Novell GroupWise® Messenger

Jeff Christensen

RealTime Product Manager

jrchristensen@novell.com

Novell

Mike Stoddard

Software Engineer

Novell

Messenger
Where is IM being used?

Over 90% of enterprises have IM usage

Over 75% of employees communicate with IM – While 60% of IT professionals say that IM is banned

IM will surpass email by 2006 (faults, but close)

Corporate IM users to surpass ½ Billion by 2010

IM Pain

Virus and Worms: 19 of top 50 IM Related- 400% increase over last year

File Transfer and Trojan Horse

SPIM (Spam IM)

Identity Theft- can’t verify who you are IMing with

AOL, MSN, Yahoo- Cert nightmare

Leakage of Corporate information

REACTION: Block all Instant Messaging!

Business Case for Messenger

United States based Company with 650 employees with 15 branch offices

32% reduction in monthly phone bill

20% reduction in phone voice mail

35% reduction in internal email

$125k savings in long distance

1.7 million fewer internal email annually

AT&T labs states that only 24% of IM have no response or leave a message

While 62% of phone calls leave a voicemail

IM Concerns

Is IM an equivalent to an email or a phone call?

With as high as 90% of enterprises using some IM it is leaning toward the email comparison

Could 70% of corporate IM usage really be over un-encrypted public IM?

Only about 25% is EIM

Messenger answers

Encryption

Archiving

Management

Messenger System Components

Messaging Agent

Messenger clients establish a connection with a Messaging Agent on startup

Transfers instant messages back and forth between Messenger users

Maintains presence information about Messenger users

Sends message events to the Archive Agent if archiving is enabled

Archive Agent

Receives message events from the Messaging Agent(s) and stores them in the Messenger archive

Indexes the archived conversations so that they can be searched by authorized Messenger users

Performs searches in the Messenger archive for authorized Messenger users

Installing a Messenger System:
Information needed

Before you Install Messenger; make sure you have the following information:

eDirectory or LDAP Server information

Port, IP Address / DNS name, and authentication credentials

If LDAP SSL is required, path to LDAP server certificate

SSL Certificate and Key information

If you want to secure conversations in your system

Note: Gaim and Cross Platform clients require SSL

Installation Overview

The Messenger installation performs the following tasks:

Installs Messaging Agent and Archive Agent files

Installs client files (Windows, Linux, and Mac) in software directory for deployment through the web and auto update

Extends directory schema

Creates directory objects

Creates startup files

Prompts to start the agents – when install is done a complete working system is installed!

Post Installation Tasks

Configure Policies

Create LDAP Profile if required

Configure Archiving if required

Archiving not enabled by default

Tune Directory Access and Searches

Enable Web Console

Setup Client Deployment from a Web server

By default clients can be downloaded from the Messaging Agent itself, however it is possible to offload to a Web server

Messenger Policy Object:
General Settings

Install creates default system policy with the defaults shown above

Messenger Policy Object:
Personal History Settings

Administrator can now control print/save functionality in client

Personal History feature can also be disabled

Messenger Configuration:
Profiles

Scope Profile

Specifies the directory context(s) the agent will use to authenticate and search for users

For best performance, scope should be as “narrow” as possible

LDAP Profile

Used for directory access via LDAP

Multiple LDAP servers can be specified for load balancing / failover

Messenger Configuration:
User authentication / search optimization

Optimizing user searches using attribute indexes

It is recommended that attribute indexes exist for Given Name, Surname, Full Name, and Userid (CN)

Indexes can be created using ConsoleOne® or iManager

Agent Search settings

Maximum query results (Default 100)

Maximum number of results returned by a user search. Setting this higher will slow down search times.

Maximum query timeout (Default 30)

Maximum time server will spend doing a single search. Partial results will be returned in the event of a timeout.

`

Messenger Configuration:
Agent Settings

Client / Server threads (Default 15)

Default setting is fine up to 5000 users

Directory Settings

Default number of connections (Default 10)

The number of connections that are always maintained

Maximum number of directory connections (Default 25)

Should match (or be greater than) the number of threads + number of default connections (if using bind mode)

Idle timeout (default 30 seconds)

The number of seconds a connection is kept if unused

Server Configuration:
Agent Settings

Server Configuration:
Startup File Switches 1

;----------------------------------------------------------------------

; Directory Query Maximum Results

; Specifies the maximum number of results that will be returned for any

; request to the directory.

