>On Wed, 25 Sep 2002 00:07, you wrote: >> Microsoft Exchange servers. http://www.bynari.net . We also >have a couple > >HP also had a product which I think was called, OPenMail. It's >now in the >hands of Samsung and has a home at <something>samsung.com (no >dot in/after >the something).
Regarding the use of Bynari server or OpenMail, for substituting MS Exchange Servers, I have some observations. Bynari Server is not strictly necessary since any IMAP server with ACL support (for example Cyrus) (plus of course SMPT/POP servers) can be used on the server side. On the client side (Windows with Outlook) a specific MAPI transport provider is requested, in this case Bynari offer Bynari Insight (a "plug-in" for Exchange/Outlook) that has an interface for mapping the Outlook special folders (Calendar) to the standard IMAP folder (http://www.bynari.net/bynari/insightcon.html). So you don't really need Bynari InsightServer or Bynary MailServer (although they are fine products) but an open source (Cyrus) server should be good enough. For example we have tested the combination of QMail (SMTP/POP), Cyrus(IMAP), OpenLDAP and SquirrelMail (Webmail). However we still don't have made any test this combination with Bynari Insight installed on a client (Win2K or Win9x with Outlook configured in corporate mail mode). Regarding OpenMail although it has many interface modules and support for auxiliary standard email protocols is essentially based on the X.400 standard as its default protocol and it has some unique features. Apart it's specific client software it can also use a DLL analogous to the Bynari Insight Connector (to be installed on the Outlook client) but for connecting only to an OpenMail server using the default OpenMail proprietary protocol.I had access to the HP product sources about four years ago and I have written a module for interfacing it to the Netscape Messenger Server. OpenMail is not currently available on Linux on the zSeries or S/390 but a porting should be feasible since it is written in C and uses the standard C library calls for Unix. However it is very complex and probably eats more memory and CPU cycles than a standard SMTP/POP/IMAP server, also the mail data storage format is binary and proprietary (completely based on the ASN.1 standard). We have abandoned it four years ago opting for a standard internet mail infrastructure.For what I know in our experience it was not very loved by Unix admnistrators since is very difficult to perform fixes and restore from corruption on the mail storage in respect to the standard mbox or MailDir format. Regards, Franco Fiorese EDS Italy
