Assured: The Isode Blog

New Whitepaper: SNMP and Isode Servers

We provide a number of GUI tools (like MConsole) with our servers, allowing for sophisticated monitoring and control and where systems admins are dedicated to monitoring Isode components, these Isode GUIs are more than adequate.

In live deployments a system administrator will be expected to monitor many applications, servers and network components. Using a different monitoring system for each component in order to perform an 'overwatch' of total system performance is not proactical.

The solution to this is to use a general purpose monitoring tool, the most popuklar of which make use of SNMP (Simple Network Monitoring Protocol), which is supported by many network components and applications. A wide range of Management Consoles, such as HP Openview, use SNMP.

In this whitepaper we look at the role of SNMP in managing systems using Isode messaging and directory servers, explaining why SNMP support is provided, the sub-agent architecture used by Isode products, and approaches to deploying SNMP monitoring.

We have replaced the SNMP support in M-Vault and M-Switch for R14. This is based on a sub-agent model using AgentX (RFC 2741), simplifying deployment and increases accuracy of status reporting.

New Whitepaper: X.400 Bridgehead for Microsoft Exchange

X.400 Bridgehead for Microsoft Exchange is a new product from Isode partner Boldon James, produced in collaboration with Isode. It's primary goal is to provide X.400 protocol connectivity for Microsoft Exchange 2007; this capability was provided as a part of Exchange 2003 and earlier versions, but is not included with Exchange 2007.

In a new whitepaper now available from the Isode website, X.400 Bridgehead for Microsoft Exchange - Technical Architecture and Back-end Features, we describe the architecture of X.400 Bridgehead, and summarize it's key features. It is particularly oriented towards understanding the capabilities of X.400 Bridgehead in the context of older versions of Exchange and full X.400 Message Transfer Agents (MTAs).

The whitepaper which, like all Isode whitepapers, is free and can be viewed without registration, is available here.

New Isode Whitepaper: Sending FLASH Messages Quickly: Techniques for Low Latency Message Switching and Precedence Handling

As we approach the next major Isode release, R14, we'll be publishing whitepapers and making a series of announcements highlighting some of the benefits of that release.

Today we're publishing a new whitepaper on the Isode website "Sending FLASH Messages Quickly: Techniques for Low Latency Message Switching and Precedence Handling", which should be of particular interest to those involved with X.400 messaging.

Military Messaging systems, and other messaging systems with time critical operational requirements such as Aviation (AMHS), require that high precedence messages are submitted, transferred and delivered very quickly.

In this whitepaper we look at how messages can be handled to achieve message switching times of a few hundred milli-seconds, for both low and high volumes of traffic. The importance of Permanent Associations as a way of avoiding delays in opening a connection is described and consideration is given to Precedence Handling, describing techniques that ensure high precedence traffic gets optimum (low) latency. The paper explains why message pre-emption is not a useful approach and why DiffServ is important when there are bandwidth limitations.

The use of DiffServ to set IP packet precedence based on message precedence is one of the enhancements made to M-Switch X.400 in R14.

The whitepaper which, like all Isode whitepapers, is free and can be viewed without registration, is available here.