email c lients replacement project - university of bristol · email c lients replacement project...

Email Review

University of Bristol Information Services Email Clients Replacement Project

Email C

lients Replacement Project

Synopsis amines:

ulberry with another desktop email client

requirements.

This document ex

1 the options for replacing M

2. the current email infrastructure in relation to collaboration and other

Email Review (Email Clients Replacement Project)

Document information Changes History Author Issue Date Comments

John Richards 0.1 21 February 2007 First draft.

John Richards 0.2 22 February 2007 Second draft, with addition of conclusions.

John Richards 0.3 27 February 2007 Third draft, incorporating comments from Tim Phillips, Henryk Glogowski, Richard Hopkins and Adam Stephens.

Distribution Project Board

Executive Tim Phillips Information Systems & Computing

Senior Users Stephen Brooke Medical & Veterinary Sciences

Richard Abraham Medicine & Dentistry

Christine Hall Arts

Cathryn Gallacher Support Services

Colin Knowles Social Sciences and Law

Stephen Gundry Engineering

Julian Simpson Science

Senior Supplier Henryk Glogowski Information Systems & Computing

Project Manager John Richards Information Systems & Computing

IT Helpdesk Lucy Shepherd-Hucker Information Systems & Computing

Portal Anne Madden Portal Project Manager

Training Steve Condliffe Client Services

Email Neil Elliot Information Systems and Computing, Network Specialist (Email and DNS)

Security Richard Hopkins Information Systems and Computing, Information Security Manager

Email Adam Stephens Information Systems and Computing, Networking And Digital Communications Specialist (Email and DNS)

Systems Bob Walker Information Systems and Computing, Systems & Research Computing Manager

Related documentation Other related documents are available from the web at:

www.bristol.ac.uk/ict-projects/emailclients/

http://www.bristol.ac.uk/ict-projects/emailclients/


Contents Document information

1. Introduction...............................................................................................1 Background....................................................................................... 1 Structure of this document.............................................................. 1

2. The Current Infrastructure.......................................................................2 Standards-based and Proprietary Approaches ............................. 2 The University’s Email Infrastructure............................................. 2

3. Requirements: Current and Future.........................................................4 Current Requirements...................................................................... 4 Future Requirements ....................................................................... 4

4. Replacing Mulberry ..................................................................................6 Microsoft Outlook............................................................................. 7 Mozilla Thunderbird ......................................................................... 8 Mulberry v4 ....................................................................................... 9

5. Changing the Infrastructure ..................................................................11 Maintaining a standards-based approach.................................... 11 Adopting a proprietary approach.................................................. 11 Using a third-party provider .......................................................... 14

6. Conclusions and Recommendations ...................................................15 Options ............................................................................................ 16 Recommendations ......................................................................... 17

7. Glossary ..................................................................................................18 8. References ..............................................................................................19


1

1. Introduction

Background The Email Clients Replacement Project was set up last year to find and implement new email packages to replace the University's supported software: Mulberry and Silkymail. The current webmail client, Silkymail, and desktop email client, Mulberry, were no longer commercially supported. Silkymail is not compatible with the student Portal currently under development, and email capabilities are crucial to the success of the Portal. It was decided both clients needed to be replaced.

The first stage was to replace the webmail software, Silkymail. After an extensive evaluation and consultation, a package called SquirrelMail was selected. It was made available to users at the beginning of this term and is being run in parallel with Silkymail. Reactions have been very favourable and it is planned to withdraw Silkymail at the end of the Easter vacation.

We are moving on to consider the desktop email client, Mulberry v3. The situation has improved with Mulberry which has been made freely available for download by the original author who has regained the rights to the software. A new version, v4, is available. Support is community-based via mailing lists and wikis.

However, there are wider issues than just replacing Mulberry, including how email relates to other collaboration software, including calendar and address books.

The Project Board discussed two potential options:

1. to replace Mulberry v3 with another desktop client which was likely to have a longer shelf life.

