the backup on any other mavericks compatible mac without overwriting the internal disk. Although I haven't done this with osx server so I would suggest testing it first.

 

[lumencreative]

If you use super duper or carbon copy cloner and backup to an external disk you can potentially boot from the backup on any other mavericks compatible mac without overwriting the internal disk. Although I haven't done this with osx server so I would suggest testing it first.

Thanks, I'll give this a go. I think I'll pay for Office365 for a month or two to give me time to do some testing...need to find a cheap used mini too