ITS Mail Working Group
Interim Report
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At the end of March 1996, after receiving the report
The Electronic Mail Service at
UWO, ITS management followed
the recommendations of that report by forming a small working group
consisting of the authors of this report to
...look at the alternatives and interoperability of email
applications. EMC2 will need to be phased out and the VAX will
be replaced within the next year (or
so). (ITS Management Minutes Mar
28)
The goal of this project is to recommend a campus mail
system to replace
the existing EMC2 system (as a first priority) and to become a
general, ITS supported, e-mail system that VAX users and others can
gradually adopt. Client, server and desktop interoperability issues
will be addressed. It is important to note that the project will
focus on the e-mail service rather than trying to replace the ``Total
Office Automation'' aspects (scheduling, bulletin board, conferencing
services, FAX gateway and forms system) of the existing EMC2 product.
We expect that other project groups will be formed to work with us on
replacing the non-e-mail functions of that system.
A recommendation from this group was expected by the end of the
summer, but this report recommends that this be adjusted to the end of
1996. Implementation and transition phases will follow during
1997.
In the following sections we'll outline the activities and work
initiated so far and those planned for the next few months. Our
activities have concentrated in three areas: keeping everyone
informed; EMC2 research; and defining the new direction.
- An InTouch article describing the group including some
preliminary information for users was written and included in
the Summer 1996
InTouch.
- This Interim Report was prepared for ITS Management and will
also be posted to the ITS homepage in the ITS Special Projects
section.
- In early September we will be scheduling a meeting with the
campus postmasters (with an invitation to the TUMs group)
to inform them about the project, give them a
chance to ask questions and to assure them that they can
participate.
The three group members that aren't EMC2 users took a short course on
the EMC2 package to familiarize themselves with the facilities and
features of the package.
A rough survey for existing users of EMC2 was developed to the
point that it could be used as a tool in interviews conducted by team
members. We felt that an informal, hands-on approach to
gathering this information was important.
A group of 12 key users (representing many others) of the existing
EMC2 system were identified and surveyed via interviews. In general,
this group was supportive and not at all adverse to the move away from
EMC2, especially if they could make the move on their own timetable
-- most preferred a summer transition. The group consisted of the
following people, included is their department followed by any special
reason for interviewing them:
- Alcina Stoetzer (President's Office)
- Jan VanFleet (Secretariat)
- Tammy Robins (Registrar) -- Scheduling and heavy
Folder user
- Scott MacCrone (Registrar's Office)
- Paul Martin/ Karen MacIntyre (Finance) -- use of Forms and Fax
- Karen Chelladurai (Graduate Studies) --
representative EMC2 user
- Gerry Roberts (Alumni) -- representative EMC2 user
- Mary Anne O'Brien (PeopleSoft) for Bob McKerlie (ITS)
-- PeopleSoft compatibility
- Denis Regnier (ITS) -- Forms user
- Geri Harness (ITS) -- front-line EMC2 support
Many issues were identified by the mail working group and reinforced
by our interviews with EMC2 users. We classified these issues into
three categories to define how they should be addressed.
- Some have either already been or
will soon be addressed by this working group -- Mail
Working Group.
- Others will need to be solved by the follow-on group(s) that
will be responsible for the transition of the existing EMC2
users to the new system -- Transition Team. An
embryonic version of this team consisting of Reg Quinton and
Chuck Reid has already started work on some of these issues.
- Still others have been identified as having major impact on
the mail replacement project but due to the mandate of the
group and the independence of the undertaking, we recommend
that they be considered as separate projects -- Spinoff
Project. These projects should get underway as soon as
possible in order to permit an orderly move from the current
system to the new one.
See Appendix A for more details on these projects and issues.
- Mail Delivery to Home Directory Project in progress
- Addressing and UWO Directory Spinoff Project
- Mailing Lists and Nicknames Transition Team
- Old Mail Folders Transition Team
- Keeping Existing Important EMC2 Features
- Departmental Mailboxes Mail Working Group
- Standard Binary Attachments Mail Working Group
- Auto Reply/Vacation Mail Working Group
- BBS/Shared Folders Spinoff Project
- Calendaring/Scheduling Investigative project in progress
- Forms Spinoff Project
- FAX Gateway Spinoff Project
- New Features MAPI, Spellchecker Mail Working Group
- Keeping the client lean Mail Working Group
- IDs and Passwords Too many... Spinoff Project
Our preliminary investigations of the Internet-based e-mail field
showed us that an IMAP4-based service would likely be the best upgrade to the existing
systems. Some excellent papers are available at the University of
Washington's IMAP Information Centre that outline the reasons why we
should implement an IMAP4-based system at UWO. In brief, IMAP4 solves
many of the problems associated with the earlier proprietary
EMC2-based and POP3-based client/server e-mail models:
- Messages are stored and retrieved by the client using an open,
widely implemented protocol: IMAP4.