2. to look at the whole email infrastructure in more detail, in particular to include other office collaboration tools.

The Project Board has asked for this report on the available options and their implications to be considered at its next meeting on 13 March.

Structure of this document Section 2 contains an overview of the current email infrastructure.

Section 3 outlines some of the requirements for the future.

Section 4 considers the options for the replacement of Mulberry.

Section 5 sets out some of the options for changing the infrastructure.

Section 6 contains conclusions and recommendations.

Section 7 is a glossary – this subject is particularly prone to the use of FLAs (‘four letter acronyms’) and jargon, and Section 8 lists the references.

Those short of time should read this section, plus Sections 3 and 6.


2

2. The Current Infrastructure

Standards-based and Proprietary Approaches It is important to understand the distinction between a standards-based approach to email, as we currently use, and a proprietary approach.

Email messages are sent to email servers that store the messages in individual mailboxes. Users access those messages using either a web browser (webmail) or a piece of installed software, called an email client. The client uses one of a number of available protocols to retrieve or send messages.

The University uses the Internet standard protocols IMAP4 for retrieving email and SMTP for sending email. Support for the Internet standard protocols allows many e-mail clients such as Mulberry or Mozilla Thunderbird to access our servers and similarly allows the clients to be used with other servers.

There are also proprietary protocols in existence, such as the ones used by Microsoft Outlook to communicate with a Microsoft Exchange server, or by IBM’s Lotus Notes client to talk to a Domino server. However, these clients are also capable of using IMAP4 and SMTP.

The University’s Email Infrastructure The infrastructure initially appears complex. It is probably best to split it into its components in order to begin to understand it.

Central mail stores Departmentalmail stores

SANSAN

Webmail

IMSP

Virus checking

Externalmail servers

Mail hubs

Mail relaysSubmissionhosts

ClientsWeb browsers

SmartSieve

Spam filtering

Mailing lists

LDAP

Figure 1: the email infrastructure


3

Incoming email Incoming messages from the Internet are received on the mail hubs. Spam filtering and virus checking are performed before the messages are sent to the appropriate server. There are two central email message stores: one for staff and one for students, plus a number of departmental servers, e.g. Computer Science, Geography, Physics and Social Medicine.

Accessing email on the message stores Users connect to the message stores using IMAP4 clients such as Mulberry or webmail.

Sending email Users send messages via the submission hosts (using SMTP). These use the mail relays to interrogate mailing lists and route email to the mail stores or out to external destinations.

Address books, address lookup, and options The clients use the LDAP servers to lookup email addresses, and the IMSP server to access address books. The IMSP server is also used to store user-specific information and option settings.

Security All authenticated accesses (via IMAP, SMTP, IMSP) are secured using SSL.

Some statistics • There are about 25,000 email accounts, of which over 7,000 reside on the

staff server.

• The central mail stores hold over 600 gigabytes of messages.

• Another 4.5 gigabytes of messages are delivered each day on the staff server alone.

• 99.999% of messages are delivered within five minutes of receipt; over 99.8% of messages are delivered within 60 seconds.

• Every month:

o 2 million messages are received from outside the University

o 4 million messages are sent internally

o 10 million ‘spam’ messages are rejected before they reach the mail stores


4

3. Requirements: Current and Future

Current Requirements This is an overview of requirements for a desktop client to replace Mulberry. It is by no means exhaustive.

A new desktop client must

• support IMAP4 and SMTP with secure, authenticated, message submission

• run on Windows XP and Vista

It is desirable that a new desktop client:

• Runs on Mac and Linux

• Can be pre-configured to run with our setup (e.g. server addresses, port numbers)

• Supports IMSP, or has some other means of supporting ‘roving profiles’;

• Has better integration with Calendar

• Has better integration with address books

• Supports secure email by encryption and authenticity.

Future Requirements Despite new forms of communication, email will continue to be the dominant electronic communication method for the foreseeable future. The requirements for the email system over the next five years are speculative, but we can expect users to be confronted with ever-increasing amounts of information, to need to collaborate effectively, and to work remotely.

