FERRIS E-MAIL ANALYZER analysis and practical insight for e-mail professionals

December, 1993

Volume 2, Number 12

Stress Testing X.400 Gateways Ferris' Bit

Highlights

This month we discuss how to determine the main limitations of an X.400 gateway; and—if you're lucky enough to have a choice—how to differentiate between competing candidates. The Analyzer also welcomes our first guest contributor, Charles Wolverton. I met him at an EMA conference, when he was heading the X.400 backbone project at Aerospace Corporation, a DOD-style think tank. As a result of his experiments, he has a wealth of interesting insights, both theoretical and practical. It was fun working with him. David Ferris

User-friendly addressing is a must, so look for good translation algorithms to and from the X.400 address format. One-off X.400 addressing should be simple. DDAs and single space ADMDs cause bugs. Other user issues include cost; reliability (sometimes gateways just stop); file transfer (try double clicking on an arriving file!); tunneling; international characters; multiple body part handling; performance; and delivery notification. On the technical support side, check the directory synchronization tools, vendor support, ease of installation, and extensibility. Administration tools integrated with the end mail system can be nice, too. Last, check the vendor's development skills, future vision, and commitment.

In This Issue

Research methodology ......................................................... X.400 gateway backgrounder .............................................. Gateway evaluation methodology ...................................... Gateway characteristics you should check ........................ Review of gateways from Microsoft, Retix, Worldtalk.... Contacts ................................................................................ About Charles Wolverton.................................................... November news roundup.................................................... Pending improvements in the technology.........................

2 2 3 4 11 13 13 14 16

Pick Of The News Like moveable feasts? Microsoft said that a beta MAPI software development kit would ship in December, but gave no release dates for non-beta MAPI or even a nonbeta SDK. HP OpenMail got some nice enhancements.

_______________________________________________________________________________ 11=1111111111

Ferris E-Mail Analyzer is published by Perris Networks, 353 Sacramento Street #600, San Francisco, CA 94111. Tel (415) 986-1414. $395/year, single copies $65. Reprints, consulting, and seminars also available. The title Peiris E-Mail Analyzer is a trademark of Ferris Networks. Nothing that appears in Ferris E-Mail Analyzer may be reproduced in whole or in part without the permission of Ferris Networks. 0 1993 Ferris Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. The material contained in Penis E-Mail Analyzer is based on information Ferris Networks believes is reliable, but its and completeness cannot be guaranteed. No liability is assumed for the use of any materials presented in Ferris E-Mail Analyzer, nor for any errors or omissions which may remain. Contact Editor David Ferris at (415) 986- 414 or X.400: G=david; S=ferris; C.us; DD.A.ID=3773271 or Internet: 75300.34220compuserve.com.

How We Researched This Issue Here's how we researched and wrote this issue. We wanted to determine the main problems that people have with X.400 gateways, and the things that differentiate vendor offerings. To this end, we interviewed the following organizations: Aerospace Corporation, Army Corps of Engineers, Bell South, Boston Software Works, Comsat, Department of Energy, Environmental Protection Agency, Fidelity Investments, Florida Power, Hughes Aerospace, Linkage, Microsoft, Novell, Perot Systems, Precision Professional Services, Pro-Tech International, Retix, Sasktel, StarNine, Taco Bell, WordPerfect, Worldtalk, and one other organization who didn't want its name mentioned at all. Finally, we asked X.400 whiz Cemil Betanov, the Environmental Protection Agency, Microsoft, Retix, and Worldtalk to review the issue for factual accuracy and general sanity.

X.400 Gateway Backgrounder People install X.400 gateways for two reasons: • To connect to the public X.400 network. • To connect one or more non-X.400 e-mail systems, using X.400 as the canonical intermediate format. In this case, the X.400 system is known as a backbone. Figure 1

RETIX X.400 GATEWAY Message Store

Synchronous Modem Retix X.400 Gateway

Permanent Network X.25 Connection

Public X.400

This is how Retix' popular X.400 gateway for cc:Mail typically connects to the public X.400 network. The setup is similar to connect to an in-house X.400 backbone, except that the MTA is likely to connect over a LAN rather than via synchronous modems and an X.25 link.

