Presentation¶

SMBs and ITC¶

About 99% of companies in the world are small and medium businesses (SMBs) and they generate more than half of the global GPD. SMBs look constantly for ways to reduce costs and increase productivity, especially in times of crisis like the one we are currently facing. However, they often operate under very limited budgets and limited workforce, which makes it extremely challenging to offer suitable solutions that bring important benefits while keeping investments and operational costs within their budgets.

Perhaps that is the reason why being an enormous market with almost infinite potential, technology vendors have traditionally shown scarce interest in developing solutions that adapt to the needs of SMBs. In general, enterprise solutions available on the market have been developed for large corporations and therefore their implementation requires considerable investments in time and resources as well as a high level of expertise.

In the server market, this has meant that until now SMBs have had few solutions to choose from and in addition, the available solutions have usually been oversized considering their real needs, complex to manage and with high licensing costs.

In this context it seems reasonable to consider Linux as a more than interesting SMB server alternative, since technically it has shown very high quality and functionality and the price, free, is unbeatable. However, the presence of Linux in SMB environments is symbolic and the growth is relatively small. How is this possible?

The reason is simple: to adapt an enterprise level server to an SMB environment, its components must be well integrated and easy to administer. SMBs don’t have the resources nor the time required to deploy high-performance, but complex solutions. Likewise, the ICT service providers that work for SMBs also need server solutions that require low deployment and maintenance time to be competitive and the traditional Linux server distributions don’t offer these characteristics.

Zentyal: Linux server for SMBs¶

Zentyal [1] was developed with the aim of bringing Linux closer to SMBs and to allow them to make the most of its potential as a corporate server. Based on the popular Ubuntu Linux distribution, Zentyal has become the open source alternative to Windows Small Business Server. Zentyal allows ICT professionals to manage all network services such as Internet access, network security, resource sharing, network infrastructure or communications through one single platform.

Zentyal allows to manage the network in an easy and centralized way

During its development, the focus was specially on usability, so that an intuitive interface was created including only the most frequently used features, although there are other means to carry out all sorts of configurations.

Another important Zentyal feature is that all the functions, built from a series of, in principle, independent applications are fully integrated, automating most tasks and saving time in systems management. Given that 42% of security issues and 80% of service outages in companies are due to human errors in the configuration and administration of these systems [2], Zentyal is a solution that is not only easier to manage, but also more secure and reliable. Besides bringing Linux and open source to SMBs, entailing them significant savings, Zentyal improves security and availability of network services in the companies.

Zentyal development began in 2004 under the name of eBox Platform and it has grown to currently become a widely used and highly recognized solution that integrates about 30 open source systems and network management tools in a single technology. Zentyal is included in Ubuntu since 2007, it is downloaded 1,000 times every day and it has an active community of more than 4,000 members.

There are over 50,000 active Zentyal installations, mainly in America and Europe, although its use is extended to virtually every country on earth, being the U.S., Germany, Spain, Italy and Brazil, the countries with most installations. Zentyal is used mainly in SMBs, but also in other environments such as schools, governments, hospitals an even in prestigious institutions such as NASA.

Zentyal development is funded by eBox Technologies that also offers management tools and services designed to reduce maintenance costs of ICT infrastructures. These commercial tools and services are grouped into Server Subscriptions to Zentyal Cloud that include:

• quality assured system updates,
• alerts on network events in the server and different network services,
• reports on the system usage by the users and summary of the most relevant events,
• monitoring and central administration of multiple Zentyal servers.

Zentyal Cloud grants an affordable, enterprise-level network always up-to-date and secure

Subscription services are aimed at two clearly different types of customers. On one hand Professional Subscription is aimed at small businesses and ICT providers with a limited number of Zentyal servers that must be kept always up-to-date and running and who benefit from system updates, alerts and reports. On the other hand Enterprise Subscription is aimed at large businesses or managed service providers who in addition need to monitor and administer multiple Zentyal installations remotely. Also, customers with a commercial server subscription can access additional subscription services such as disaster recovery, advanced security updates or low cost VoIP calls.

These subscription services are completed with other additional services such as training, deployment and/or maintenance support provided usually by certified Zentyal partners. Zentyal has a rapidly growing Global Partner Network that allows the company to offer the product and necessary services to SMBs all over the world. The most typical Zentyal partners are local ICT support and service providers, consultants and managed service providers that offer consultancy, deployment, support and full outsourcing of infrastructure and network services to their customers. For more information regarding the benefits and how to become a partner, please visit the Partner section at zentyal.com [3].

The combination of the server and subscription services provide significant benefits that translate into savings higher than 50% of the total cost of installation and maintenance of a SMB server, when comparing costs of a Zentyal server installation with the costs of a typical Windows Small Business Server installation.

About this documentation¶

This documentation describes the main technical features of Zentyal, helping you to understand the way you can configure different network services with Zentyal and become productive in the management of SMB ICT infrastructure with Linux based systems.

The documentation is divided into seven chapters plus some appendices. This first introductory chapters helps to understand the context of Zentyal as well as the installation process and first steps with the system. The following five chapters explain in detail the five typical installation profiles: Zentyal as a network infrastructure server, as a server giving access to Internet or Gateway, as a security server or UTM, as an office server or communications server. This differentiation into five functional groups is only made to facilitate the most typical Zentyal deployments, but it is possible to deploy any combination of Zentyal server functionalities.

Finally, the last chapter describes the tools and services available to carry out and make easier the maintenance of a Zentyal server, ensuring its smooth running, optimizing its use, resolving incidents and recovering the system in case of a disaster.