Issues of Scaling LAN E-Mail

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• Issues of Scaling LAN E-Mail
• Session 4321
• SHARE 85
• Pat Berastegui-Egen

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Agenda

• Forces driving towards LAN-based EMail
• Host-based Features
• LAN-based Features
• Disparities between Host and LAN
• Scalability Issues
• What to do in the mean time

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Forces of Movement Towards LAN-Based E-Mail

• Movement to graphical user interfaces
• Reduction of Costs
• Appearance that LAN-based is cheaper
• Fear of stability of host-based mail systems
• Increase in client/server applications

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Host-Based Strengths Weaknesses

• Typically one integrated system
• Established infrastructure and stability
• Backups, reliability, capacity, accessibility
• Excellent security
• Lack of graphical capabilities
• Can be cumbersome to use

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LAN-Based Strengths Weaknesses

• Graphical access and improved functionality
• Easily scalable
• Perceived to be cheaper
• Note support costs are 2/3 times more
• Poor Security and management
• Difficult to handle over 5,000 users
• Lack of one-system applications that scale to
  thousands of users easily

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Disparities Between Host-Based vs LAN-Based Mail
Systems

• Security
• Common Directories
• Common messaging gateway
• User Interfaces
• System Robustness
• System Reliability
• Costs (including support)

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Scaling Issues - Part 1

• Directory Synchoronization becomes biggest
  headache
• Lack of fully-integrated applications means
  supporting Lego architectures
• Management costs grow with each new PO
• 1/2 to Full time employee per post office
• Poor mail management tools exist to control and
  monitor mail traffic (critical in very large
  sites)
• Forrester Research

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Scaling Issues - Part 2

• Interoperability and migration
• Performance (LAN mail is SLOWER!)
• Lack of binary file transport
• Document conversion/viewing
• Trouble-shooting
• Multiple Post offices
• Biggest HP PO holds only 2000 concurrent

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Scaling Issues - Part 3

• Increased administration supporting multiple
  point-to-point gateways and extensions
• LAN extensions
• Gateways
• Inexpensive, limited, need 1 per external mail
• Mail Switches
• More reliable (multiple gateways), more expensive
• Backbones
• Internal or public (Internet), use common
  protocol like X400 or SMTP, rely on gateways to
  convert messages

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What do real world users say?

• Directory synch is a big, big issue. We
  synchronize manually -- take input from
  divisions, update corporate directory, then send
  the updated lists out to divisions. This process
  is very labor intensive (electronics company)
• We have three full-time people working on e-mail
  and messaging, and it is not enough. There is
  also a person in every user location who must act
  as the administrator for his or her groups post
  office (scientific equipment co.)
• We really need to find a tool that will allow us
  to centralize management of mail. I brought in
  ccMailView and although it will help, it is only
  useful for part of my environment. We need
  management that incorporates information from all
  four of our mail systems (commercial bank)

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What do vendors say?

• According to the marketing messaging manager for
  HP, IS managers who have gone to a department
  solution are now having problems in the areas of
  directory management, trouble shooting and with
  the fidelity of messages
• A director of Wingra Technologies says The
  problems are the increasing administrative burden
  of supporting multiple point-to-point gateways
  performance, because passing through multiple
  gateways is slow lack of binary file transport
  and synching directories

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What to do in the mean time?

• Rationalize the number of front ends
• Prepare for an SMTP backbone
• Stop implementing and focus on building consensus
• Standardize on the mail engine
• Reduce the number of systems
• Get ready to upgrade to standards-based versions
  of mail
• Implement a low-cost mail switch

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What to do (continued)

• Stop host-based growth now
• Rationalize and standardize LAN mail choices
• Implement a big mail switch

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What to look for?

• Directory Synchronization
• Full and modified-only synch, how/when scheduled,
  realtime or not, what fields are available
• Management
• Message tracing, reports, configuration maps,
  alarms, standards supported
• Document Conversion
• Addressing
• Available Gateways

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Forrester Industry Assumptions

• Scaling will not be possible until companies
  implement central directories and get their
  enterprise management house in order
• SMTP and MAP will be building blocks for
  large-scale LAN Mail
• Good centralized tools are still missing
• You will need hard dollar justification
• The client race is over - choose one
• Lotus, Microsoft or Novell