- Mail and filed mail are accessible from anywhere since they are
stored in a central database.
- Mail and folders are reliably backed up.
- Off-line mail with synchronization when the user next connects
is supported.
- Powerful filing and searching capabilities are built into the
server.
The IMAP4 approach is becoming universal in the industry with the
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) close to finishing a common
standard. Vendors from Netscape, Sun and IBM to Microsoft are now
supporting, endorsing and implementing this standard for e-mail.
The major push to make IMAP universal has just started (the first IMAP
conference was held in January 1996 with attendees that included the
who's-who of the e-mail world) so UWO will be well positioned to
adopt this technology as we replace our old systems over the next year
or two. We believe that an IMAP4-based service will meet the e-mail
requirements for the most users for at least the next five years.
In June we installed the University of Washington's IMAP4 server on
the mail hub machine julian.uwo.ca for testing by the working group.
- Internet Mail Consortium is an industry group that includes many of the
major e-mail players including Qualcomm (Eudora), Lotus, Sun
Microsystems, NetManage (Z-Mail). This group is heavily involved
in the evolving IMAP4 definition and are committed to supporting the
protocol. They also sponsor periodic interoperability tests among
competing mail systems.
- Two members of the working group attended the IETF 36 and
related INet'96 conferences at the end of June. The
conference helped provide a feel for where the Internet
community is going with the e-mail related directory services
(Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)) and with the
long term standardization of the Application Configuration
Access Protocol (ACAP) which will allow the implementation of
a general and centralized user profile database. Both of
these issues will significantly affect the campus mail system
over the next few years.
We decided to put our primary efforts into finding an e-mail system that
has grown out of the open Internet tradition rather than a LAN-based
system that is gradually adding Internet capabilities. This has the
advantage of fitting well into our existing mail infrastructure
(i.e. the back-end) and into the Internet without the need of
troublesome gateways. The disadvantage (and thus tradeoff) is that
the LAN-based systems currently present a somewhat glossier application to
the end-user -- the client programs are more mature. We have noted
that the gap between the two types is shrinking as more fully featured
Internet Mail applications appear.
For the PeopleSoft project, it is important that simple MAPI-based
interface is provided by the client applications. All of the leading
commercial products do provide the simple hooks required.
We also expect that POP3-based clients (like the current freeware
version of Eudora) will continue to be supported for quite some time
in parallel with the IMAP4 service. Indeed the most popular IMAP4
server includes POP3 support.
Using a list of client programs supplied via the
IMAP Information Centre at the University of Washington, we identified
the major players in the market and will be concentrating on these.
All of the software is currently under very active development so
there is some risk in choosing any of them. Indeed, we expect the
list to change during the next few months of our investigation. Our
hope is that a clear winner will emerge before the end of the year.
- Siren Systems
- Siren can use a IMAP4
server, but to take advantage of all of its features
you have to use a IMAP server with extensions from
Siren. They have promised to make their server IMAP4
compliant in the near future.
From our preliminary trials it looks as if Siren has
the best user interface so far (we haven't been able
to test the X-window or MAC versions yet). This is
the commercial system favoured by SSCL in their
evaluation of mail clients. It has been chosen and
heavily endorsed by the University of North Carolina
as their campus-wide mail package.
Siren includes MAPI support on the Windows platforms
which is important for PeopleSoft compatibility.
- Solstice Internet Mail
-
Sun's server and clients
are still very early on
in their development -- production versions mightn't
be ready for our deadlines. The product does
provide MAPI support. It is not available for Macs.
We are working with the local Sun office to try to get
more information about the future of this product and
to perhaps participate in a beta-testing program.
Current indications are that Sun may be relying on
Netscape to provide a client rather than further
developing a client. They may be moving towards just
supporting an industrial strength IMAP4 server.
- Pine
- The
University of Washington's Pine and PC-Pine
programs are free but not available on the Mac platform --
Maildrop has been suggested as a free IMAP-based client
for Macs. Pine does not provide a MAPI programming interface
for PeopleSoft. Nevertheless it provides an excellent
migration path for existing Unix terminal users since the
learning curve for them would be very gentle.
