Enterprise Messaging: Linking Minds Together Across The Enterprise by David Matthiesen and Stacy Hunt Choose the Winner Whatever you do, make a decision. Companies should practice due diligence in choosing a groupware product. However, too many companies cater to too many agendas, try to appease too many pockets of installed users and try to accommodate too many conflicting requirements. Find answers to the questions posed in this article, pick the winner and move forward. Regardless of scenario, a good IT manager will need to consider the following criteria when choosing a messaging/groupware system. These criteria should be weighted and ranked by your organization by relative importance. By gauging all prospective systems through your company's ranked criteria, you can be better assured of a proper fit for your organization: 1. Installed base of e-mail servers and clients. If there are none (or too few to care about), build it and t hey will come. Welcome to the field of dreams. If there happens to be a significant installed base (or bases), let us be the first to welcome you to the reality bites club. 2. Scalability of new system. Can the new system support all of your potential e-mail/groupware customers-including remote laptop users? Will your system function and perform well across time zones and international boundaries? How many servers will it take to do this? How expensive will this system be when fully implemented? 3. Current NOS standards. Windows NT? Novell NetWare 3.12 or 4.1? Banyan VINES? Unix? LAN Server? What is your current standard, and are you willing to introduce a new one for the sake of your messaging system? Must you simply upgrade, as in the case of LAN Manager or LAN Server to Windows NT Server for Exchange? What protocols are running on the servers and desktops? What protocols are routed or tunneled to ensure connectivity and performance? 4. Third-party support. What gateways and monitoring tools are supplied by third parties? Do they comply with Microsoft Messaging Application Programming Interface e (MAPI) and Common Mail Calls (CMC)? 5. Features. Thought this would be first? Wrong! Beyond simple messaging and calendaring, what else is there? Ask the vendors if about these features-and get the real answers. Present and future NOSes supported-Windows NT, NetWare 3.12 and/or 4.1, Unix and/or LAN Server. Clients supported-Windows for Workgroups, Windows95, NetWare, Apple Macintosh, Unix and/or IBM OS/2. Server and client protocols supported natively-TCP/IP, IPX/SPX, Hypertext Transport Protocol/Hypertext Markup Language (HTTP/HTML). Shared public folders/databases. Replication of shared public folders across multiple servers. Hierarchical information structures (i.e., discussion databases with threads). Support for remote/offline client. Can users disconnect to compose and read? Graphical administrative tools that can be used centrally or distributed. Legacy e-mail mail store import/migration tools and wizards. Plans for Internet compatibility, for this is the next generation of e-mail/groupware products (Web browser, News server, Commerce server, HTML-based forms, Proxy server, Security/Certificate server, etc.) . Fully graphical editor. Ability to replace standard editor with word processor of your choice. Interaction with chosen application suite (i.e., Microsoft Office, IBM/Lotus SmartSuite, Corel/WordPerfect/Quattro Pro)? Directory-synchronization methodology and tools and/or X.500 compliance. Distribution list capability? Personal address book and distribution lists automatically updated via directory synchronization. Native gateways/mail connectors-Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), X.400, other mail systems. Attachment and object handling-Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension (MIME), Uuencode, BINHEX. Easy-to-use development environment. Cross-platform support. Electronic forms (routeable for approval by signature or PIN). "Out of the office"/ autoforwarding/ autoreply features with infinite loop back controls. Alternative services (FAX, alpha pager, etc.). Workflow tools. Notification of incoming message, public folder posting or upcoming scheduled meeting. Rules for incoming messages. Configurable security, encryption and/or electronic signatures. Native monitoring tools. Here's how some of the current products stand up to these criteria: A. Microsoft Exchange Positives: Runs on Microsoft Windows NT Server. Can use server-based profiles that accommodate "roaming" network users and laptops that are connected remotely. Inbox rules. Client/server system. Plain electronic forms. Routeable, but not secure or intelligent. (Look to third parties to augment this capability.) Will be mo ving to Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)-based forms in next release. "Out of the office" autoreply with infinite loop back protection and autoforwarding. Integrated with Microsoft Office. Microsoft Word can be used as mail editor. File/Send menu item added to Office applications. OLE-compliant. Schedule Plus calendaring with meeting notification. Native post-office directory synchronization vastly improved from previous version. Native monitoring tools. Third-party support expected to be excellent. E-mail-import wizards for cc:Mail and Microsoft Mail 