G Suite is becoming Google Workspace - will they migrate to MIAB?

Just got the e-mail from GMail where I host few of my remaining domains on their G-Suite product.

Contemplating what to do next :wink:

a] pay and upgrade to Google Workspace is not a option!
b] move to MIAB? Anyone done it?

G Suite is becoming Google Workspace.

Dear Administrator,

We are writing to let you know that your G Suite legacy free edition will no longer be available starting July 1, 2022. To maintain your services and accounts, you need to upgrade to Google Workspace.

We launched our G Suite legacy free edition —the original Google Apps offering for businesses and schools— 16 years ago. In 2012 we [discontinued this service] and we will now transition all remaining users to an upgraded Google Workspace paid subscription based on your usage.

What does this mean for my organization?

In 2020, we introduced —Google Workspace— and tailored our offerings to provide more options to fit our customers’ needs. Google Workspace includes all the features you already use, plus several new capabilities including more storage, increased security, 24/7 support, and more.

Upgrading from your G Suite legacy free edition to Google Workspace will only take you a few short steps and is not disruptive to your end-users. To support you in this transition, you will have discount options for 12 months after July 1, 2022.

What do I need to do?

To avoid disruption and maintain your account(s), please upgrade to Google Workspace by May 1, 2022. Begin the upgrade by reviewing the [transition] help center article, and selecting the option that best suits your organization’s needs. When you’ve identified your preferred subscription:

  1. Go to your [Admin console]
  2. Select your new subscription offering.
  3. Enter your billing information.

Once you’re upgraded, you can use your new Google Workspace subscription and functionality at no-cost until at least July 1, 2022.

If you take no action by May 1, 2022, Google will begin upgrading your organization seamlessly to a new Google Workspace subscription. The new subscription will be based on what you currently use with your G Suite legacy free edition.

If you do not enter your billing details before July 1, 2022, your subscription will be [suspended].

If your needs have changed and you do not want to upgrade to a Google Workspace subscription, you can [export your organization’s data] with the takeout feature.

FAQs

Visit the help center for information on the [G Suite legacy free edition] to Google Workspace transition.

We’re here to help

If you have questions or need assistance, please [Contact Google Workspace support] When you call or submit your support case, reference issue number xxxxxxxxx. If you have trouble accessing your administrator account, please refer to instructions [to reset your administrator password.]
Thanks for choosing Google Workspace.

– The Google Workspace Team

© 2022 Google LLC 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043

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I’m in the process right now.

It’s a bit of work as I have a dozen or so domains.

I already had a VPS for my web sites, so I made a second €3/month for MIAB.

MIAB is primary NS, and my web box is secondary. Having external DNS for many domains means copying loads of DNS entries, which is a hassle.

Create users only for those who are receiving mail on the box. Create aliases for everybody else, to forward their mail.

I needed to send mails from the domains from the web box, so I created a relay@primarydomain user, and then defined aliases for for the different sender addresses on the web box (root@ www-data@ etc). That’ll let web forms, cron jobs etc send mail to your domains. You’ll need to configure passwords for the relay user on the sending host.

MIAB seems really great at taking the nitty-gritty out of running a mail server, but I don’t have more than a few days experience :slight_smile:

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I am also in this process. Thinking of migrating to miab on AWS host. Trying to figure out best option for host size/storage


If you are not already familiar with using AWS, it may be more difficult than other options, as people have posted before that were having issues related how AWS manages email services.

I am pretty good with AWS and have a stack of hosts there. TBH i have avoided doing any mail for ages as managing the stack can be painful. MIAB looks pretty good and its for my personal domain so just family


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I have migrated my MIAB from AWS tentacles a while ago and would not go back for no love nor money, so I would strongly advise to avoid AWS at all cost.

Any actual reasons why and or where you went?

I don’t love Amazon as a company for many reasons but I do have a number of hosts with AWS.

Did you have issues with sizing models/pricing/storage?

Not all hosting providers are suitable for mail.

Some (Azure) block port 25 with no way of unblocking, others (Oracle) don’t provide a way to set Reverse DNS without having to contact support (in Oracle’s case, you can only get support if you’re a paying user), some (Digital Ocean) tend to provide IP addresses with very bad reputations (because they have been used by spammers in the past).