Requirements could include:

• Converged communications: integration of email with, for example,:

o Phone (VoIP, mobile, landline) and voicemail

o instant messaging

o text messaging

o news feeds

o web conferencing,

o and video

• Integration with contacts, calendar, scheduling

• Better support for PDAs and other mobile devices

• Integration with business applications and workflow

• ‘Access from anywhere’, including strong support for mobile devices.

• No reduction in the effectiveness of security, spam filtering or virus prevention

• Tools to help users manage their ever-growing volume of email, such as automatic message categorisation and rules engines


5

• Increased storage quotas

• Archiving and retention facilities, to assist users in managing email and to meet any compliance needs.


6

4. Replacing Mulberry

The initial driver for replacing Mulberry was that it is no longer commercially supported, with the principal risk being that any newly-discovered security hole would not be plugged. More recently, it has been announced that Mulberry will be made freely available for download by the original author, Cyrus Daboo, who has regained the rights to the software. A new version, 4, is available. Support is community-based via mailing lists and wikis.

We would have to carry out a similar exercise to replace Mulberry as was done for the replacement of Silkymail. A list of suitable desktop client software could be drawn up and technical and user evaluations carried out. A selection would then be made and the new software rolled-out.

With the Silkymail replacement, we took the decision that user training would not be necessary. This would not be the case with a desktop replacement. We already run Mulberry training and new courses would have to be devised and delivered. Support staff would also need to be trained or given time for familiarisation as they would need to know the new client in some detail, especially as regards installation and configuration.

Roll-out could commence once a sufficient number of the support staff had been trained. User training would not necessarily have to be in place for the launch – it is doubtful that most users would feel the need for training.

There would be a period of parallel running of support for the new client and Mulberry. This period could be a short one, or it could be extensive, or indefinite. If a long period were chosen we would effectively be in the position of having two supported desktop clients.

It must be remembered that when we say ‘replacing Mulberry’, we are referring to replacing it as our recommended supported desktop client. People can, and do, make use of any IMAP4 client that can make a secure, authorised, connection. Identifying which clients they use can be done to some extent from logs of sent mail at the relays, but it depends on what identification the client sends to the relays: some clients send nothing at all. Also some users are counted more than once, and some of the mail has arrived from outside. With those caveats, it is possible to do some analysis.

Figure 2 shows a breakdown of clients in use in January 2007. There were a total of 20,400. Mulberry was the largest with 72%. 12% were ‘unknown’ as the client did not identify itself. The ‘others’ category included 75 different types of client. Thunderbird was the most popular client after Mulberry, followed by Microsoft Outlook (the figures given combine Outlook and Outlook Express), and Apple Mail.

http://www.mulberrymail.com/


7

72.1%

12.1%

5.3%

4.3%

3.8%

2.5%

MulberryUnknownThunderbirdOthersMicrosoft OutlookApple Mail

Figure 2: Email clients, January 2007

There are two obvious contenders for a new desktop client: Microsoft Outlook, and Mozilla Thunderbird; and one less obvious: Mulberry v4.

Microsoft Outlook Microsoft Outlook would be a popular choice with a large number of users. In addition to being an e-mail application, it also provides a calendar, task and contact management, note taking, and a journal. However, these features are all standalone. In order to share mailboxes and calendars it is necessary to be running Microsoft Exchange Server.

Figure 3: Microsoft Office Outlook 2007

It may be possible to integrate Outlook with Oracle Calendar using Oracle Connector for Outlook; a piece of software that enables the connection of the

http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/ocal/ocfo_overview.html



8

Microsoft Outlook client using MAPI. The advantage of this approach is that it permits the use of Outlook functionality, such as Contacts, Tasks and Notes, together with integrated access to Oracle Calendar. This also allows the support of PDAs and other devices designed to synchronize using Outlook (see Figure 7 below).

There are four main concerns:

• Outlook is only available on Windows PCs

Microsoft has stopped developing versions for the Mac.