Moving people to the PC version of Pine would significantly
off-load our central time-sharing systems while providing a
better interface to our users. Most terminal users do use
PCs, but they use the mainframe-based Pine rather than the
POP3-based Eudora so that their folders are always accessible
on the central system. PC-Pine provides this facility
without requiring a ``dumb terminal'' connection while
providing users with a quick and familiar e-mail environment.
- Simeon
- At first glance, Simeon seems to have a very difficult user
interface, but a predecessor is used extensively by UofT.
Also this company seems to be in the forefront of IMAP4 and
related protocol development. Perhaps with more familiarity
we could learn to love the flexibility of the interface.
Simeon presents a common look-and-feel on all platforms (MAC,
Windows and Unix). This means, however, that it is native to
none and because it was developed with an abstraction layer
above the operating system, it tends to be slow on all
platforms.
- Netscape
-
Netscape
has been promising to include an
IMAP4-based client in their v4 browser. They have said that
they would deliver this product by the end of 1996. Currently
version 3 of the product is still being beta tested so there
has been no chance to test this (vaporware) product. Netscape
recently hired the key author of Stanford's X-11 IMAP4 client,
ML.
Using Netscape as the mail client has some advantages in that
versions of Netscape is available widely on campus already and
it is well accepted. Judging by its current POP3-based mail
capabilities Netscape might not have the specialized mail
handling features of the other stand-alone programs. The
question is ``Will that matter to the majority of our users?''
- Z-Mail Pro
-
NetManage has recently announced the next
generation of the very sophisticated Z-Mail package,
Z-Mail Pro.
The new version now embraces IMAP4 enthusiastically.
York University chose Z-mail (in its POP3 incarnation) as
their campus mail system a few years ago. Its glossy user
interface coupled with its cross-platform support (Windows 3.x
Windows 95, Windows NT, Mac, X-window and dumb-terminal) make
it a major contender (especially if we could get a copy of
it!)
- Sun will be providing us with reference sites for their
Solstice software and we'll follow up with them.
- Follow up with York University as Z-mail users now that Z-mail
Pro is about to be released with IMAP4 support included.
- In early September we will be scheduling a meeting with the
campus postmasters (with an invitation to the TUMs group)
to inform them about the project, give them a
chance to ask questions and to assure them that they can
participate.
- Short listing one or two packages and piloting them on a large
subset of our supported platforms (Windows 3.x, Windows 95, Mac
Solaris and possibly Windows NT).
Figure 1: Rough Mail Transition Timeline
- That the timeframe for this project be adjusted
to expect a final report for the end of 1996. This will allow
the working group to do a more thorough investigation but more
importantly allow the vendors of IMAP4 products a few more
months to get their products to market. Since there isn't yet
a clear winner and the users of the current systems tell us
that a conversion at their pace in the summer of 1997 would be
best, an early spring 1997 start for the transition to the
new system seems feasible. Figure 1 illustrates
via a time line the recommended sequence of events.
- That a IMAP4-based mail system be adopted as the
basis for the next generation mail system on campus with
selection, implementation and user transition to occur over
the next 18 months.
- That Reg and Chuck continue their investigations
into pulling information out of the EMC2 database with the
eventual goal of feeding this information into the new
system. We are confident that the hard part of this is
getting the information out while getting it into one of these
new systems will not be a major task and certainly not highly
dependent on the IMAP4 client chosen.
- That the non-e-mail facilities provided by EMC2 that are
somewhat peripheral to this project be pursued by appropriate
teams in cooperation with this working group while this group
concentrates on e-mail and the facilities very closely related
to that service. Spinoff summary:
- Addressing and Directory Issues
- BBS/Shared Folders
- Calendaring/Scheduling
- Forms
- FAX Gateway
- IDs and Passwords
- That e-mail should be considered as a major part of the VAX
shutdown/transition.
The following issues were identified by the group and reinforced by
our interviews with EMC2 users. Some have been addressed already
while others will solved during the following 6 months by the working
group in cooperation with others at ITS. Still others will be left
to the new groups mentioned below
- Addressing
- New mail addresses for EMC2 users
- The UWO Directory
- The use of
uwoadmin.uwo.ca addresses for non-EMC2 users.
- Mailing Lists and Nicknames
- (a transition issue)
- Some users may need help to move extensive local mailing
lists to a new system. Reg and Chuck
are looking into this issue.
- Users are currently using private mailing lists as a
workaround for the lack of nicknames in EMC2.
