Juggling Large Message Systems By Nancy Cox   Effectively managing large message systems involves a delicate balancing act. Huge messages must zip along the wire to their intended destinations, whole "bags" of messages mustn't hurtle beyond reach, and messages must arrive intact without their innards--or their attachments--scrambled. It's a heart-stoppingly precarious job--and not for anyone afraid of braving unprecedented heights. Why are messaging administrators suddenly finding themselves in this predicament? For one thing, administrators are tasked with managing screamer servers with thousands of users apiece, many exchanging huge messaging objects, such as video or 3-D engineering drawings. For another, the associ ated message stores are multiprotocol object repositories that hold data from multiple messaging clients. What's more, the advent of global e-mail exchange introduces other element s into the juggling act, including viruses that can wreak havoc on an unprotected messaging system. It's a small wonder administrators have their hands full--the user base is expanding exponentially, the message stores are stuffed, and there are few tools to measure, control and manage the entire circus. This situation did not even exist a few years ago--and the bad news is that no single, ideal messaging management product stands ready. Instead, administrators are forced to stitch together a patchwork circus tent of disparate products to meet different requirements. To aid in this task, we've created a checklist of attributes that the "ideal" messaging management solution might contain (see "The Ultimate Message Management Product" on page 62). We gathered these requirements from users, administrators, industry research and our own testing. We found that the ultimate product should provide solutions for several key issues common to any messaging system: retention and archival, compression, backup and restore, accounting and billing, and virus protection. In addition, massive servers stir up concerns of network resource monitoring, availability, diagnostics, reporting and alerting. The good news is that several new products have arrived to help you keep your footing along the high wire of messaging management. In our central Florida corporate test lab, we evaluated four messaging management tools--Computer Associates International's Protection Suite for Microsoft Exchange Server, MessageWise's 2MA, NetIQ Corp.'s AppManager 1.0 and Tally Systems Corp.'s Veranda Enterprise Messaging Reporter 1.0. All of these products provided an Exchange module or were developed specifically to work with Exchange. Although Exchange provides administrative and management tools, such as Performance Monitor, Server History and Event Viewer, these too ls are somewhat deficient in their capabilities. Products like the four we tested are filling in the gaps. Each product runs on Windows NT Server 4.0 and provides utilities to manag e specific functions of the Microsoft Exchange Server 5.0. But because each product has unique capabilities and focuses on a different area of the e-mail system, we could not perform the kind of head-to-head comparisons we normally provide in a typical review. For example, Veranda is primarily a static reporting tool, while AppManager Suite provides dynamic monitoring capabilities. 2MA runs as a background service, monitoring Exchange objects, while Protection Suite functions primarily as an antivirus program along with online backup and restore capabilities. NetIQ AppManager Suite 1.0 NetIQ's AppManager Suite is a total applications management product that lets you perform your high-wire balancing act over a big, thick net. The most mature product we evaluated, it is much more than a messaging management tool (see "NetIQ AppManager Gives BackOffice a Brain," on Network Computing Online at techweb.cmp.com/ nc/807/807sp2.html). From AppManager you can monitor and graph hundreds of Microsoft Windows NT, Exchange Server, SMS, SQL Server and Internet Information Server systems. AppManager included more of the specifications we deemed critical for messaging management, such as sophisticated monitoring, data collection and graphing, and notification functionality--features that go beyond what Exchange offers natively. To download an Adobe Acrobat .pdf format version of the Messaging Management Product Highlights chart, click here. To download an Adobe Acrobat .pdf format version of the "The Ultimate M essaging Management Product" checklist, click here.

An overview on tools available to help users manage their message stores. Betting on WAN Access TEchnology by Jeff Newman Updated June 27, 1997