In any of these cases, you will not be able to send mail, or the mail will be rejected by the recipient, or it will always go to spam.

Agreed - its why I think AWS isn’t a bad option. Elastic IP and reverse DNS is an easy fix and you can manage access /ports with their security model.

AWS does rate limit by default but once you have your security model working with elastic IP and reverse dns then you are able to request them to lift the rate.
https://console.aws.amazon.com/support/contacts?#/rdns-limits

I had the same email last week but I have been successfully using MiaB for another project for a few months so I decided to migrate my business email from G-Suite to MiaB over the weekend. It was relatively painless although I could not figure out how to export my mail archive etc. from G-Suite in a sensible way so ended up copying all the mailboxes over via IMAP in Mail for Mac which took about an hour.

ÂŁ3/month hosting for unlimited users is much better than ÂŁ5/month per user!

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I have been using MIAB for 4 years on AWS now. You can ask AWS to open the port for you.

I have had zero issues.

Any thoughts on machine sizing (specifically RAM) - use a micro with 1gb ram or small with 2gb?

I run MIAB on a 1Gb ram VPS without any problems. Over a dozen domains, few real users, a moderate workload.

Of 20Gb disk space, after installation and configuration I have 14Gb for mailboxes.

MIAB has been a very positive experience.

Thanks. I have less than 10 people/accounts I would be looking to setup but a bunch of history so currently using about 30gb. Was going to provision 60 as a starting point (set and forget as storage is super cheap) but the cost jump at AWS is 1 vs 2gb of RAM. Appreciate your answer.

I have used Binary Lane for VPS servers in Australia, and no problem so far. I upgraded from a 1GB RAM/30GB Disk VPS to one of their storage focussed units, which gave me heaps of storage and a bit more RAM, about 10 minutes upgrade time. I will be migrating my very old G-Suite Free Edition over to it, its only got three email addresses, and I am much happier with MIAB than with Google, so I am in the process of backing up email and Drive files and will migrate over in the coming weeks. Cant comment on AWS or Azure for VPS style usage, I prefer a standard VPS setup and cant complain at all about Binary Lane so far.

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I have the same problem
G Suite to G Workspace migration for a domain I was using with them. If I move to MIAB, what’s the best/cheap option for hosting MIAB as far as a cloud provider goes, which works well with MIAB
is it AWS, Azure, Google cloud or someone else?

It depends on where you are located and personal preferences, but probably most MiaB hosts are with companies such as Linode, Vultr, Digital Ocean, Hetzner, Frantech, etc.

Resources for mail servers probably on the low end will use up more memory, but after 1-2GB, requirements won’t go up much and storage becomes the biggest issue and somewhere eventually you may have CPU maxing out.

I’m in the U.S. and have used Vultr for years without any issues. Usually problems with ISPs come with IP address deliverability, which is really a problem with unreasonable policies on the part of companies like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple, AT&T, T-Mobile, etc.

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t3a micro.

usage report for last week:
378 sent emails
1549 received
~20 active users out of 50
40 GB of gp3 data being used

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Is there a gmail to miab migration how to?

How to export from one and import to the other.

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I have moved from GoogleApp for your Domain/GSuite/Google Workspace (whatever you want to call it this week) to mailinabox. I was probably close to one of the original persons that was on Google Apps for your domain, and had it for about 15 years.

I just completed the migration from “G” to mailinabox.

First I would advise to use “Google Take-out” to download a copy of all of your mail for “safety”
Then I would stand up a full mailinabox server
Create all your mailboxes (like for like as to what you had in G)

Connect G (mail) to Thunderbird mail client.
Connect mailinabox to Thunderbird mail client. (ensure you name it differently so you dont get confsued)

Highlight mail from one
Drag to the other.
Rinse and repeat (and its not quick if you have a lot of mail)

download a copy of you calendar in G - upload it to Nextcloud
download a copy of your Contacts - Upload it in Roundcube (to owncloud section)

Its unfortunately a lot of work
 A LOT

Next do this for each and every user. You might have to change peoples passwords, disable 2 FA, tell G via admin panel to ignore challange questions for the next 10 minutes, etc.

It can be done. I migrated 16 users in about 4-6 hours.