How do you choose the right IM tools for your organization? Security, stability, and scalability are key factors in all IT decisions and can help you narrow the field of more than 50 available IM clients. These factors dictate the need for an internal client/server model that provides control of the system and how users are allowed to use these real-time communication tools.
The same concerns that you must address to secure your network (e.g., viruses, worms, identity spoofing, firewall tunneling, and data leaks) apply to securing IM systems as well. The IM system must integrate into your existing security infrastructure and work with your existing directory service for authenticating users. The enterprise IM solution must protect your network from the barrage of threats that are typically associated with email systems, including attachment scanning or blocking, logging of system events, and archival of individual usage.
You'd need to replace your phone system and email system if downtime were a
problem, and your IM system is no different. When you start using an enterprise
IM solution, users quickly become dependent on the system for communication.
If the system falls below your standard of 95 to 99 percent uptime, you'll start
feeling the pressure to find a more reliable solution. Note that with enterprise
IM, we're not just referring to the ability of the IM clients to send and receive
messages; the IM server infrastructure must be available to authenticate users,
log message transactions, and prevent malicious attacks.
The IM solution must meet the scalability-needs of the organization as it grows.
A nonscalable system that meets organizational needs for security and stability
doesn't fit into the group of relatively few true enterprise IM players.
Review Criteria
With more than 50 IM products available, we needed to define criteria for narrowing
the field. First, for an enterprise-level solution, we focused on client/server
solutions. All IM clients connect to some sort of server, but for the enterprise,
users connect to an internally managed server rather than connect to Yahoo!
or Google servers. The server must be able to handle the number of concurrent
connections required in the enterprise environment, which we set at 50,000 users
for this review.
The enterprise IM solution must provide for authentication integrated with your existing directory service, auditing and archival, and protection against malicious code in the form of viruses, worms, and spim (the IM equivalent of spam email).
This product comparison explores the features and capabilities of four enterprise
IM solutions: Jabber XCP 5.1 (and associated JabberNow appliance), IBM Lotus
Sametime 7.5, Microsoft Office Live Communication Server 2005, and Akonix Systems
A-Series appliances. Each of these products approach real-time messaging technology
from a different angle, so this review will help you decide which approach will
work best for your organization.
Jabber XCP and JabberNow
Jabber developed its Jabber Extensible Communications Platform (Jabber XCP)
IM product about five years ago. It uses a protocol known as the Extensible
Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP), the Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF) standard for messaging and presence technologies. The presence portion
of the Jabber protocol communicates the state of the person, application, or
system on the other end of the message, allowing easy integration into workflow
processes. For example, Jabber XCP can allow employees to see the availability
of any member of a group of people needed to approve a phase of a project so
they don't need to wait for one manager. Although Jabber XCP is available as
a fully customizable solution that can run on multiple platforms, such as Windows,
Red Hat Software's Red Hat Linux, and Sun Microsystems Solaris, the company
also offers the secure IM appliance Jabber-Now. The JabberNow server allows
Plug and Play (PnP) IM capabilities on your network. Both Jabber XCP and JabberNow
provide messaging archival for compliance purposes and simplify management through
a common interface called the XCP Controller, which Figure
1 shows.
On the desktop, the Jabber Messenger IM client offers relatively few options
beyond real-time messaging and presence capabilities, so don't expect built-in
audio or video conferencing, gaming options, or whiteboard tools by default.
However, because Jabber XCP is based on open-source code, you can easily find
and add the features you need.
Jabber Messenger lets you track several conversations at a time by using tabs
rather than separate windows for each conversation. When you have the messenger
minimized, a notification pops up above the system tray when you receive new
messages.
Jabber XCP lets you create text conference rooms that allow multiple users
to participate in a real-time conversation. When creating a room, you can make
it persistent (i.e., permanent) so that it remains running on the server
even when everyone leaves the conversation. Participants who join the room late
can easily catch up with the conversation by viewing the previous 100 messages
sent to the room.
Security, Stability, and Scalability. Jabber XCP's optional plug-in
integrates authentication with Windows Active Directory (AD). As an extensible,
component-based platform, deployment can span servers within or across multiple
locations. Single servers can support more than 20,000 users and have been tested
with as many as 100,000 users. Jabber XCP and JabberNow are currently deployed
in more large enterprises than any other enterprise IM solution.
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