[K12OSN] Emails for large districts

[Jim Kronebusch]

On Wed, 14 Nov 2007 16:37:12 -0500, Todd O'Bryan wrote
> Our district has about 16,000 employees of varying types and is
> currently using a web-based Exchange server to do email. The system is
> slow, clunky, and the database is getting full, so we've been told to
> clean out our mailboxes because they're going to delete all mail older
> than 30 days.
> 
> My question is this--does anyone have experience with a system that
> will scale reasonably to that many users. If so, we have about 90,000
> students. Know of a system that will scale that big? The head IT guy
> tells me that he was quoted a commercial cost of between $250k and
> $500k for a system that would handle us, and, while that doesn't
> surprise me, I think something effective could be done much more
> economically.
> 
> I'm just wondering if there's anything I can point to and say, see!
> 
> Todd

For something your size and the needs you probably have, I'd recommend looking at @Mail.
 They even sell turnkey pre setup server solutions delivered to your door and offer
onsite installation.  I quoted this system for a School district in Texas.  Take a look
at their website atmail.com, I'm sure you'll be impressed.

You can actually price your entire cluster system pre-configured through their web form.
 You would be looking at the multi-server cluster system.  The default 3 server cluster
with all options would be about $27,000 and should handle around 100,000 users.  This is
with unlimited users, unlimited domains, all Groupware, Anti-Spam, Anti-Virus, POP3 and
IMAP, SMS messages, PDA support, sub administration support, the 3 servers and 3TB
storage all pre-configured and ready to plug in.

The solutions is based on mostly open source and Linux with some proprietary stuff mixed
in.  But it is still far less than most other commercial solutions and is an awesome setup.

Hope that helps,

Jim

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