• Support

Outlook exists in a number of versions, all seemingly different when it comes to setting up accounts and options. Users would have to set their options on each PC they use.

• Licensing

The current position is that staff classified by Personnel as honorary, manual, ancillary, casual, maintenance, groundskeepers, cafeteria and mailroom staff do NOT have licence rights for Outlook on personally owned PCs. They do have the rights to use Outlook on their University-owned PCs.

Other staff (but NOT students) do have the right to use Outlook for work-related use on personally owned computers as well as University-owned PCs.

• Security

Outlook has been a big target for hackers and its reputation has not been good, but there have been substantial improvements since Office 2003.

Microsoft Outlook Express is a slimmed-down email application that is free to use. There is actually no connection between it and Outlook and they originate from different divisions of Microsoft. Outlook Express does not use MAPI, so cannot be used with Oracle Connector for Outlook to get access to Calendar. Outlook Express is being replaced with ‘Windows Mail’ in Vista.

Mozilla Thunderbird Thunderbird is a free email client developed by the Mozilla Foundation. Since its launch at the end of 2004 there have been nearly 42 million downloads. It runs on Windows, Mac, and Unix-based platforms.

Thunderbird (Figure 4) is designed to be a straightforward email client. It does not claim to be a personal information manager. Additional functionality can be added by extensions. There are many available; popular ones include spelling checkers for various languages, a calendar, and advertising blockers.

It appears to be easy to install and use.


9

Figure 4: Thunderbird screenshot

Replacement of IMSP support would need examining to see if there was some way of implementing ‘roving profiles’. It appears that roving Thunderbird configurations can be controlled by Active Directory or an LDAP settings server. One interesting feature of Thunderbird is that it can be used as a portable app, so it can be placed on a USB memory stick and the user can take their email, address book and account settings from machine to machine.

Integration with Oracle Calendar may be possible using the Thunderbird calendar extension and an emerging protocol, CalDAV, which Oracle has said it will support (August 2005) but not yet delivered. Currently CalDAV has only made it to being a proposed standard.

Mulberry v4 The new release of Mulberry appeared in July 2005, and the latest, 4.0.8, in February 2007. It features a new set of icons (Figure 5), and also new contacts and calendar functionality. The extent to which the contacts and calendar functionality would be usable would need investigation. Mulberry now supports CalDAV so, like Thunderbird, is waiting for Oracle to produce support in Oracle Calendar.

Replacing Mulberry v3 with Mulberry v4 is unlikely to be seen as a radical change. However, it may be something that is worth doing in addition to the selection of a new desktop client.

http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/thunderbird_portable

http://ietf.osafoundation.org/caldav/index.html

http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/cs/pdfs/10g%20client%20strategy.pdf


10

Figure 5: Mulberry v4 screenshot


11

5. Changing the Infrastructure

If we are to meet the future requirements outlined in 3, then it will be necessary to enhance or replace the infrastructure. This will be considerably more complex and costly than replacing the desktop client.

There are a number of technical options:

• Maintaining a standards-based approach

• Adopting a proprietary approach

• Using a third party provider

The standards-based approach has provided a robust and low-cost infrastructure that is capable of processing large volumes of email at high speed. To move away from it we would need to determine that the future required functionality could not be met and that there was a cost-effective alternative.

Cost will be a major factor in any decision. Gartner estimates that a standards-based mail service costs universities between £1 and £2 per user per month, whereas the cost of Exchange is approximately £4 to £5 per user per month (Cain 2006b)*. Some rough calculation of staff and hardware costs suggests that the cost of our mail service is below £1 / user / month. Implementing a totally new architecture would also have a number of additional costs, such as new hardware and staff training.

Maintaining a standards-based approach If we continue with a standards-based approach, then we have to be aware of the risks that standards may not be developed as rapidly as we would wish in all areas, and close integration of different technologies may not be possible. It will be necessary to continually monitor the gap between user expectations and the provision.

