[Dovecot] Creating an IMAP repo for ~100 users need some advice

[Stan Hoeppner]

On 3/17/2012 4:24 PM, Kaya Saman wrote:

> Long story but we don't have any control over our mail server which is
> handled by the parent company abroad and is on MS Exchange.
> 
> To use an IMAP storage solution is the only way to get rid of pesky MS
> .pst files which have been causing everyone grief and havoc.

It's been many years since I used, or supported, MS Outlook.  That said,
for the 10+ years I did support it, ~1996-2006, the corporate version of
Outlook, not to be confused with Outlook Express, did not store any mail
in local .PST files unless specifically configured to do so.  By default
it keeps all mail in the user account in the Exchange server store.

Thus I would assume these Outlook clients have been manually configured
to use .PST files to keep copies of mail locally, for faster access and
to keep inefficient MS Exchange (MAPI) traffic off the WAN link?

Is your problem with the PST files themselves, or merely the fact
they're stored on the local PC, probably in the users' roaming profiles,
thus creating the problem of large data movement during logon/off?

If the problem isn't with the .PST format for storing the emails, why
not simply setup a local Samba server and configure the Outlook clients
to store users' PSTs on Samba shares?

Better yet, if you already have a file server for home directories,
simply use a folder redirection policy to put the PST files in folders
in users' home directories.  This is an extremely common practice in the
MS world because all Microsoft Windows apps store everything in the user
profile directory by default, which again, causes big problems with
roaming profiles, which many/most enterprises use.

-- 
Stan