3.x. Native SMTP, X.400, Profs/Office Vision/VM, MS Mail gateways/mail connectors with MIME &Uuencode support. Can administer site from any Exchange server. Negatives: Server only runs on Microsoft Windows NT Server 3.51 Service Pack 4. No UNIX clients available. Macintosh client has limited public folders forms support. Weak shared folders/databases. Only really does discussion-type databases well at this point unless Visual Basic is used to augment the native Forms Designer. Forms Designer is limited. Visual Basic or Visual Basic for Applications experience is necessary to develop complex applications. Macintosh users cannot participate dut to forms incompatibility in this release. No indexing of Shared Public folders or the Inbox without a third party add-on. No spell checking in Shared Public folder entries. (This "Touchdown," the old codename for Exchange Public Folders, should get called back for a penalty! Another promise that will only be realized in a future release.) Graphical administrative tool that ties into Windows NT security. This is both good and bad, actually. Like NT Server, Exchange can be a very secure centrally administred system if your organization can respond to geographically disperse customers adequately. To be distributed means that remote site administrators have access to all accounts, which is rarely desirable. This administration tool is separate from the NT User Manag er tool, although the user account for Exchange can be created from NT User Manager when the NT account is created. The revers is also true. No BINHEX support for attachments. Schedule Plus contact information is incompatible with Exchange directory items and Personal Address Book properties. Exchange site connector that connects two or more Exchange "Sites" cannot be configured to limit mail and attachment size. Other connectors (X.400) support it, however. B. IBM/Lotus Notes 4.x Positives: Server runs on all major platforms (NetWare, NT, Unix, OS/2, Win95, Windows for Workgroups). Client runs on all major platforms (NT, Unix, OS/2, Win95, Windows for Workgroups, Macintosh). Client/server system. Supports Open Database Connectivity (ODBC), Structured Query Language (SQL) and Microsoft's Messaging application programming interface (MAPI). Has easy-to use and helpful rules, or "agents" as they are called in Notes terminology. Superior shared folder/database platform with the best replication model. Best laptop implementation for offline database updating and efficient online replication. Selective replication very useful. E-mail front end vastly improved over version 3.x. Integrated with IBM/Lotus SmartSuite and Object Linking and Embedding/FX (OLE/FX) support with Microsoft Office Suite. Includes true BASIC scripting as well as support for the old @Command macro language. This is vastly improved over version 3.x. Both languages work across all supported Notes client platforms. Server supports native Hypertext Transport Protocol (HTTP) with Domino (which is in late beta). Native gateways for cc:Mail. SoftSwitch X.400, Simple Mail Tranfer Protocol (SMTP) and Microsoft Mail gateways. SMTP/MIME MTA Message Transfer Agent on NT for use with the Lotus Notes Release 4.11 Server was just released to manufacturing. Granular security model. Improved security for databases in version 4.x if physical security of Notes server is compromised. Full indexing of all databases (which allows users to search multiple databases simultaneously). Negatives: Calendar is separate product (Lotus Organizer). Web calendaring slated for future release. Is difficult to administer at large sites (local client ID files, expiring certificates, distributing database replicas and the many servers needed for performance/storage reasons make it a challenge). With the release of 4.0, administration has become easier but there is still room for improvement. Security and administration separate from the underlying operating system. Separate names directory with Notes groups to maintain. (This reportedly goes away with Notes 4.5 and NT) Historically expensive until pricing model changed in 1995, but still high-priced regardless of now-competitive pricing. NetWare server platform not very reliable (as per our experience with Notes 3.x). C. Novell GroupWise 4.1 (release 5 in beta) Positives: Integrated with NetWare 4.1's NWadmin and Global Message Handling Service (MHS) for single administration of mail and LAN. Separate administration in NetWare 3.12, however. Arguably the best integration of e-mail, calendaring and workflow routing to date. Eleven clients supported (Windows, Mac, PowerMac, DOS and seven Unix versions). Ten server platforms (Novell, OS/2, DOS and seven Unix versions). Good message-status tracking. Multiplatform server piece. MAPI/CMC compliant. Gateways for Lotus cc:Mail and IBM Office Vision/VM that support e-mail and directory synchronization. X.400 and SMTP gateways for message exchange. "Free" and "busy" scheduling supported through Office Vision/VM gateway. Some mail rules. Client/server with administrator-controlled load balancing. Can be administered from any workstation on the network. Good remote/laptop solution. Full encryption in version 5. Negatives: Originally designed for inefficient MHS. Store-and-forward message-based system (version 5 improves this