A standards-based approach is not free. Not all software will be open source and, even when it is, there is a resource cost in implementation and support. To provide the convergence of communications envisaged in Section 3 is likely to require a significant increase in staff resource.

Adopting a proprietary approach There are three main contenders: Microsoft Exchange, IBM Lotus Domino, and Oracle Mail.

Microsoft Exchange Microsoft is the market leader in proprietary solutions with about 62% of corporate email in enterprises of our size (Austin and Cearley 2007). With Exchange Server 2007, voicemail has been integrated. Support for mobile devices is typically very good; mainstream vendors have to ensure that their new products are compatible with Microsoft.

* For simplicity, converting from US $ at the rate of £1 = $2.

http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/evaluation/overview/default.mspx

http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/evaluation/overview/default.mspx


12

Figure 6: Exchange server interfaces (source: Microsoft)

Implementing Microsoft Exchange would give us an environment with which many would be familiar via Microsoft Outlook, but it would involve a complete replacement of the infrastructure. There are a number of concerns:

• it would be a more expensive solution than the current setup in terms of software licences, the hardware required to run it and the number of support staff (other universities, e.g. UWE, that have adopted Exchange have done so for staff only and provided a different system for students for cost reasons)

• we would probably have to abandon the use of Oracle Calendar and migrate to the Microsoft solution

• it does not provide a real solution for Macs and Linux (Web Access could be used but the full functionality is only available in Internet Explorer)

IBM Lotus Domino IBM’s offering is a high-end collaboration and messaging system based around the Lotus Domino server and Lotus Notes desktop client software. There is a webmail client with rich functionality, and also software enabling the connection of Microsoft Outlook clients. IBM has 28% of the market in enterprises of our size (Austin and Cearley 2007).

The disadvantages of adopting the IBM solution are similar to those of the Microsoft one, except that support for Mac and Linux is better.

http://www-142.ibm.com/software/sw-lotus/products/product4.nsf/wdocs/dominooverview

http://www-142.ibm.com/software/sw-lotus/notes

http://www.ibm.com/lotus/webaccess

http://www.ibm.com/lotus/webaccess

http://www-142.ibm.com/software/sw-lotus/products/product1.nsf/wdocs/accessmsoutlookhome

http://www-142.ibm.com/software/sw-lotus/products/product1.nsf/wdocs/accessmsoutlookhome


13

Oracle Mail Oracle’s email offering is based around an Oracle 10g database message store that can hold email and voicemail. It uses IMAP4 and SMTP, so could be considered a standards-based approach. It is also integrated with the other components of Oracle Collaboration Suite, as long as you use Oracle software to access them. There appear to be two main options:

• Oracle Web Access

A webmail client with rich functionality, believed to be similar to Microsoft Outlook Web Access.

• Oracle Connector for Outlook

A piece of software that enables the connection of the Microsoft Outlook client using MAPI. The advantage of this approach is that it permits the use of Outlook functionality, such as Contacts, Tasks and Notes, together with integrated access to Oracle Calendar. This also allows the support of PDAs and other devices designed to synchronize using Outlook.

Figure 7: Oracle Connector for Outlook (source: Oracle)

Comparison of IBM, Microsoft and Oracle Gartner’s analysis is that IBM is seen as the high-end, most costly, but feature-rich, option, with Microsoft as the “middle of the road” option (Austin and Cearley 2007). Customers are not particularly happy with either: 53% of IBM customers and 34% of Microsoft customers being dissatisfied with their email systems. Oracle is seen as the commodity email system, lower in cost and “just good enough”. Gartner does not rate Oracle as a long-term competitor to IBM and Microsoft in the email market, and is concerned about Oracle’s perceived lack of commitment to its Collaboration Suite (Mann and Lundy 2006). Oracle would naturally disagree, and has recently issued (January 2007) a Statement of Direction for Collaboration Suite.

http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/oemail/index.html

http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/cs/index.html

http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/cs/index.html

http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/oemail/wac.htm


http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/cs/pdfs/ocs_sod.pdf


14

Using a third-party provider A new possibility is to pass responsibility for email to a third-party. Microsoft offers to take all our student email and host it itself under its Windows Live Hotmail label. Google has a similar scheme. Gartner sees the education sector being Microsoft and Google’s guinea pig for these services because of high price sensitivity and less-advanced functionality requirements (Cain 2006a).

