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Directories are one of the most critical and complex problems facing the messaging industry today. The E-mail population is hovering around 100 million users. This population requires an extensive directory, to say the least.
The X.500 solution, however, has been around for about eight years and acceptance has been very slow. In the short term, most companies are investigating interim solutions.
The bottom line is that the E-mail system should have a flexible directory service that can handle local and remote addresses. Users should be able to enter ad hoc addresses as well as access centrally administered entries from anywhere on the LAN or mainframe E-mail system. When multiple E-mail systems are involved, the gateway system or hub service should contain all entries. Control Data, Soft*Switch, DEC, and Microsoft Exchange all offer this capability. These systems are also X.500 compatible.
The difference between a system directory and a local address book is that the directory contains all the addresses for an entire system that may include other E-mail systems connected via gateways. The address book is what each user maintains on his or her individual PC or workstation. When users need the address for someone not in their address book, they search the system directory.
The directory should be available to all users and the directories of separate post offices should be able to exchange entries. Directory synchronization packages are also starting to appear on the market. Hitachis SyncWare interfaces with a variety of E-mail system directories and includes an X.500 gateway. Individual users should also be able to load their address book from the system directory.
One feature very helpful to users is the ability to cut and paste into an address book from text. Frequently users get messages with long cc: lists and would like to be able to copy one or more entries into their address books rather than retype the entry. Sometimes messages come through a number of gateways and the FROM: address is about three times as long as when it started out. If the sender includes his or her original address in the text, the receiver can extract it and simply transfer it to an address book.
Another feature that should be required by network-based directories is the ability to handle queries and updates by mail. This feature allows users with the proper access to send queries to the directory to search for particular entries or names, preferably with a mask character. Updating the directory by mail is also a feature needed by remote administrative users, again with the proper security permissions. This feature is not a requirement obvious to LAN users because everyone is connected and can access the directory. However, when there are a variety of systems and directories interconnected via commercial networks or the Internet, query and update by mail is a time saver.
The directory should have a local find capability that allows the user to search either on address or name for an entry. As directories and address books grow in size and scope, these features will be required by all users. Eventually, users will be able to query an X.500 directory for any entry they need.
Even before the Internet, there was the fax. Fax gateways have existed on commercial E-mail services for more than a decade. PCs have added fax gateways within the past seven or eight years. Recently fax modem prices have fallen, so it is affordable for almost every PC and LAN to send and receive faxes. One major convenience of a fax modem for travelers is that they do not have to carry a printer on the road with them.
PCs now have literally hundreds of applications for users, and most people only spend a short time each day on E-mail. Therefore, when a message arrives, the user may want to be interrupted and notified. Some systems provide a capability that informs the user of new mail. The form of notification, either a flashing indication in the corner of the screen or a simple beep, should be set by the user. This capability should also include a message when the PC is turned on that there is mail waiting.
As more critical business information is transported via E-mail, security options have become more important to system implementers. Many of these have been a standard part of electronic data interchange (EDI) for years and are starting to show up in the E-mail side of the industry. As the cost for sending files via E-mail decreases, the need for additional security increases.
This may be the most often used capability when selecting E-mail systems. Some companies feel they have to decide between either X.400 or the Internet. Most E-mail systems now come standard with a simple mail transport protocol (SMTP) gateway for Internet, and almost every E-mail system on the market has an X.400 gateway.
For an E-mail system or service to survive, it must provide access to the Internet at least via E-mail. The standard that is quoted most often for E-mail access to the Internet is RFC-822, which specifies the rules for SMTP. This is a democratic procedure for posting proposed specifications on the Internet and allowing people to debate the pros and cons of all or part of the specifications. After a proper time period, the request for comment (RFC) committee decides to make the RFC part of the standing rules of the Internet.
The X.400 standard is administered by committee. The ITU-TSS has standing committees that create and maintain the recommendations for telecommunications. The most familiar of these are the X series, including X.25, X.400, and X.500. Each of these has committees made up of representatives from the international telephone companies, U.S. phone companies, and software companies involved in the telecommunications industry. These committees meet periodically to review the status of their efforts and between meetings usually share information via E-mail. When they complete a new version of the recommendations, they gather in a plenary session for approval from the ruling committees and new final versions are published and announced.
The meetings used to occur on a regular four-year cycle, but have recently been changed to an as-needed basis. The recommendations can be purchased from government offices, the UN, or companies associated with the ITU-TSS. There are also supplementary documents available, such as the implementers guide. It still helps to have a resident expert when designing and writing an X.400 gateway.
Approximately 18 companies around the world actually offer X.400 software. In the US, Digital Equipment Corp. and Hewlett-Packard supply X.400 software for their systems. ISOCOR and OSIware (Infonet Software Services) offer X.400 systems of a more generic nature to interconnect systems from other vendors. Europe has a number of suppliers of X.400 systems, such as Marben and Net-Tel.
Other gateways often required by E-mail systems are telex, fax, and wireless. Telex is still used extensively around the world. All service providers offer a gateway to telex. Some private E-mail systems offer a telex gateway, but this requires a separate service agreement with a telex service provider. This gateway must work both ways, unlike most fax gateways.
ISOCOR offers a fax gateway that permits fax into X.400. The fax user sends a document and, after the connect indication, keys in a code that corresponds to a directory entry in the ISOCOR software. The incoming fax is converted to text and routed to the address in the directory. This is a handy capability for medium-to-large scale service.
With the increase in the use of wireless communications for PCs and the ever-popular pager, many E-mail systems are starting to incorporate gateways for wireless services. This requires a third-party provider, but it does offer the user that last-ditch method for reaching someone away from the office.
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