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Definition of Terms, & How Gateways Are Configured A common setup is shown in figure 1, which illustrates the way an X.400 gateway for a PC e-mail system normally works. First, a DOS machine is added to run the gateway. This picks up messages destined for X.400 from the file server, and converts them into X.400 format. Another program, called the Message Transfer Agent or MTA is then responsible for routing the message onwards through the X.400 network itself. The MTA program often runs on a separate DOS PC. Although, when more powerful multi-tasking operating systems are used, such as Unix, DEC's VMS or IBM's MVS, you'll often find the gateway and MTA code resident on the same machine; perhaps even coresident with user mail interface software. If you've put in the gateway to connect to the public X.400 network, you will then need to add an X.25 link together with its special hardware. If, however, you're using the gateway to connect to an in-house X.400 backbone, the MTA machine will probably connect to the rest of the X.400 system using an ethernet LAN. In this Analyzer, we use the term end mail system to refer to the non-X.400 system that's being connected to X.400. When you add everything up—cost of the software plus required hardware—you're typically talking costs of between $10,000 and $50,000. An X.25 connection typically involves setup costs of about $1,000, plus a minimum monthly service charge of $500. Using a Common Carrier's X400 Gateway If these costs and unfamiliar communications technologies scare you, and if you don't mind a certain loss of functionality, it's often possible to connect your mail system to a public e-mail service such as MCI Mail or SprintMail. Here, the public carrier runs an X.400 gateway at their premises, so you're shielded from most of the complexity, and the installation costs are negligible. However, in this issue we shall only touch on this option, assuming the reader has decided to go with their own gateway. For further details, check the December, 92 Analyzer.

Evaluation Methodology For a given mail system, your choice of gateways to X.400 is usually pretty small. Often there's only one, and you're very lucky if there are three. So we recommend the following evaluation methodology: • Identify gateways. Find out what gateways are available for the mail system you need to connect to X.400. • If all you need is connection to the world-wide public X.400 network, check into the X.400 gateways on public carriers like Compuserve, MCI, and Sprint. You can use these for a low fee with minimal up front costs; plus installation and support are simple.

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•

Check into costs. Are any solutions ruled out because of this, irrespective of their functionality? For example, maybe you can't afford Soft•Switch Central's X.400 gateway, or Worldtalk along with an HP-9000 platform. • Get detailed vendor literature, have in-depth discussions with vendors, and interview references. Investigate how each gateway addresses the major problem areas described in the next section. • Test products. Chances are you only have one or two prospective candidates for each mail system you need to connect to X.400. We think you should bring in the rival candidates and test them in your environment, again focusing on issues raised in the next section. Then pick your favorite.

Gateway Features To Check Here we describe the major things to check for when you're trying out an X.400 gateway. The goal is to help you chose between a choice of gateways, if you're so lucky as to have a choice; and to identify gateway limitations you will need to be aware of. Addressing Figure 2

ADDRESS FORMATS

Mall System

Address Structure

Example

PROFS/OV MS Mail/PC NetWare MHS QuickMail Internet

User.Node Network, Postoffice, Mailbox user@workgroup User:Mailcenter user@domain

SMITH.MRKING BIGCORP,MARKET,PCSMITH SMITH@MARKET PC Smith:Marketing [email protected]

A good gateway will let users see X.400 addresses in the format they're accustomed to.

Address Transparency Wherever possible, users should be able to look at mail addresses in the format of their end mail system (figure 2)—especially for correspondence within their organization. The translations to and from X.400 address formats are done in several ways: • Using administrator-selectable algorithms. For example, Retix' cc:Mail-toX.400 gateway offers a variety of such mappings (figure 3).

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• Using hard-coded mappings. Here, the administrator defines an end system address for each X.400 address. This is painstaking work and not usually to be recommended. Using administrator-defined algorithms. Here, you use a high level language to define the mapping functions you need. This approach, seen with ZOOMIT's EDMS, is not yet common. If you're unlucky, your X.400 gateway might only offer hard-coded mapping; or, worse, no address mapping at all. For further information, see the May 93 Analyzer. Also, look into the name mapping tools provided with Soft•Switch' EMX and Worldtalk's Address Manager, they are the best we've seen. Figure 3

ADMINISTRATOR-SELECTABLE ADDRESS MAPPINGS WITH RETIX' CC:MAIL GATEWAY

Given Surname

Harry Truman

Surname Given

Truman Harry

Surname—Given

Truman—Harry

Surname, Given

Truman, Harry

Surname—Initials

Truman—HS

Surname.lnitials

Truman.HS

Given Initials Surname

Harry S Truman

Given Initials Surname Generation

Harry S Truman III

Incoming and outgoing X.400 messages are converted to cc:Mail addresses by mapping the X.400 given name and surname fields as shown. Additional required X.400 information such as PRMD, ADMD and country is added for outgoing messages.