Microsoft would give all the students a free email account “for life” with a Bristol domain name, together with folder sharing, a calendar, address books, phone and other facilities. Support would be web-based for individual students.

We would have to provide a list of students and run a chargeable copy of Microsoft Identity Integration Server.

Gartner (Cain 2006b) points out that the service is not totally free, estimating that one FTE would needed for managing and administering the programme, and there are some concerns:

• No guaranteed uptime service-level agreement or disaster recovery services

• No Level 1 phone help desk support

• Limited reporting capabilities

• Increased security risks due to external data storage and Internet transit of data

• Increased security risks due to external directory synchronization

• Increased administration cost due to password synchronization issue

• Lack of integration with staff email facilities

• Risk of commercial exploitation, e.g. advertising

• Email would probably be stored in the United States, leading to concerns about application of US data laws.

• Unknown risks regarding compliance with

o US Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) regulations

o UK legislation

o Discovery requests

• We would lose the ability to police any abuses of the email system.

Microsoft would also be prepared to provide the same service for staff, but claims that this would not be possible because of our obligations under the Freedom of Information Act.

Savings to the University would be very small. The staff email service would still need to be supported and the additional workload caused by supporting student email as well is marginal. The administrative time saved on student account administration would be spent on administering the new service. The student mail store server would no longer be needed, but a new server would be required to run the Microsoft Identity Integration Server.


15

6. Conclusions and Recommendations

There are two issues that are in danger of being confused. One is the short-term issue of the need for a Mulberry replacement, and the other is the long-term, strategic, issue of the future of the University’s email system. This report has shown that the strategic concerns are complex ones. It would be wrong to delay the Mulberry replacement in anticipation of major changes to the email system; such changes are going to take a long time to come to fruition.

The desktop replacement should not be treated as a straight functional swap. It does offer the opportunity to see whether integration could be improved in the areas of address books and calendaring. The selected client is not going to support IMSP; this will cause some support issues and a method of allowing ‘roving profiles’ would be desirable.

At some point there will need to be a decision as to whether the new client supersedes Mulberry or whether we support two desktop clients. This decision does not necessarily have to be made in advance.

One issue that will need to be investigated is that of platform. Is it a mandatory requirement that the new desktop runs on Mac and Linux? Linux is at Support Level 1 and Mac’s support level is unspecified. Although it may not be a popular view in some quarters, Linux and Mac users could continue to use Mulberry or make their own choices of other clients.

There needs to be serious consideration of the long-tem future of email within the University. As said above, the issues are complex ones and proper time and resource should be deployed to consider them. Decisions, once made, will be costly to undo.

The University has the big advantage of a stable base from which to start. The email infrastructure works reliably and at a low cost per head. Around six million messages a month are handled for 25,000 accounts, and another ten million spam messages are intercepted before reaching anyone’s mailbox.

However, it is not possible to stand still. The University has to decide what type of email system it is going to require in order to meet its goal of being a world-class institution. This could be done by continuing and developing the existing standards-based approach, or it could be by introducing a proprietary system. Either route will involve expenditure of time, resources and money, and at a higher level than is currently the case. Gartner’s apposite recommendation is: “focus on business issues, not emotions, when considering whether to migrate from one email system to another” (Austin and Cearley 2007, 3).

The long-term strategic issues are not ones that can be handled with the current resources of this project and are not within the scope. Consideration needs to be given to this matter by the ICT Programme Board.


16

Options Description Advantages Disadvantages Risks Costs

1 Do nothing Current situation is stable. Mulberry v3 has been in use for some time and appears dated. Expectations have been raised that a replacement will be provided.

