CERN moves from Microsoft Exchange to Open Source software

by | Jan 20, 2020

The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) will start using this year 2020 the Kopano email server and stop using Microsoft Exchange. This decision is part of the project promoted by this entity to migrate from proprietary software to Open Source alternatives. Another of the actions in this line is the launch of a new portal that will guide both its software developers and other users to contribute to CERN's Open Source software projects.

The organization is currently performing the necessary tests to verify that Kopano will run smoothly to serve its 40,000 users and will support around 60 terabytes of mail data. To ensure the success of the project, they are carrying out a pilot of the same characteristics of their current environment in production with Microsoft Exchange.

As explained by Giacomo Tenaglia, Systems Engineer of the IT Department of CERN, they have a support contract with the development company of Kopano to solve the possible issues that may arise when using this service. “Kopano offers support for its 100% Open Source softwar . That sets it apart from business that offer support for premium features built onto their basic open source product,” he said.

The migration of their email server is one of the first actions carried out by CERN within its initiative Microsoft Alternatives (MAlt), whose objective is find the most appropriate Open Source alternatives to the different Microsoft programs they currently use**, due to the high cost of the latter’s licenses. “It started off as a very unfortunate situation with license costs increasing, but has turned into a great opportunity to review the way we do things in order to move towards open solutions,” said Tenaglia.

From the IT department of this European research center they are already clear about the next step they will take within their pro-Open Source policy: they are finalizing their FOSS at CERN portal. This website will help CERN developers to choose the most appropriate licenses for their projects and will facilitate the publication of their software. In addition, it will open the door for other developers to contribute and reuse the software created and used in CERN.

Source: OSOR

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