One-Off Addressing The issue here is: How easy is it to type in an X.400 address? For example, suppose you just met someone. Their business card shows their X.400 address, and you want to mail them something. There are various approaches: • Ideally, you can fill in the fields of an addressing form (figure 4). • Next best, you can type in the free-form X.400 address in the TO: field of a message, prefixed by some characters indicating that it's an X.400 address. • Insert the recipient's X.400 address in the body of a message, using a special syntax. Not very elegant, but necessary when the end mail system's user interface requires a precise syntax, such as the 8X8 format of PROFS/OV.

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e You go to an administrator, who adds the X.400 address to the mail directory, together with an address in the normal end mail system format. You then send the mail by picking the new name from the mail directory. Extremely inconvenient for users and administrators alike. Figure 4

ONE-OFF ADDRESSING

Given name Surname Generation ADMD PRMD Organization Organizational Unit Country Gateway name X400

___ 1

If you're lucky, your end mail system will let users type in X.400 addresses by entering fields of a form, as illustrated here by BeyondMail. Alternatively, you may have to type in a long string of characters in the TO: field. Older mail systems such as PROFS/OV and Wang Office don't accomodate X.400 addresses at all.

DDA Address Routing X.400 provides a very general method of putting non-X.400 addresses in an X.400 format. This uses the domain-defined attribute or DDA, which consists of two parts: DDA type (DT) and DDA value (DV). For example, the MHS address given in figure 2 might have an X.400 address as follows: C=US; A=MCI; P=BIGCORP; DT=mhs; DV=SMITH@MARKET MTA's often get confused by DDA's, because they may not have any way of routing the messages. Single Space ADMDs Today's X.400 addresses require you to put in an ADMD field, which is usually the name of a commercial service like MCI or SPRINT. It's been seriously proposed to make the address carrier-neutral, notably by allowing the ADMD to be a single space. Also, the Internet pilot X.400 project uses a single space as ADMD value. Consequently, the software should accept a single space as ADMD value. Easier said than done, because client software as well as the gateway software will often ignore a single space like this, causing a parsing error. The invisibility of a space also creates problems: there are various workarounds, but they tend to be unwieldy.

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Other Mainly User Issues Cost Figure in hidden costs like gateway and MTA software, computers to run the software, LAN and X.25 cards, modems, and communications links. Reliability Some fine gateways don't work well in a particular customer environment, for reasons that are never clear. They may simply never get working, despite a week's work onsite by a vendor system engineer. Or maybe messages get corrupted. Or maybe the gateway goes down unpredictably. The more a gateway has been tested for interoperability with other systems, the better. Unless you enjoy job hunting and don't care about accrued pension benefits, poor reliability is probably good grounds to disqualify the product from further consideration. File Transfer Most X.400 gateways will process multiple file attachments. Unfortunately, X.400 doesn't spell out a way of transferring important information about the file, such as the file name, application that created it, creation date, and size. This means that when a file arrives from X.400, it can be tough launching the application. Mac and Windows users expect to be able to double click on a file and start work; instead they get a message like "Sorry, the application which created this file can't be found". X.400 gateway vendors have devised various workarounds, but they tend to be clumsy. Delivery Notification Gateways differ in how they define message delivery. In principle, X.400 delivery occurs when the message is successfully delivered to the recipient's message store. However, some X.400 gateways send a delivery notification when they receive an X.400 message and pass it to the end mail system, even though there are still several ways delivery to the final message store could fail. Also, when delivery fails, the failure notification should identify the message in question. This is not always the case. At a minimum, the failure notice should include the addressee, subject, date, and a unique identifier added by the X.400 gateway. If at all possible, the failed message itself, together with attachments, should also be returned. Boundary Conditions X.400 has a lot of high boundary conditions. For example, you can have large numbers of file attachments or of message recipients, and addresses can be made up of very long strings. Most end mail systems have tighter constraints. So what happens when an arriving message exceeds the end mail system's boundaries? Eg, if the sender's X.400 address is long, does it get chopped to the first 31 characters? Or are long text messages turned into attachments? Expect problems, and check how the gateway handles them.

