* This is the vopmailbeta mailing list *
FAQ - VOPMail 6.0 Hello everyone, The following FAQ about our new VOPMail 6.0 was built from a list of questions that we received from you and also from various postings on the "vopmailbeta" list. We hope that the following answers will be satisfactory and invite you to send us any additional question you may have. Q: Is the delivery multi-threaded by domain? A: Yes. VOPMail 6.0 creates multiple threads to deliver mail to remote domains (via SMTP); it also opens up multiple connections to the same mail server (if needed) so that slow connections (or slow mail servers) stuck on large messages do not prevent other messages from making it to the remote servers. The Local Delivery is still single threaded, but since the main purpose of this thread is only to move message files around on the disk, there would not be many benefits to make it multi-threaded. Q: Can the delivery performance of Modus be used as a gage for the performance VOPMail 6.0? A: Yes. Q: Can the increased performance of the delivery engine be quantified? A: Hardly. In an ideal setup, there would not be an increase of performance as the remote SMTP server would be accepting email as fast as we can send them on a single connection. However, the real world is far from ideal and sometimes remote mail servers are not able to accept email, on a single connection, as fast as they should. The performance gain from this feature will vary a lot from one system to another and depending on the traffic mix (size of messages, etc.). Q: Was Sylvain Durocher gone? Is he back? A: Sylvain was no longer a majority shareholder of Vircom since the beginning of 2001 and no longer Vircom's CEO starting mid 2002. He is back both as a majority shareholder, CEO and in full control since early 2003. Q: When was the last VOPMail update and why such a long delay? A: The last update of VOPMail was done in July 2002. Since then, it has been updated only through service patches. The new VOPMail 6.0 is a completely redefined product and brings lots of changes. It will now make it easier for us to do new releases in the future, as VOPMail will follow Modus' development track. Q: Why release only in September? A: This new releases needs to go through an Alpha-Beta-Official release cycle, and we don't want to burn any steps. September is the official release date. Q: Will there be a guaranteed number of updates each year? A: No, we can't make this commitment, but since it will be much easier for us to make updates (because of the merged code bases), there should be more frequent updates. Q: Give me a compelling reason to upgrade from 5.0 to 6.0? A: If VOPMail 5.0 is working perfectly for you and you don't find any of the new features and bug fixes of interest, then there is no compelling reasons to upgrade, but you should know that support for VOPMail 5.0 will be eventually discontinued. Also, since VOPMail 6.0 now shares the code base of ModusMail, it will be much easier for us to help you if you are running VOPMail 6.0 than previous versions. Q: What is the list of improvements / new features? A: . New Console . New SMTPDS delivery engine (multi-thread per domain) . Added support for SSL/TLS for the POP3 service. . Improved Platypus support (new stored procedures). . Customizable SMTP error messages for some SMTP errors. . SMTP, IMAP and POP3 Connection Rate limiters . New WebMail and WebAdmin components. . Lots of minor fixes and small new features Q: Are there things that will no longer be supported? A: The dialup portion of VOPMail was removed. A: Since the console has been completely redesigned, it may take a bit of getting used to, but in the end we are convinced that everybody will see its numerous advantages. A: Web management at the server level is no longer supported, however a domain administrator can now manage multiple domains. Q: What is the new Webmail and Webadmin? How does this affect my current installation? A: While the old VOPMail Web and VOPMail Web pro will keep on working with the new version of VOPMail, they are not updated and will no longer be updated. They are replaced with new WebMail and WebMail admin components. If you have done customizations in the old VOPMail Web and VOPMail Web pro, you'll need to do them again in the new components if you want to use the new one. Q: How easy is it to upgrade to version 6.0? What should I know or will I have to do? A: Just install it on top of the old one. All settings are preserved. Q: I have heavily customized my Webmail, what happens when I install version 6? A: You can keep on using the old one, but it will not be updated and we will be phasing out support for it. Any product customization done on the older version is unlikely to work as-is on the new one and will probably need some work to operate again. ** To leave this list, send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and put the word "LEAVE" in the BODY of the email.
