FICCL : QMail and Exchange Co-Existence

An innovative way of cutting down the Exchange licensing cost by providing an
OpenSource alternative to the users who don't need Exchange Features. Fullerton
was using MS-Exchange as their messaging platform for 12,000+ users. The
organization was going in for a major expansion and was working to increase the
number of users to 40,000. A messaging solution which was scalable and
feature-rich was the need of the hour. Deploying exchange for 40,000 users was
becoming a huge investment and, it was also found by the FIC team through an
internal survey that 80% of the users were using limited features of Exchange.
So the concept of a hybrid solution was conceived which would keep the user
experience same by providing exchange features to only those who are going to
use it while redirecting others to a simple open source mail server.

The challenges that the team anticipated in building an effective
heterogeneous messaging platform were: Unchanged user experience seamlessly
integrated between exchange and Q-mail and scalable with minimal latency.

In order to cater to this requirement, Fullerton invited all major messaging
solution vendors. During the POC phase, they found that Logix solution (Linux
Based Mail Server) was the best for their requirements.

The Implementation

The setup had essentially been designed by tweaking the MTA settings of both
mail servers. The Linux MTA was tweaked to look up to the Active Directory and
handle mail deliveries accordingly. Similarly, Exchange was also configured to
deliver mails for users to be relayed to Linux Mail server (Please see the
architecture diagram for more details).

Kailash Kandalkar, Manager - IT Infrastructure Q What were the challenges and business problems that led to implement this project? Fullerton was using MS-Exchange as their messaging platform for 12,000+ users. The organization was going in for a major expansion and planning to increase the number of users to 40,000 within a period of 2 years. So, a messaging solution which was scalable, feature- rich and earning the best ROI was desired. Q What according to you is the USP of the project? It is only one of its kind hybrid enterprise class messaging solution which privodes us the following benifits: 1) Cost effective solution 2) Hybrid messaging environment 3) High performance and stable system 4) Tightly integrated with existing setup 5) Easy User migration between two different mailing platforms.

The major components which were deployed in this project were Windows 2003
and Red Hat Enterprise 5 as Operating systems, Windows Active directory as
authentication mechanism and MS-Exchange and Q-mail for mailing. For centralized
authentication with Windows Active Directory via Q-mail application they
extended Windows AD schemas for maintaining additional attributes.

For mass migration of live users from MS-Exchange to Q-mail with their
existing mail boxes, Logix designed user migration scripts that used the IMAP
protocol. Within two days FIC and Logix team have migrated 9,000+ users on the
Q-mail system without any down time on working system using help of Windows AD
Logon script facility. All migrated users client configuration got changed on
the next working day at first logon.

Using simple Web based management console FIC team were able to manage
individual user customized restrictions. For centralized address book they also
modified Global address list query for Exchange users and for Linux users they
provided LDAP address book.

To maintain e-mail security process outside the network they deployed the
Spam filter at Logix's datacenter and not at FIC premises.

For the disaster recovery plan, Logix deployed backup servers in a HA cluster
environment with scheduled backup activities. For redundant availability of
users data for both cluster servers Fullerton provided a backend SAN storage.

The setup had been essentially designed by tweaking the MTA of the mail
servers. The Linux MTA was tweaked to look up to the Active Directory and handle
mail deliveries accordingly. Similarly Exchange was also configured to deliver
mails for user to be relayed to Linux Mail server.

The Impact

After deploying this project, the company is able to save huge costs in
terms of licensing that too without losing upon features.

In conversation with...

Adwait Gadre Director, Logix Consultancy Group Pvt Ltd 1. What challenges were faced while implementing this project? Firstly, there was no readymade solution available in regards to what has been deployed at Fullerton India. So the main issue was to understand their requirement and get it implemented. Secondly, mailbox migration was a big challenge. They already had 9,000 users on Exchange, which they wanted to shift. For the same, we had to create scripts so that the users could be migrated in one day. 2. What were the main benefits gained out of the deployment? The main benefit for Fullerton was the license cost, which they saved on the Exchange front. Also, the end users did not have the feeling that they were migrated to a system, which did not give them full functionality. 3. What else is being planned for this project in future? The amount of users will be reaching40,000 in three year's time. Thus presently, the entire focus is on how the server will manage the load. The focus is entirely on the mail delivery mode, which should not slow down and in return create problem for the users.