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Tunneling Normally, special goodies of an end mail system—things like text color attributes, attachment names and icons, etc—are lost when they go through an X.400 gateway. However, some X.400 gateways will allow messages to be passed with no loss of fidelity provided you have the same X.400 gateway and the same mail system at both ends. This is known as tunneling or encapsulation. A growing number of X.400 gateways offer this feature, including those of MS Mail/PC and WordPerfect Office. International Character Sets If you're international, you'll want messages to contain the special characters found in various non-English languages. Addresses themselves usually have to be in straight ASCII, so forget umlauts, acutes, etc. Multiple Text Body Parts

Most non-X.400 mail products have a single main text message and possibly one or more attached files. In X.400, there are multiple body parts, each of which can be of any allowable type. Thus, an X.400 gateway has to decide how to convert incoming multiple body part messages into a main-messageplus-attachments format. The way it chooses to do things can cause problems. For example, some X.400 gateways include information about attached files (name, size, etc.) in a separate text body part. Users often prefer this information to be available in the message body rather than in an attached file that must be opened for viewing. Another example is where an Internet message goes through X.400 before arriving at a non-X.400 end mail system. The Internet has a mail routing body part separate from the message body part, but the two can end up being strung together (figure 5). Figure 5

MULTIPLE BODY PART HANDLING

Sender: [email protected] Received: from aerospace.aero.org by dub-img-l.compuserve.com (5.67/5.930129sam) id AA09644; Wed, 27 Oct 93 16:04:45 -0400 Received: from gmail3.aero.org by aerospace.aero.org with SMTP (5.65c/6.0.GT) id AA03506 for [email protected]; Wed, 27 Oct 1993 13:04:32 -0700 Posted-Date: 27 Oct 93 13:09:37 U Message-Id: Date: 27 Oct 93 13:09:37 U From: "Charles Wolverton' Subject: X.400GW paper update-part I To: [email protected] OFFICE MEMO david -

Subject: X.400GW paper

Will get you the outline in 3 days .......

Time:12:56 PM Date:10/27/93 Charles.

Incoming X.400 messages with multiple body parts may be crammed into a single message. In the case of Internet messages, this often means wading through large tracts of routing information before you can read the text.

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Performance Initially, a DOS-based gateway may be fast enough. However, if the traffic increases, you may need to move to a more powerful platform, such as a RISC processor. Several gateway vendors are beginning to offer their products on multiple platforms. Gateway vendors are also beginning to talk about running concurrent sessions under a multi-tasking OS such as OS/2, Unix, or Windows NT, and also allowing load sharing between separate gateway PCs. File Size X.400 gateways have limits on the size of message that they will successfully handle, typically in the range of a few megabytes. Since many users see e-mail as an alternative to file transfer using traditional methods (disks, FTP, etc), this may result in user dissatisfaction. The other side of the coin is that some gateways allow the administrator to set a size limit. You may need to do this, since large files can hog the mail system, and often stop other transmissions while they're being processed. Whatever the case, the limits should be determined for each gateway, and users advised accordingly. Technical Support Issues Directory Synchronization Today, most PC e-mail products can coordinate addresses among different groups of users of the same system. That is, they can do internal directory synchronization. However, when you're connecting different end mail systems via an X.400 backbone, you need to arrange for directory synchronization between the different systems. You'll usually have two types of tools to work with: • APIs provided by the gateway, which let you move addresses to and from a directory on the X.400 side. • APIs provided by the end mail system, which let you move addresses to and from the end mail system's directory. Designing and building the inter-system directory synchronization is usually a pain, and difficult to run reliably. However, relief is in sight. Some gateways, such as those from NetSwitch, Soft•Switch, and Worldtalk, are just beginning to do the whole job, directly integrating the directories of connected end mail systems. For more on the do's and don'ts of this delicious field, see the May 93 Analyzer. Vendor Technical Support One problem with X.400 gateways is that they involve a wide variety of different concepts, from low-level data communications protocols such as X.25, TCP, and TP4, to high level ones like ADMDs, address mapping and chargeback mechanisms. We've yet to see a support person who didn't find some aspects new and confusing.

