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June 01, 2005

Email Upgrade

A little bit of technical talk with regard to Bill's post about email, and the comments it brought with it.

First to define a couple of items.

Email System
The email system is the service running on the server that sends, receives, filters, stores, and maintains the emails.

In WOU's case we've been using iPlanet Mail Server. We have gone through a couple of upgrades to this system, one about 2 years ago where we actually moved mail to a faster more reliable server. The migration planned and in progress is quite similar. We're upgrading to the latest version of the same "Email System" we are currently using. Its now called Sun Java System Mail Server. Over the past 3 years and multiple versions, this "Email System" has proven to be very reliable with little management requirements. ( oh yeah and the hardware is fast and reliable too )

Email Client
An email client is the tool, or application you use to access email stored on the "Email System" Or send messages through the "Email System". There are many email clients available for use, each with their pros and cons. UCS has standardized on Messenger Express for many reasons. We can upgrade the campus wide client on the server, there are no known security holes, or possible virus attacks that can be directed to it. Those are a couple of the positives, I could ramble on and on, as well as name some negatives, but I won't.

A new email client called Communications Express shipped with the lastest version of the "Email System" As we have been migrating users we have introduced this new Email Client. This "Email Client" also includes a tab giving the users access to the Calendar application as well. Both the email and calendar pieces of this unified email/calendar client are much more feature rich than Messenger Express and Calendar Express.

However we have been listening to departments as we have migrated them, and while all of them have been quite pleased with the new "Email Client" we have still heard the need for another option.

So that brings us to the choice of Microsoft Outlook. Sun released a tool that sets up Microsoft Outlook to use our "Email and Calendar Systems" Outlook will read and write data to the "Email and Calendar Systems" fairly seamlessly. You will still have the option to use Communications Express from home or your office. The same data will be there regardless of the "Email Client" you choose to use. ( I'm using Communications Express ) Including address books, calendar events, email and folders will all be in both places. This has never been an option in the past.

There are still some bugs we're working out. ( for example viewing and subscribing to shared calendars via Microsoft Outlook ) So if you make the choice to use Microsoft Outlook, please be patient, its new to us too.

To address a couple of questions presented as comments on Bill's Blog.

1. The migration to the new "Email System" includes moving ALL existing mail,folders,address books, address groups to the new system. The only thing not migrated are basic settings to the "Email Client" and Mail Filters. Unlike Messenger Express, mail filters are managed with Communications Express. ( no more delegated administrator )

2. Don't have any idea what OSU is using for a client. Communications Express is the new client we've been showing people, which is basically Messenger Express and Calendar Express built into one application.... plus a ton of cool features. And again, on the "Email System" side this is just an update to the current solid version.

3. imap will still be available

Please feel free to post comments or questions. I have also started a thread in the UCS forum for open discussion.

Posted by knabet at June 1, 2005 10:34 PM

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