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by arcza 55 days ago
Not easy at all.

Think about integrating calendars, corporate contacts (from AD), handling RSVP replies said mx server receives and updating the calendar server, securely deal with modern auth (+ legacy krb5 auth, yuk). It's a huge hassle and everything except Exchange only handles 80% of this.

Modern expectations now want: web clients (OWA), todo lists, integrated storage (SP/OneDrive), and push notifications to any phone from any vendor.

So yeah, the only on prem solution is still Exchange.
2 comments
prmoustache 55 days ago
I don't think these things are as important as you think.

RSVP for example. Nobody read or cares who and what people reply. In the last 4 companies I worked for (including one in Switzerland), nobody cared if I accepted or confirmed my attendance to the meeting and would try to call me/force me into a meeting even when my status showed I was on another shsring my screen. And nobody seems to respond nowadays nor check calendars for availability and avoiding conflicts.

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arcza 55 days ago
But what about push notifications to mobile? I'm not aware of anything that handles this as well as Exchange ActiveSync. it's reasonable that you get an email within sub 1 minute latency, not 15 min polling.
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prmoustache 55 days ago
The IMAP protocol has an IMAP IDLE extension for that purpose.

But is that use case really common in practice? With chat tools people don't tend to use email for instant messaging (well, appart from deltachat users, which can be a solution too!) and my experience is that it doesn't even work like that / that well for office 365 users. I am regularly told on teams that an email has been sent to me (same org and same region) yet it still takes more than a couple of minutes to have it visible on my desktop outlook client.

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pheggs 55 days ago
if you dont mind asking, what dont you like about kerberos? I personally like it quite with certs / hardware token

to be honest, most things you list can be setup with some research. The only one I am not sure about is integrated storage, but then I am also not entirely sure what that even is supposed to mean exactly

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arcza 55 days ago
The user experience between a phone, tablet and computer should be symbiotic. Krb is not a first class thing in the mobile world. So users now hav great Krb experience with Outlook.exe but are typing passwords into Safari at owa.example.com (anywhere you type an AD password that isn't lsass or ADFS is really not good posture)

So, passwords are bad and the password is a key component of krb. Moving away from passwords is a step in the right direction eg OIDC.

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pheggs 55 days ago
right given the product names I assume you are on windows. with kerberos people shouldnt have to type their passwords into apps at all, and if you use pkinit there are no passwords at all?

i give you the mobile part, I dont know how well it is supported - iOS claims to have support though, and android through third parties I believe. Never tried that. Its just that I personally have a preference for auth methods that dont require opening a browser for desktop apps

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