FEATURES

Big , Bad E-mail

by Jan Trumbo & Joel Snyder

Any large e-mail network needs a backbone. The larger and more complex the network, the more work the backbone must do. Backbones are responsible for moving mail between mail systems and matching protocols, services and formats into a seamless whole. Backbones also help manage e-mail by prioritizing traffic, logging flows, monitoring queues and making sure that through rain, sleet, hail or sun, the mail is delivered.

We took an intensive look at three backbone products--Missive/AIX 2.0 from Wingra Technologies, Mail*Hub from Control Data Systems (CDS) and PMDF e-mail Interconnect from Innosoft International--all designed to be the central switch of an enterprise e-mail system. We installed them in our messages as they passed through the backbone. Because all three had versions in beta test we couldn't get our hands on, we decided to forgo our customary Report Card. But that doesn't mean we don't have opinions about the products.

Our favorite backbone product was CDS' Mail*Hub. With a comprehensive feature set and a superior management interface, it should be on the short list of anyone who has $200,000 to spend on an e-mail backbone. On the other hand, with all the functionality you'd ever need--but a cruder interface--Innosoft's PMDF offers Mail*Hub solid competition and will satisfy anyone who's looking for a comprehensive e-mail solution. At one-tenth the price of Mail*Hub, there's a lot of money left over to write--or buy--your own management tools. We also saw some previews of the PMDF 5.1 management interface, now in beta tests, that bring the products closer to parity.

Wingra's Missive/AIX also is a solid product. In competition with PMDF and Mail*Hub, however, Wingra has to pour more engineering resources into increasing the feature list and improving the management interface. Missive is definitely a product to watch, and we expect that Wingra will keep up the pressure on both Innosoft and CDS.

Wingra Missive/AIX 2.0

Missive, from Wingra Technologies, is a backbone still in the process of settling down. Wingra's e-mail roots are in the OpenVMS world--its first product, Jnet, is an Network Job Entry (NJE) protocol gateway for OpenVMS that includes e-mail access, among other services. Jnet's popularity, driven largely by the now-defunct BITNET, gave Wingra the confidence to venture into the e-mail backbone business.

Of the backbone products we reviewed, Wingra's Missive/AIX is the easiest to install and configure, thanks to its X Window-based GUI. Even an inexperienced e-mail manager could take Missive out of the box and be up and running within a few days. For small networks, Missive is an excellent choice. However, because the GUI somewhat oversimplifies many of the tricky and more complex parts of an e-mail backbone, networks that require more extensive customization or that handle high volumes of e-mail will find that the GUI inhibits smooth operation.

Missive's goal is to be a '90s-style backbone: with GUI-based management and configuration, automated directory synchronization and support of key LAN-based e-mail systems. Wingra aimed high and has delivered a robust and reliable--but still immature--system. We found the GUI to be flashy, but clumsy and dysfunctional in some areas. The a bsence of directory synchronization tools and the company's reliance on third-party products also could pose problems.

Despite these flaws, Missive is a product worth watching. With continued development effort, Wingra could bring Missive up to par fairly quickly to provide a good, low-cost alternative to the other products we looked at (and even several we did not), particularly in environments with few customization requirements.

Basic Features The core of Missive is the router, which switches messages among different mail systems, directs document conversion and connects to the user directory. Missive's X.500 directory contains routing and personal information about each e-mail user, telling Missive all it needs to know to move e-mail to its final destination.

In backbone terms, each mail system that connects to the backbone does so via a "channel"--a path into and out of the e-mail backbone. Missive's e-mail channels support most important legacy and LAN e-mail systems, with one significant exception--X.400. Wingra intends to deliver an X.400 channel for Missive, but it is not yet in beta test.

Missive's integration with LAN-based e-mail systems is quite smooth. Wingra provides an SPX-based application that, in our testing, easily linked LAN e-mail to Missive's backbone. Of the three packages we tested, we thought Missive's LAN-e-mail links instilled the most confidence. The X.500 directory integrated each e-mail system (we tested Microsoft Corp.'s Microsoft Mail, but most others are supported) so that backbone addresses appeared in the most native format.