;----------------------------------------------------------------------

/dirquerymaxresults-200

;----------------------------------------------------------------------

; Directory Query Timeout

; Specifies the amount of time the server will wait on searches

;----------------------------------------------------------------------

/dirquerytimeout-25

;----------------------------------------------------------------------

; Directory Idle Timeout

; Specifies the amount of time before an inactive directory connection

; closes down.

;----------------------------------------------------------------------

/diridletimeout-20

;----------------------------------------------------------------------

; Directory Maximum Connections

; Specifies the maximum number of directory connections

;----------------------------------------------------------------------

/dirmaxconnections-40

1

;----------------------------------------------------------------------

; Directory Default Connections

; Specifies the default number of directory connections

;----------------------------------------------------------------------

/dirdefaultconnections-15

;----------------------------------------------------------------------

; Maximum connections

; Number of Client/Server connections the server will allow.

; The default is 5120 (5K).

;----------------------------------------------------------------------

/maxconns-2000

;----------------------------------------------------------------------

; Number of TCP Processing Threads

; Sets how many threads the Messaging Agent spawns for handling

; Client/Server requests. The default is 15.

;----------------------------------------------------------------------

/threads-20

Server Configuration:
Startup File Switches 2

2

2

Monitoring Your System:
Setting up the Web Console

Web Console:
Status

Web Console:
Users

Client Deployment

Deployment can be offloaded to a web server.

Sequoia:
Corporate Instant Messaging

Broadcasts

Personal history

Server federation

Presence

Chat rooms

Sequoia: Broadcast

One way messages for quick updates of notifications

Sequoia: Personal History

Client Based

Admin managed

Can be turned off and invisible to user

Sequoia: Server Federation

Archive Storage

Sequoia: Presence

Sequoia: Presence

Sequoia: Chat

Sequoia: Chat

Sequoia: Chat

Sequoia: Chat

Messenger Roadmap

1h05

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun

July Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

2h05

Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

2h04

1h06

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun

Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

2h06

1h07

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun

Committed and interlocked FCS date

Committed project (FCS targeted but not interlocked)

Target project (but uncommitted)

Summer 2005

Release with ZenWorks

Q2/06

GroupWise “Sequoia”

Server Federation

Chatrooms

Personal History

Broadcast

Presence

ZENWorks® Brimstone

Standard based Protocal

File transfer

Web Admin

Web Client

Regulatory

GroupWise

Sequoia

GroupWise “Aspen” (proposed)

Teaming Focus

Partner Additions

Enhanced Personal History

Enhanced Chat

2H06

GroupWise Aspen

Sequoia Server Features

Server scalability / fault tolerance

Support for multiple Messaging Agents

Additional performance enhancements

Enhanced resource management (i.e., memory)

LAN rush improvements

Linux clustering support

GroupWise high availability service

Provides application restart

Server fail over provided by Novell Cluster Services in OES

Sequoia Server Features Cont.

Web console enhancements

User search / disconnect

Client information shown for each user

Additional statistics

Linux agents run as non-root user

Provides enhanced security by limiting access of agents

Install prompts for user

User is specified in /etc/opt/novell/messenger/uid.conf

IPv6 support

Sequoia Client Demo

Windows client

Cross platform client

Gaim

Sequoia Administration Demo

Chat

Broadcast

Remember password

Personal History

Web Console:
Status

Web Console:
Users

Agents can be configured through startup files or through the directory. There are many options for configuring and tuning your agents. Here are some of the important ones:

If the agents are not run as root, the max number of connections is driven by the system default (usually 1K).

Remember that with a LDAP profile only primary servers establish default connections.

Non-default connections will close after the idle timeout.

Some settings can be set in the directory. Note that there is no max query timeout setting here; it must be set in the startup files or the LDAP profile.

Here are examples of startup file usage.

Startup files override both default settings and directory settings.

Here is how the dirquerytimeout switch is used.

MIKE

MIKE

MIKE

2005-03-09T14:36:20