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Architecturally, NetTalk closely resembles Missive. Components include the NetTalk server, LDAP server, directory, Synchronization Monitor, and Internet and e-mail platform connectors. The Synchronization Monitor maintains the schedule and performs sync operations with connected directories. The product also provides message routing and tracking.

We tested NetTalk on our NT 4.0 server. As with Zoomit and Microsoft, you need to run the Notes client on the NetTalk server to communicate with the Notes environment. For an Exchange system located on a separate server, you need to install a separate Exchange Administrator. All connectors and the mail server run as NT services and have additional utilities to check queues, start and stop services and perform message tracking. Internet messages receive a unique NetTalk ID to track the message between two NetTalk servers across the vastness of the Internet.

NetTalk uses a 1993 X.500-compliant directory. The central directory contains POP3/IMAP users, external users and folders containing users, conference rooms, and more. You can't put documents in the folders, though, as you can in Zoomit's directory tree. The directory view can be organized either by enterprise or by connector in the administrative client. With NetTalk's LDAP replication between servers, you can synchronize two different trees between different organizations.

Internet Connector defines address formats (first, middle and last name) for display purposes and lists the user's preferred reply address. The product handles custom Internet aliases, so the president of your company could be dubbed BigCheese@ corp.com. NetTalk features a built-in collision manager to resolve any naming conflicts, and supports host name hiding to eliminate a pseudo host.

Certificates can be stored in the directory. In fact, NetTalk integrates with CAs (certificate authorities) from vendors such as Entrust, Netscape and VeriSign.

NetTalk uses an LDAP connector to communicate with Netscape. We were able to preserve or flatten into one folder the hierarchy of the Netscape LDAP directory and create additional organizations. Either a flat file or an LDIF (LDAP Data Interchange Format) file can be used initially to populate the directory. We used LDIF in our testing. Because we were able to view the organizations in the Netscape directory hierarchy, we created filters much faster--no browsing or typing required.

The product offers a robust set of standard mapping rules for each connector. Rules for uploading and downloading directory entries are implemented for connectors. But, as in the case of ISOCOR, names like Mary Jo Smith or even Carlos Jorge de la Garcia require special treatment. You must get technical assistance from Worldtalk to modify the registry mapping rules to resolve this problem. Again, having a generic rule in place would eliminate this phone call.

Nancy Cox can be reached at ncox@nwc.com. Technology editor Dan Backman (dbackman@nwc.com) and Joel Snyder (jms@opus1.com), a senior partner at Opus One, in Tucson, Ariz., assisted with the testing for this feature.

A Sea Of Names
Human name schemata have frustrated record keepers since the dawn of written language. Transliteration, misspellings, multiple names and abbreviations compound the already-difficult task of reliably matching proper names to the proper people . While human beings can make reasonable guesses to distinguish among different names, computers are limited to literal interpretations. To accurately simulate the complexity of a real-world network, we built test networks of more than 5,000 users under various messaging directories.

To begin with a relatively realistic data set of human names, we extracted batches of thousands of common and exotic names pulled from actual corporate user directories. By storing separate databases of 16,000 given names and surnames (many of which were redundant) and separately shuffling given and surname lists, we generated distinctive directories of users. In addition, our directory-creation tool automatically assigned users to various organizational units and generated white pages' information, such as telephone and fax numbers, street address and unique user IDs. In the end, our artificial directories were output to LDIF (LDAP Data Interchange Format) and imported into Netscape Communication Corp.'s LDAP Directory Server s (both versions 1.02 and 3.0b2).

During our testing, our directories were realistic enough to raise common directory design issues. For instance, our first attempts based distinguished names (dn entries) on common names (a concatenation of given name and surname attributes) and organizational units. Although not frequently, we occasionally found our 5,000 user directories running into at least a few name collisions. Likewise, we encountered indexing problems when Netscape's Directory Server 3.0b2 stumbled upon leading initials in the first name, as in J. Edgar Hoover. --Dan Backman