with database pointers to actual messages and attachments). No public folders/shared databases/development environment (shared folders appear with development tools in version 5). No indexing until version 5. No integration with the Internet until version 5. D. Netscape/Collabra Share SuiteSpot (to be released mid-1997) Expected to include Enterprise Server, HTML development platform (LiveWire Pro), SMTP mail server, news server, catalog indexing of forums, certificate server, proxy server and directory server. Positives: Netscape version 2.x has SMTP mail client. Version 3.0 is in late beta and 4.0 in alpha. Collabra Share is compatible with many mail server and client platforms. Should have the easiest migration of all players to full HTML-based mail/shared folder/document handling system. Negatives: Far-off release date. Collabra Share 2.x requires its own infrastructure (previous versions integrated directly with many e-mail systems). Previous versions of Collabra Share were very mediocre, and only good for discussion-type databases. No spell-checkers, editing of entries or any frills. Administrated separately from e-mail and operating system. E. Oracle InterOffice Released in August, 1996. Positives: Strong database engine. Compliant with MAPI, Post Office Protocol 3 (POP3), Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) and Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) version 4. Document management and Web publishing included. Negatives: No history in e-mail market. Pricing not available at this writing, but Oracle software typically is expensive. Field of Dreams If your organization is new to e-mail/groupware or can afford to trash the installed base, you are indeed a lucky IT manager who is destined for great things (at least a promotion if you do this right). The party lines on this decision scenario are as follows: If your company has standardized on Microsoft's BackOffice (or at least Windows NT Server) and the Microsoft Office suite, it is a good bet that you should go with Microsoft Exchange. Beyond the obvious pricing and integration benefits with BackOffice, you get a pretty good product. Its public folder offering is weak compared to what you can do with IBM/Lotus Notes 4.x, but it fills the niche that Collabra Share 1.x and 2.x did for a few years. It is a rather fat client, especially on Windows for Workgroups laptops; but hopefully, your organization has begun the move to Windows95 or Windows NT Workstation. If your company has Big Red (Novell NetWare) written all over it, we hope that you have made the jump to 4.1 by now. If so, there are many Global MHS based mail systems that fold in with NetWare 4.1 servers. Of course, Novell offers its GroupWise e-mail product, which has a very nice integration of calendaring, messaging and forms. Banyan Systems' Beyondmail; Digital Equipment Corp.'s E-mail Connection; Infinite Technologies' Connect[2] products; Interactive's M-mail; and On Technology's Coordinator all worked with Novell's MHS last we checked. Please check with the particular vendor for more information. There is even a Microsoft Mail 3.2 "shim" for NetWare 4.1 that eliminates the "post office" paradigm for Microsoft Mail 3.x administrators. This is a cost-effective alternative to other mail solutions if you are not concerned with groupware features. Of course, IBM/Lotus Notes Server can also run on a NetWare server as an NetWare Loadable Module (NLM) (but not reliably in our experience at a large company running Notes 3.x and NetWare 3.12. We did not even utilize the e-mail features at the time). You can go for it, but be warned. You can always deploy Notes on Windows NT Server, but you have now increased the complexity of your network for the sake of your e-mail system. Furthermore, if you were going to roll out NT for Notes Servers, you may want to look at Exchange instead. Fo r Unix shops there are zillions of POP3 client/server e-mail systems, but few are very robust. Notes, again, is an option depending on your flavor of Unix. If you want to stick with Unix, you definitely have eliminated Exchange from the choices, since it only runs on Windows NT. It may be worth waiting for the next generation of Web/Internet/HTML-based mail systems from Netscape Communications Corp. and others. Reality Bites If your company is like most, you will need to migrate from an old e-mail system (or possibly multiple e-mail systems). In this case, certain features become much more important than they were in the Field of Dreams scenario. Legacy mail store import tools; gateways/connectors for legacy systems; cross-platform client, server and protocol support; and directory synchronization tools all become paramount to a successful migration. The biggest decision may be to add (or not to add) another network operating system (and possibly new protocol) to your current network mix. Unfortunately, some e-mail/groupware solutions are only supported on server platforms that may not be part of your current standards. Of course, Exchange's proprietary reliance on NT Server has been a difficult enigma for many an IT Manager who previously relied on Netware or Unix for file and print services. Weigh these items heavily when choosing your final product. Next Updated November 15, 1996 Print This Page E-mail this URL