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Hence it's important to have telephone access to vendor support staff. You want them to understand the gateway, what's involved in installation, and the nature of your environment. Unfortunately, with some vendors you end up talking to people who know less than you do. Integrated Administration Some gateways—notably those of Microsoft and WordPerfect—are tightly integrated with the end e-mail system's administration utilities. This makes for easier administration, less learning, and nice extra features. This is particularly attractive if you aren't concerned with maintaining an X.400 backbone. Ease Of Installation As we remarked, there's a lot to learn when installing X.400. So the easier the installation process, the better. Gateways with integrated administration have a natural advantage in this regard. Extensibility Most gateways lack a lot of useful features they'll presumably have in a couple of years. Things like user chargeback, or sending alerts to support staff, are often lacking. You may also have special needs that will never be accommodated by a product sold to many companies. In both cases, it's helpful if a gateway has some sort of user exit so you can write your own code. Vendor Issues

Development Skills & Future Vision You want the gateway vendor to be good at enhancing their product. It should be able to keep up with: • Features of the end mail system. For example, when cc:Mail offered tunneling, cc:Mail-to-X.400 gateway vendors needed to support this. Another example is that X.400 has a rich set of delivery notifications; if an end mail system has its notifications improved, the gateway vendor should quickly develop corresponding support. • Evolving X.400 and X.500 standards, and other industry trends such as intransit document conversion and virus checking. Vendors should also understand where the technology's going and be abreast of new developments, else they'll be at a significant development disadvantage. Assessing vendors in this regard is somewhat subjective, but nevertheless it's worth doing with them directly and with references. In our judgment, some vendors are markedly superior to their competition in this regard. Commitment Finally, you will probably want to consider the risks that the vendor will go out of business, or drop the gateway line. Dangers lurk everywhere. Some better vendors are small firms living off investment capital, or at least not making money on their X.400 gateways. Some big firms like DEC could easily drop their X.400 products since their lives don't depend on it. ____________________________________________________________________________________1111111•11M1

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Review Of Selected Gateways We now look at three well-known gateways. Two (Microsoft, Retix) are mainly concerned with linking just two environments, while Worldtalk's gateway should really be seen as part of a larger family of tools which integrate different end mail systems. Microsoft's MS Mail/PC-to-X.400 Gateway Microsoft offers a wide selection of gateways. They connect MS Mail/PC to: X.400, fax, SMTP, SNADS, PROFS/OV, MCI Mail, AT&T EasyLink, NetWare MHS, and 3+Mail. Major £400 Gateway Strengths • You can do 1-off X.400 addressing in the DOS and Windows MS Mail clients using a fill-in-the-blanks template. • Good interoperability with X.400 gateways from other vendors. • Administration is tightly integrated with that of MS Mail. • Good support for international alphabets. • Built-in tunneling. • Support is good, provided you use Microsoft's Premier support program. Major X.400 Gateway Weaknesses • There's only one administrator-selectable mapping between MS Mail and X.400 addresses, and it's crude. Hence user X.400 addresses are usually counter-intuitive. • Users are usually forced to see X.400 sender addresses in X.400 format, rather than in the format they are used to. • As a result of the poor administrator-selectable address mappings, MS Mail/X.400 address pairs must usually be hard coded–extremely tedious. • Poor reliability, because unrelated network problems such as file server hiccups can easily cause the DOS-based gateway to stop functioning. • Built-in MTA only runs X.400 over ISO protocols; TCP/IP isn't possible. • Gateway installation requires understanding of ISO network protocols. Retix' cc:Mail-to-X.400 Gateway Retix sells a variety of X.400 products, notably: • An X.400 MTA, known as the OpenServer, which runs under DOS, OS/2, as well as SCO and Interactive Unix. An NLM version—ie, one that runs in a NetWare server—should ship in 1Q94. The latest version is a 1988 MTA integrated with X.500 on IBM's RS/6000. • A remote MTA manager, that works with Unix and OS/2 OpenServers. • Directory synchronization software, using the DX protocol. This is in early stages, and currently allows an address repository to be maintained on an Interactive or SCO Unix-based OpenServer machine. The cc:Mail and MS Mail/PC gateways are integrated with the DX directory.