- Old Mail Folders
- (a transition issue)
- Can old folders be moved to the new system? Reg and
Chuck are looking into this issue.
- There are some users that make good use of the mail
foldering system as a filing system. We'll have to find
automated ways to move these massive stores - but perhaps
for most we could ask them to weed their collection and
convert or move only the important messages.
- Keeping Existing Features
- Many existing users
have expressed a need to maintain (in some form) some of the
advanced features of the existing system:
- Departmental Mailboxes
- Shared spots for
corporate mail -- or filtering/pre-sorting?
- Private Conferences
- EMC2 feature, not extensively
used, could mailing lists handle this?
- Attachments
- standardized (MIME, UUENCODE),
easy to use.
- Timed Mail
- Ability to have mail go out at a
pre-determined time - and for reminders. Could be
handled by a scheduling/calendaring package.
- Auto Reply
- Vacation messages
- Important New Features
- Features that aren't currently
available in EMC2.
- MAPI Support
- A minimal implementation the
Microsoft's Mail Application Programming Interface is
important for the workflow-enabled applications within
the PeopleSoft suite.
- Spell Checker
- A good and personally extendable
vocabulary is important. (We never purchased the
spell-checking package for EMC2.)
- Keeping the Mail Application Small
- EMC2 is seen as a
resource hog.
The following projects have been identified by the group as having a
major impact on the mail replacement project but due to the mandate of
the group, they should be considered as separate projects. Note that
while some of these are already in progress, some are not but should
be soon in order to permit an orderly move from the older mail
systems. We would like to request that cooperating groups be
established soon to investigate and make recommendations for these
areas.
- Mail Delivery to Home Directory
- A performance issue.
- Delivery on all Unix systems changed from central mail spool to
user's home directory
- Project lead by Reg and Dave Kinchlea to be implemented over
the next few months -- should be done before the end of August.
- Addressing and the UWO Directory
- See above for
details.
- BBS/Shared Folders
- A current EMC2 feature
- News-type facility where users mail to bulletin board (e.g.
financial exchange rates) -- the Web may be the place for these.
- Some of repositories are private (which isn't possible with
Usenet News)
- General purpose ones not currently used much.
- Some listserv subscriptions are gated into the EMC2 system
-- News is tool to handle this.
- How many in total?
- Look into converting these for users who rely on them extensively.
- Calendaring/Scheduling
- A current EMC2 feature
- Not part of this project.
- Debbie, Anne and Mike Cote have experimented with some
standalone packages and chosen one that seems to be the best.
- May be implemented this fall (Sept-Dec) so likely complete before
e-mail transition (if we decide to make this a campus-wide
project)
- Forms
- A current EMC2 feature
- Used by finance message passing system.
- Fees Office use forms and then FAX to Bank of Montreal.
- Currently there are 3 types of forms in use across campus
-- EMC2 forms, Jet Forms and Web-based forms.
- FAX Gateway
- A current EMC2 feature
- How much is this used?
- Currently only handles outgoing FAXes but only for EMC2 users.
- May come with the mail server software but certainly could
be handled by many public domain or shareware products on
many platforms.
- IDs and Passwords
- Too many...
- Users have at least 4 possible passwords (LAN, corp data,
e-mail, dial-in access) -- the new scheduling package (see
above) may add another
- Should they all be the same? Should they be coordinated?
ITS Mail Working Group
Interim Report
This document was generated using the LaTeX2HTML translator Version 96.1-c (Feb 29, 1996) Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, Nikos Drakos, Computer Based Learning Unit, University of Leeds.
The command line arguments were:
latex2html -split 0 -t mail-i.tex -address Peter Marshall, ITS, UWO <peter@julian.uwo.ca> Last update: 96-08-27 00:17 by peter -show_section_numbers -dir /usr/internal/nst/peter/public_html mail-i.tex.
The translation was initiated by Peter Marshall on Tue Aug 27 00:17:04 EDT 1996
- ...CLASS=INLINE>>
- Mail Working Group:
Peter Marshall (leader),Colleen Bretzlaff, Debbie Jones and Reina
Tebby all of ITS at UWO
- ...system
- By a campus mail system we mean both the client
front-end program and the back-end systems used to gather, deliver and
sort e-mail. It does mean that we adopt a common protocol but that
doesn't necessarily mean a single client for all users.
- ...IMAP4-based
- Internet Message Access
Protocol
Peter Marshall, ITS, UWO <peter@julian.uwo.ca> Last update: 96-08-27 00:17 by peter