[Users] March 23, 2021 Zeta Alliance Conference Call Summary

[Randy Leiker]

Hello Zeta Alliance Community, 

Here is a summary of this week’s conference call. A few brief reminders: 


    * Conference calls are every Tuesday and open to all using either the FreeConferenceCall.com VoIP app or via a dial-in number: [ https://www.freeconferencecall.com/wall/zetalliance | https://www.freeconferencecall.com/wall/zetalliance ] 
    * Each week’s call agenda can be found at: [ https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1xDyBJFjnfZYxuXJHiDzsXjjMuGGtIl7J | https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1xDyBJFjnfZYxuXJHiDzsXjjMuGGtIl7J ] 
    * A copy of each week’s summary is also posted to the Zimbra Forums: 
        * All Prior Months: [ https://forums.zimbra.org/viewforum.php?f=9 | https://forums.zimbra.org/viewforum.php?f=9 ] 
        * February 2021 : [ https://forums.zimbra.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=69470 | https://forums.zimbra.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=69470 ] 
        * March 2021 : [ https://forums.zimbra.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=69488 | https://forums.zimbra.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=69488 ] 
    * Constructive feedback on these call summaries is always welcome. 

March 23, 2021 

Zimbra vs. Office 365 Hosted Mailboxes 
There was a discussion comparing the merits of Zimbra hosted mailboxes compared to Microsoft Office 365 hosted mailboxes. Some on the call shared misunderstandings by their customers who incorrectly compare the fully managed Zimbra hosted mailboxes to the un-managed, shared responsibility model used by Office 365. Specifically, the lack of robust backup and restore capabilities in Office 365 was mentioned, where 365 backups are often limited to a simple recycle bin folder, leaving it up to the Office 365 tenant (customer) to design and operate their own backup process using third-party software under the shared responsibility model that Microsoft uses. Office 365 tenants only first become aware of this lack of a proper backup and recover safety net until after a disaster or security incident, at which point it becomes too late to reverse the damage. Randy L. commented that most Office 365 tenants he has spoken with are often unaware that Microsoft also expects each 365 tenant to assume management of their email security, aside from the basic spam and malware filtering included in the 365 services. Marc G. added that he has observed the Office 365 spam filters seem to struggle considerably with false positives, as compared to the spam filtering capabilities built in to Zimbra which seem to better tuned. It was also commented by some on the call that Office 365 tenants seem to be willing to pay a price premium for Microsoft hosted email that is a multiple higher than comparable licensing with Zimbra, often based on the Microsoft brand name alone, when in fact they are receiving a significant decrease in overall service and features. 

Apple Mail Appending (null) To All Sent Email Messages 
Randy L. asked about an issue reported by one of his customers who is using Apple Mail with an IMAP Zimbra account, where it appends “(null)” at the end of messages sent. The customer indicated that just before the problem appeared, they had performed a migration of their data from an older Mac to a new Mac computer using an Apple migration tool. John E. suggested checking if an email signature in Apple Mail or a domain disclaimer in Zimbra is enabled, but empty, which may be responsible for the “(null)” text. 

Suggestions For Setting the Maximum Outbound Email Size 
Gary C. said that one of his customers requested an increase to the maximum outbound email size limit for sending large messages, and asked for everyone’s opinion of how the size limit should be set. John E. said the largest allowed size he has heard of is 50 MB per email. Randy L. said that he sometimes explains to customers, requesting very large outbound email size limits, that the standards for sending email on the Internet were first invented in the 1970s, and were never originally designed to carry attachments. The ability to include email attachments was bolted-on as an after thought, so consequently it is very inefficient (due to MIME encoding overhead) and often causes any attachment to inflate in size by 20-30%, making it difficult for senders to determine in advance if a large attachment will fit within an outbound email size limit, aside from if the recipient’s mail server will also accept it. Randy suggested it would be best for the customer to use a file sharing service for sending large files, so as to avoid the uncertainty of trying to send large attachments via email. 


Randy Leiker ( randy at skywaynetworks.com ) 
Skyway Networks, LLC 

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