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• Gateways which connect the following e-mail systems to X.400: cc:Mail, MS Mail/Mac, MS Mail/PC, NetWare MHS, QuickMail, SMTP. A Notes gateway is scheduled for 1Q94. We now summarize Retix' most popular X.400 gateway—cc:Mail-to-X.400. Major cc:Mail Gateway Strengths • There's a good choice of administrator-selectable address mapping algorithms (figure 3), which shield users from unfamiliar X.400 addresses. • The central DX address repository is automatically updated when changes are made to the cc:Mail environment. • The latest version of the gateway has a good reputation for reliability. • Users like Retix' support, which is not necessarily free. • Multi-MTA sites will like the remote management. • Customers going CMIP will like the CMIP-based mail management. Major cc:Mail Gateway Weaknesses • Senders of incoming X.400 messages are automatically registered in the gateway's directory. Such addresses and their cc:Mail equivalents proliferate and there are no tools to help deal with them. • To receive X.400 messages, cc:Mail users must first send a message to the gateway and they will then be registered. There's no utility to bulk propagate cc:Mail addresses into the gateway. • For 1-off addressing, users must fill in the full X.400 string in the cc:Mail TO: field (form-based prompting not available). • No cc:Mail tunneling support. • Information in log files is difficult to use. • Recent financial vicissitudes have raised some speculative concern about Retix' commitment to the X.400 side of its business. Worldtalk's cc:Mail-to-X.400 Gateway Worldtalk offers a family of products to integrate different e-mail systems. The main components are: • Gateways to cc:Mail, Lotus Notes, MS Mail/Mac, MS Mail/PC, NetWare MHS, QuickMail, and SMTP. • The Worldtalk 400 Server. This provides a central X.400 address repository, plus additional intelligence. Each X.400 address has a series of aliases which may be used in connected mail systems. The software runs on an HP-9000 or a PC under SCO Unix. Major cc:Mail-to-X.400 Gateway Strengths • The name mapping is state-of-the-art. Users rarely see addresses in formats they are unaccustomed to. • Users can have simple 0/R addresses, with no OU's required. The server automatically provides additional routing information. • Mail can be automatically forwarded when users change locations or mail systems.

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• Users like Worldtalk support. It can include customer integration services. • The gateways log basic tracking information, which you can monitor from a central location. Under certain conditions you can restart faulted gateways. • Worldtalk plans to support both X.400 and SMTP/MIME as transports. This is nice if you want to leave your options open between the two as backbone technologies. Major cc:Mail-te-X.400 Gateway Weaknesses

• The system can get pricey. Eg, the cost for 5,000 users and three gateways is $72,500, plus you'll need to pay for the underlying hardware and X.400 MTA—at least an extra $15,000. Figure $12,500 less if you're running SCO Unix. • Changes made to the Worldtalk name repository aren't automatically propagated to attached end mail systems; and vice versa. You have to write your own utilities to do this. • Usually the system is configured so that message addresses are automatically registered in the directory, if they aren't there already. However, such addresses and their cc:Mail equivalents can proliferate and there are no tools to manage them. • For 1-off addressing, users must fill in the full X.400 string in the cc:Mail TO: field (form-based prompting is not available). • There's no tunneling between cc:Mail systems connected via X.400. • The marketing materials are unclear: it's hard to work out what Worldtalk offers and what the company's direction is.

Contacts Microsoft 800 227 4679 NetSwitch 708 382 9191

Soft•Switch 215 640 9600 WordPerfect 801 225 5000

Worldtalk 408 399 4000 ZOOMIT 416 866 7442

Retix 310 828 3400

Charles Wolverton Charles Wolverton received undergraduate degrees from Rice University and a PhD from the University of Texas-Austin, all in electrical engineering. He has worked for numerous aerospace companies—MITRE, TRW, MIT Lincoln Labs, STI, Aerospace Corporation—as a satellite communication system engineer. At Aerospace, he led the e-mail integration project. He writes on e-mail and distributed information technology. Plus, he has a charming Texan drawl.

Ferris E-Mail Analyzer, December, 1993. 1993 Ferris Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced without permission. For subscriptions ($395/year), reprints, consulting, seminars contact FNI, 353 Sacramento Street #600, San Francisco, CA 94111. Tel (415) 986-1414. 13