Users become disappointed and disillusioned. Email system increasingly fails to meet business requirements.

Nil

2 Replace desktop client only Meets original project objectives. Does not address concerns about lack of integration of software, or other perceived future requirements.

Users get inflated expectations of what will be achieved. Email system increasingly fails to meet business requirements.

Low.

3 Replace desktop client and ask ICT Programme Board to consider this report with a view to recommending further work.

Meets original project objectives. Begins process of addressing longer-term email requirements.

Proposed long-term work will need to enter the University planning process as a Stage 1 Business Case, with no guarantee of success.

Users get inflated expectations of what will be achieved. University not prepared to fund additional work.

Project: low. Long-term: high

4 Do nothing on desktop client and refer report on long-term requirements to ICT Programme Board

Avoids replacing desktop now only to have to change it again later. Begins process of addressing longer-term email requirements.

Proposed long-term work will need to enter the University planning process as a Stage 1 Business Case, with no guarantee of success. It is likely to be at least two years before any changes to infrastructure could be implemented.

Users become disappointed and disillusioned. University not prepared to fund additional work.

Project: nil. Long-term: high.

5 Replace desktop client and then proceed to examine other requirements (within this project).

Meets original project objectives. Begins process of addressing longer-term email requirements.

Outside original project scope. Additional work fails as it will require more resources and expenditure, for which no budget is allocated.

Project: high.


17

Recommendations 6.1 Option 3 should be adopted by the Project Board.

6.2 Work needs to commence soon, as part of this project, on implementation of a replacement for Mulberry.

6.3 The work should follow the same model as used for the replacement of Silkymail:

• Establish requirements

• Short-list

• Evaluate

• Select

• Implement

6.4 There is no need at this point to decide on a retirement date for Mulberry. It can run alongside the new desktop client (unless a new security risk appears).

6.5 There is a need for a study of future requirements for the email infrastructure and the implications of converged communications, followed by a review of the capabilities of the infrastructure to meet the future requirements, and the production of a roadmap for future development. This work is outside the project scope and will require the provision of some dedicated resource. It is suggested that the Project Board makes a recommendation to the ICT Programme Board that this work should be carried out as a separate project.


18

7. Glossary

CalDAV A proposal for a standard protocol for accessing calendars.

IMAP Internet Message Access Protocol. A protocol that enables a client to access email stored on a remote server. More properly known as IMAP4.

IMSP Internet Message Support Protocol. Designed to support the provision of mail in a medium to large scale operation. It was intended to be used as a companion to the IMAP4 protocol.The services that IMSP provides are extended mailbox management, configuration options, and address books. However, it is effectively defunct and implementations are no longer being produced.

LDAP Lightweight Directory Access Protocol, is a networking protocol for querying and modifying directory services running over TCP/IP. A directory is a set of information with similar attributes organized in a logical and hierarchical manner. The most common example is the telephone directory, which consists of a series of names (either of a person or organization) organized alphabetically, with an address and phone number attached.

MAPI Messaging Application Programming Interface. Microsoft’s proprietary interface for communication between Exchange and Outlook. Details are not publicly available.

POP3 Post Office Protocol v3. A protocol that enables a client to retrieve email stored on a remote server. It is commonly used by Internet Service Providers, but is less efficient than IMAP for large networks.

SMTP Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. The de facto standard for sending email.


19

8. References

Austin, T. and Cearley, D.W. 2007. Dissatisfaction with IBM and Microsoft E-mail and Calendaring is Real. Gartner Research G00145489.

Cain, M.W. 2006a. Findings: Google E-mail for Education. Gartner Research G00144587.

Cain, M.W. 2006b. Free .edu E-Mail From Microsoft: What's the Catch? What Does It Mean? Gartner Research G00138575.

Mann, J. and Lundy, J. 2006. No News is Bad News for Oracle's Collaboration Suite. Gartner Research G00141379.

email c lients replacement project - university of bristol · email c lients replacement project...

Documents