Notes from CCEI Technical sub-committee
August 8June 14, 2005 Meeting
2:00 – 3:00 pm, Dean’s Conference Room, 512 Brickhaven
Attending:
Donna BarrettCOM
Jim HollandCVM
Sarah NoellITD
Tim LowmanITD
Larry RobinsonITD
Rob GrauITECS
Ray KimseyCALS/Ext IT
Josh GiraCNR
Cheri RenningerETSS
Vic LynnETSS
Craig ZimmerETSS
Harry NicholosITD
Matt ValenzisiComTech
Mike FreemanCOT
Joe FlowersCHASS
Lou HarrisonDELTA
The Technical sub-committee is now meeting weekly. As per the 7/26 meeting, committee members were asked to research products based on the fishbone diagram that we created. Tim Lowman and Rob Grau presented their research.
Tim Lowman:
Oracle Collaboration Suite and Sendmail/Cyrus(IMAP)/PureMessage Solution:
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#1 Interoperability
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- #7: supports the ICAL/VCAL format
- #8: supports syncML transactions
- #19: supports mobile devices (PDAs, blackberries, phones)
- #22: supports web access (* known operational issues with Safari)
#2 User Admin
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- #1: supports granular ACLS (access based on calendar membership)
- #5: ability to backup/restore individual calendars/nodes
- #10: Ability to add nodes and scale to support many hosts
Ability to change settings (some limited) to give custom look/feel
Cyrus supports approximately 9000 subscribers per POP (* cyrus site)
- #13: supports event calendars (soon subscribable calendars)
- #14: supports resource calendars
- #15/#18: virus/shared mailboxes are supported in Cyrus IMAP infrastructure
- #23: attachment support in Cyrus and Oracle
- #27: custom reports are available from Collab Suite, Pure Message, and
sendmail logs. Limited support (if any) for users
# System admin:
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- #2: Scriptable provisioning for both Cyrus and Oracle
- #5: Backup and restore is available for both Cyrus and Oracle
Oracle can be user driven, Cyrus may soon be.
- #11: Node managers can be delegated in, have the ability to
script and maintain their setup.
Cyrus allow scripting; ITD uses it extensively during account
creates and moves.
- #15: virus/shared mailboxes (see above)
- #23: attachments are available in both services
- #25: efficiently uses storage, compacts files where appropriate.
- #26: ability to provision
- calendar: via uniuser
- IMAP/cyrus: via IMAP functionality and account create/delete/move
functions
- #27: Reports are available for system admins, limited for users.
- #28: Oracle: Maintenance contract
Cyrus: Open Source
PureMessage: Maintenance contract
Sendmail: Open Source
- #29: Hardware support: SUN machine support contract with amortization of
hardware on 3 year replacement cycle
# Support and Training
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- #21: Support is given via installation notes, users guides for
Collaboration Suite.
Helpdesk instruction is available for Cyrus IMAP and client
configuration
- #28 Oracle provides installation support for clients and software
- #30 Training materials available from OracleUniversity ($)
Online documentation for Cyrus
Online documentation for PureMessage
Online documentation for Sendmail
- #32: Oracle highly recommends training classes for admins. This is
*very* essential.
# Security
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- #9: Authentication for both is based on Kerberos authentication database.
Transactions happen on SSL or START/TLS. IMAP is still configured for
clear text (which would be turned off if I had my way). POP -- well
there's no way to help this beast.
- #15: Antivirus exists with PureMessage and is on desktop (hopefully).
- #16: Oracle vs Intrusion Detection == this is going to be fun. Not much
there yet. Cyrus/IMAP/Sendmail, we have the monitoring down on this.
- #17: Authenticated SMTP is supported.
- #23: attachment processing is supported for virus/spam filtering/tagging.
# Scalability
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- #3: Multiple hardware is supported by Oracle: Linux, SUN, and HP
hardware/OS. Client support is everything.
Cyrus/IMAP support is any client that supports the IMAP protocol.
- #4: Scales to 75,000 easily. Cyrus is there now, Oracle can be scaled
with minimal hardware modifications.
(maintenance fees)
# $26,153.47 -- licenses ==> $0.58 / user (cost / 45,000 clients)
# $52,644.69 -- software ==> $1.16 / user (cost / 45,000 clients)
- #6: Highly available systems. Sendmail offers a highly scalable and
available architecture.
Oracle does the same via clusters.
- #12: Multiple domains are supported.
- #19: mobile devices are support if they support IMAP and Oracle
supports most major mobile clients (PDAs, Blackberry, Nokia phones,
etc)
- #20: Web clients operate in scaleable application pools for Oracle.
Squirrel Mail operates in ITD's php pool for Cyrus IMAP
- #22: Cyrus/Sendmail/PureMessage (open source or open code). We've been
able to perform modifications for local support.
Oracle has been very receptive on software/feature requests.
Lotus Notes
Rob Grau presented Lotus Notes – he passed out information directly from IBM’s website.
Please contact Sarah Noell if you would like to see these notes.
Lotus Notes falls into the monolithic email/calendar solution set. The product is highly configurable, although not sure what the final cost would be since it would have to be customized for our environment. Mobile devices are ok; not sure about CalDAV support. If the decision was made to go with Lotus Notes, it would involve retraining all of the campus community: technical systems staff, help desk support staff, and our users. This would involve time, money and resources. There was also some discussion on how Mac users would handle the fact that IBM does not have a native Macintosh client. Sarah/Rob will check in with UNC-Greensboro to see how they handled their Mac users. Rob will report back on this at the 8/15 meeting.
At this time, we did not remove Lotus Notes from our product list waiting to see what UNC-G says about their Mac users.
Solution sets
We discussed solution sets and decided that at the 8/15 meeting we will begin brainstorming the pros and cons of the solution sets. The seven solution sets we came up with at a previous meeting were:
- Monolithic email/calendar
- Monolithic calendar and separate monolithic email
- Distributed servers of same product
- Distributed servers of varying, but intercommunicating products
- Cleanup Email, calendar integration (via written connector)
- Cleanup Email, single calendar
- Outsourcing: Students and/or Faculty/Staff
In a note sent out to the technical committee on 8/9, Cheri suggested that with the amount of time we have to narrow down these options, she proposed narrowing the solution sets down to:
- Monolithic email/calendar
- Monolithic calendar and separate monolithic email
- Cleanup Email, calendar integration (via written connector)
- Outsourcing
- Students
With no comments from the group against this suggestion, the committee will move forward working under this assumption. At the 8/15 meeting, we will look at pros and cons of these 4 solution sets and review the products under them.
Next meeting:
Monday, 8/15
2:00 – 3:00 pm
Dean’s Conference Room
512 Brickhaven Building
- Sarah Noell