November News Roundup APPLICATIONS ... MAPI Software Developer's Kit. Beta will be available December. No dates given for a non-beta SDK for MAPI, nor for general MAPI availability. Microsoft, 206 936 6956. WordPerfect Office Remote For Windows, Mac. Available Dec. 93 and end of 1Q94 respectively. Brian Chapman, 801 228 5037. Wang OPEN/office: X.400/X.500 LAN E-Mail. New product shipped. Clients use X.400/500 backbone running on HP-9000, IBM RS/6000. Tom Mitro, Wang, 508 967 2081. cc:Mail Third Party Catalog. New version now available. Lotus, 800 448 2500. Visioneer Document Scanning. Bundled scanner, integrated with mail systems, basic image editing. Shelley Harrison, Visioneer, 415 599 0316. PowerTalk Personal Internet Gateway By StarNine. Available 1Q94. David Thompson, StarNine, 510 649 4949. Lotus Notes Interactive Voice Response. Phone integration for Notes will be available early 94. Cheryl McPherson, 617 693 1607. QuickMail AOCE. Now shipping. Jim O'Gara, CE Software, 515 221 1801. WordPerfect Office NLM. Runs on HP PA-RISC platforms, in development. Frank Sessions, WordPerfect, 801 228 5053. JetForm Forms Management. New modules help manage a forms library. Langley Steinert, JetForm, 617 647 7700. Network Scheduler 3 for Lotus Notes. Ships December 93. Carl Melville, Powercore, 815 468 3737. Z-Mail v3.0. New features of this TCP/IP mail package include directory services, MIME, local languages, remote mail, better performance. John Payne, Z-Code, 415 499 8649. IBM To Resell Lotus SmartSuite for OS/2. In addition to existing resales of cc:Mail and Notes. Lotus Notes: Document Imaging v2. Shared access to scanned & faxed images, cheaper pricing. Cheryl McPherson, Lotus, 617 693 1607. Lotus Notes Interoperability With ViewStar Document Management & Workflow. Bridge products will be released over next 12 months. Betsy Kosheff, Lotus, 413 232 7057. Compuserve cc:Mail Hub. Available December 94. Representative 541, Compuserve, 800 457 MAIL. WorkMAN For Lotus Notes. Reach Software's workflow development tools will be a Notes add-on, available early 94. WorkMAN/AppWare Integration. The tools will be bundled with Novell's Visual AppBuilder, no release date. Cory Crawford, Reach, 408 733 8685. Fax Connection For PC E-Mail. FAXMai1 Gateway integrates Alcom's LanFax Redirector with cc:Mail, Notes, MS Mail, WordPerfect Office, & NetWare MHS systems. Jeff Gretz, TRS, 503 626 7841. Notework Gets Folders. V2.5 now available. Karen Whitman, ON Technology, 617 374 1400. Hughes NetLOCK Encrypts Network Packets. Available for Sun networks in December, NetWare in 94. Diana Ball, Hughes, 714 732 5352. BeyondMail 2.0 Ships. New features include NGMHS support, serial routing slips, document imaging, tight database integration. Paula Berman, Beyond, 617 229 0006. FirstClass v2.5. New features include forms access to common DBMS, unsend, delivery receipts, message priorities, encryption, multi-hop routing, directory synchronization, user aliases. Dallas Kachan, SoftArc, 416 299 4723. Unix BBD. MMB TEAMate now has Windows, Sun clients. Bob Baskerville, MMB, 310 318 1322. BRS/SEARCH Document Management. Now accepts most word processing docs, using Keyword converters. Dick Kaser, BRS Software, 703 556 7409. XPost v3.0. A NetWare-based mail system. New features include multi-tasking UI, MHS version selection, user preferences. Jason Dye, LANTEC, 800 352 6832. MAINLY INTEGRATION ... HP OpenMail Enhancements. Better graphics, professional services to help with legacy migrations, Linkage SNADS

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Ferris E-Mail Analyzer, December, 1993. 1993 Ferris Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced without permission. For subscriptions ($395/year), reprints, consulting, seminars contact FNI, 353 Sacramento Street #600, San Francisco, CA 94111. Tel (415) 986-1414.

