Directory Synchronization & Active Directory

[psbentley]

I am looking into Scalix as a viable alternative to our current Microsoft Exchange 2000/2003 platform. We currently have 6 Exchange servers servicing approximately 2000 users via a mixture of POP3, IMAP, MAPI and Web access. I've been reading through the documentation and have a few questions about the directory synchronization and the active directory integration.

What I am unclear about is whether its possible to install Scalix Enterprise Edition on multiple servers for the same email domain(s) and use an Active Directory synchronization agreement to manage it? Does Scalix know using AD what mailnode/server each user is on and how to route emails to them? Or does an seperate directory synchronization need to be setup seperately from the Active Directory synchronization?

Hope this makes sense and any info would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Peter Bentley

[ScalixSupport]

I am looking into Scalix as a viable alternative to our current Microsoft Exchange 2000/2003 platform.

I can see we're going to like you ;-)

What I am unclear about is whether its possible to install Scalix Enterprise Edition on multiple servers for the same email domain(s) and use an Active Directory synchronization agreement to manage it?

Definitely. Scalix has no concept of domain ownership. A match has to be made against the internet addresses in the SYSTEM directory (our GAL).

Typically, you will have one server acting as the incoming internet gateway and then internal Scalix routing will deliver the messages to the other Scalix servers. This requires that the SYSTEM directory is synchronised between all the servers.

Does Scalix know using AD what mailnode/server each user is on and how to route emails to them? Or does an seperate directory synchronization need to be setup seperately from the Active Directory synchronization?

Scalix doesn't use Active Directory directly to make routing decisions. As I discussed above, our GAL is used. This requires a synchronisation from AD to Scalix.

The AD schema extensions that we ship with Enterprise Edition allow you to add users through Active Directory ( also specifying the mailnode ) and the omldapsync process will add the user to the appropriate server on the Scalix side.

Hope that helps.

Cheers

Dave

[psbentley]

Thanks for the info Dave.

Just so I'm clear in my head. For every email entering the Scalix mail system the address is looked up in the SYSTEM directory and matched to a mail server/node before being delivered to the users mailbox. As you say this obviously requires the SYSTEM directory be synchronized between all servers within the network. Does the synchronization with Active Directory automatically keep the SYSTEM directory updated or is a seperate Directory Synchronization required?

Cheers

Pete

[ScalixSupport]

A separate synchronisation is required but that's a simplification.

Our AD sync process uses the underlying SAC architecture which is a controlling administration process (UberManager) and Remote Execution Services (RES) on each of the Scalix servers.

AD Sync talks to UberManager and UberManager is responsible for getting the RES processes to add the data.

When an entry comes in from AD, UberManager knows what mailnode it needs to create the user and will tell the appropriate RES to add the user. On all the other servers, the RES will add a "skeleton" entry to the SYSTEM directory on that server.

At some point, usually within 15 minutes, the Scalix directory sychronisation will kick in to fill in any blanks that the initial addition left out.

Scalix Directory sychronisation is required to handle the modifications to the user entry after it has been added. It also ensures that and manual ( comand-line ) changes are propagated to the other servers in the Scalix network.

Cheers

Dave

[psbentley]

Thanks Dave.

Sounds like I'm gonna be playing around now for a few days. Thanks for all the info, much appreciated.

Pete