& PROFS/OV gateways, support for cc:Mail bulletin boards, cc:Mail v2.0 & cc:Mail for OS/2 clients, group scheduling, will support VIM 2.0 in early 1994. Rebecca Landre, HP, 408 447 5333. HP, Soft•Switch To Collaborate On EMX, OpenMail Marketing. May also involve some co-development. Rebecca Landre, HP, 408 447 5333. X.400 Router for Lotus Notes. ISOCOR released its software to connect Notes servers over X.400. Carol Kellogg, ISOCOR, 310 476 2671. Baranof MailCheck Has Alerts. Nice enhancement to this mail management monitor. Peter Zimmer, Baranof, 617 783 0080. Wingra Missive Gets Keyword Intransit Conversion. Now available. Barbara Kocher, Wingra, 608 238 4454. CDC Mail* Hub. Keyword translators will provide intransit document conversion. Sun Solaris platform, plus 1988 X.400 and X.500 now supported. Nancy Harrower, CDC, 612 482 4319. New NGMHS To cc:Mail, MS Mail Gateways. Sounds full-function, available now. Jay Jaiswal, Amadeus, 703 448 8666. Defense Messaging System: Enterprise Solutions Collaboration. The X.400/500 backbone vendor will collaborate with Communications & Power Engineering to produce DMS compliant system. Jeff Drake, Enterprise Solutions, 805 499 5514. MBLink Gateways Get Keyword Document Conversion. Now available. Jay Jaiswal, Amadeus, 703 448 8666. Lotus Supports McCaw CDPD. The two companies will work together to provide wireless communications. Sterling To Integrate Its EDI With ISOCOR MTA. Gail Whitcomb, Sterling, 614 793 7142. AlisaMail's OpenDirectory API. Can now use directory as main corporate directory. Don Cole, Alin, 818 792 9474. Calendaring Interoperability Requirements Spec. Publication imminent from MHS Alliance. Cheryl Snapp, MHS Alliance, 801 225 7888. NetWare MHS Interoperability Certification. Will be developed by Novell and MHS Alliance. Cheryl Snapp, MHS Alliance, 801 225 7888. Modest Unix Integration For Banyan Intelligent Messaging. Unix workstations can telnet into character client on server. Siobhan Carroll, Banyan, 508 898 1000. TRANSPORT DETAILS ... Compuserve Now Has X.400 Connections To Infonet, Deutsche Bundespost. Compuserve, 800 848 8990. New RAM Mobile Pricing. Designed to be less than one-way paging. George Grabowich, RAM, 908 602 5267. McCaw Messaging Introduces MailFlash Package. Allows common e-mail packages to send messages to alphanumeric pagers. Theresa Roberts, McCaw, 206 820 3823. RadioMail... DOS API available, other platforms planned. Support for Apple Newton. Ed Forman, RadioMail, 415 286 7800. MAPI Application Development & Consulting. New services from Transend. Joe Barbera, Transend, 410 290 5900. JetForm c7 VIM v2.0. Now supported. Langley Steinert, JetForm, 617 647 7700. EMA UPDATE ... Renamed Electronic Messaging Association from Electronic Mail Association. Next conference April 18-21, 94, Anaheim, CA. Three new papers: Domain Name Registration, Internet E-Mail Services, PC LAN E-Mail Primer. All good. Heather Burneson, EMA, 703 524 5550.

Ferris E-Mail Analyzer, December, 1993. 0 1993 Ferris Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced without permission. For subscriptions ($395/year), reprints, consulting, seminars contact FNI, 353 Sacramento Street #600, San Francisco, CA 94111. Tel (415) 986-1414.

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Pending Technology Advances Here's a summary of the improvements to X.400 gateways we expect to see over the next couple of years: Directory Synchronization Many end e-mail systems will be enhanced so that users can submit interactive queries to external X.500 directory services. X.400 gateway vendors will support such queries, and will themselves integrate with external X.500 directories. We also expect the DX protocol—and closely related fellow travelers such as Soft•Switch' DS—to be widely implemented. This will be a useful way of synchronizing the directories of in-house e-mail systems. Body Part 15 As we discussed in the November Analyzer on file transfer, arriving files often have minimal associated information, which often makes using them a pain. The Electronic Messaging Association (EMA) has a Body Part 15 working group (see November Analyzer) which is working on the problem. Expect offthe-shelf solutions in 95. Document Conversion, Virus Control Gateways vendors are beginning to provide exits which allow administrators to plug in their favorite document conversion software. Novell and Soft•Switch are early players, aided by their development partner Keyword (see November Analyzer). The exits should also be a useful way to run virus checking utilities. Telephone Connection Today, you use X.25 to connect to public X.400 networks. This is a real damper on X.400 traffic, since the technology is unfamiliar to support staff and is relatively costly Typically you're talking $1,000 in up front costs, plus monthly fees of at least $500. A standard for communicating by ordinary asynchronous modems over dialup telephone lines has been defined, and practical commercial deployment should start during 94. Enhanced Text PC e-mail systems often let you add emphasis to text messages with highlighting or color coding, using special codes which are lost as the message passes through an X.400 gateway (unless you're tunneling, of course). The EMA's thinking about standard ways of defining such enhancements, and perhaps we'll see better enhanced text handling over the next few years. Mail Management Mail management for X.400—remote configuration of MTA routing tables, address map configuration, the generation of alerts, etc—is in its infancy. HP OpenMail and Soft•Switch' EMX are in the lead. Some standards efforts are under way, but at an early state of development. Expect lots of activity, especially proprietary stuff from integration vendors.

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Ferris E-Mail Analyzer, December, 1993. 0 1993 Ferris Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced without permission. For subscriptions ($395/year), reprints, consulting, seminars contact FNI, 353 Sacramento Street *600, San Francisco, CA 94111. Tel (415) 986-1414.