🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Nov11.154720.28785@jupiter.sun.csd.unb.ca> Chris McNeil <cmcneil@mta.ca> writes:
>We are currently using popmail ( POPMail, Eudora, NUPOP as clients) on
>our campus as our mail solution for PC's and like it very much. We are a
>a DEC site and Dec is trying to get us to switch to all-in-1 mail. Can
>anyone that has used the above comment on it.

In one word: don't. All-in-1 is fine *IF*:

  a) you have significant machine and personnel resources
     available to manage it and it's databases
  b) you are willing to accept the limitations and syntactical
     complexity involved in getting the Mail-11 transport to cope
     with non-DEC network software and protocols
  c) can afford the licensing cost for significant numbers of
     microcomputer clients.

> I like POP mail due to the fact that it is TCP based, enclosures are
>fairly standard (ie lots of sites in the world can handle binhexed
>enclosures), is free and is simple (ie no SMTP gateway as are required in
>non TCP based mail systems).

If you like what you have (and it sounds like you do), then don't
mess with it. Interoperability and ease of use is much more
important, and you've already got that. All-in-1 isn't worth the
amount of retraining it would take to implement. If your users
are happy, then you're doing the right thing. 

>Chris McNeil
>Network Manager
>Mount Allison University
>Sackville NB Canada
>cmcneil@mta.ca


-- 
David Boyes
dboyes@rice.edu

In article <1992Nov11.154720.28785@jupiter.sun.csd.unb.ca>, cmcneil@mta.ca (Chris McNeil) writes:
> I don't know if this is the right place for this question but if it is
> not could someone please direct me to a better place to post it.
> 
> We are currently using popmail ( POPMail, Eudora, NUPOP as clients) on
> our campus as our mail solution for PC's and like it very much. We are a
> a DEC site and Dec is trying to get us to switch to all-in-1 mail. Can
> anyone that has used the above comment on it.

We are using MAILworks (aka Allin1 MAIL for xxx) and like it very much.  It
runs on our MACs, PC's, dumb terminals, and X terminals, so anyone can move
between platforms and still get at his mail. 

> 
>  I like POP mail due to the fact that it is TCP based, enclosures are
> fairly standard (ie lots of sites in the world can handle binhexed
> enclosures), is free and is simple (ie no SMTP gateway as are required in
> non TCP based mail systems).

The license for MAILworks comes with Pathworks, so if you have pathworks,
you have Mailworks.  If you can fall under the CSLG as an educational
institution you can get the VT client and the DECW client under that
program.

It does handle arbitrary binary attachments.  We also have purchased PMDF from
Innosoft (SALES@INNOSOFT.COM) which allows us to pass binary attachments to
the Internet in MIME format.  We also have an internal X.400 network that
we can pass binaries over.  All in all, we like it.

******************************************************************************
Dan McDonald                    * UUCP      ...utacfd!dalsil!mcdonald
Dallas Computer Services	* Internet  mcdonald@dallas.sil.org
Summer Institute of Linguistics * ATTmail   sil!mcdonald
7500 W Camp Wisdom Rd           * SILnet    MCDONALD@AM@DALLAS
Dallas, TX 75236                * FAXnet    (214)709-3387
USA                             * POTSnet   (214)709-3389
******************************************************************************
x.400: C=US; ADMD=WESTERN UNION; O=SIL; DDA.ELN=62897168
      include "VMS MAIL: DAN.MCDONALD" in text for automated delivery :-(
******************************************************************************

In article <1992Nov11.170800.47@dallas.sil.org> mcdonald@dallas.sil.org writes:
>In article <1992Nov11.154720.28785@jupiter.sun.csd.unb.ca>, cmcneil@mta.ca (Chris McNeil) writes:
>> We are currently using popmail ( POPMail, Eudora, NUPOP as clients) on
>> our campus as our mail solution for PC's and like it very much. We are a
>> a DEC site and Dec is trying to get us to switch to all-in-1 mail. Can
>> anyone that has used the above comment on it.
>We are using MAILworks (aka Allin1 MAIL for xxx) and like it very much.  It
>runs on our MACs, PC's, dumb terminals, and X terminals, so anyone can move
>between platforms and still get at his mail. 

Is your network primarily DECnet or IP? We looked at Pathworks
not too long ago, and a significant number of the advertised
features weren't available over IP, just DECnet. Pathworks (over
IP or DECnet) also has problems with routed networks rather than
the bridged model DEC prefers. It (Pathworks) tends to use
broadcasts for resource discovery, although I'm told that a
forthcoming version will use directed multicast or a Hesiod-like
tool to find stuff.

>Dan McDonald                    * UUCP      ...utacfd!dalsil!mcdonald
>Dallas Computer Services	* Internet  mcdonald@dallas.sil.org
>Summer Institute of Linguistics * ATTmail   sil!mcdonald


-- 
David Boyes
dboyes@rice.edu

In article <BxKqA8.ADA@rice.edu>, dboyes@is.rice.edu (David E Boyes) writes:
> In article <1992Nov11.154720.28785@jupiter.sun.csd.unb.ca> Chris McNeil <cmcneil@mta.ca> writes:
>>We are currently using popmail ( POPMail, Eudora, NUPOP as clients) on
>>our campus as our mail solution for PC's and like it very much. We are a
>>a DEC site and Dec is trying to get us to switch to all-in-1 mail. Can
>>anyone that has used the above comment on it.
> 
> In one word: don't. All-in-1 is fine *IF*:
> 
>   a) you have significant machine and personnel resources
>      available to manage it and it's databases

Sorry, but you are a victim of the Allin1 MAIL bad name choice fiasco.  I
would agree wholehardily that Allin1 Integrated Office System would be an
extremely bad choice for him in this situation.  However, he is talking
about using MAILWORKS (aka Allin1 MAIL for xxx).  Mailworks does not take
much more resources than VMSMail.  It is a little harder to set up, but
once its up it is very clean.

>   b) you are willing to accept the limitations and syntactical
>      complexity involved in getting the Mail-11 transport to cope
>      with non-DEC network software and protocols

Sorry, but neither Allin1 IOS or MAILWORKS uses Mail-11.  They are both
based on Message Router (which is now provided under the DECNET end-node
license).  A gateway is needed to get to the rest of the world, however, of
which there are several.  The best is from Innosoft.

>   c) can afford the licensing cost for significant numbers of
>      microcomputer clients.

If you are already running Pathworks, then there is no additional licensing
fee.  Mailworks for DOS comes with the PATHworks for DOS client license,
and MAilworks for MAC comes with the Pathworks for MAC client license.

******************************************************************************
Dan McDonald                    * UUCP      ...utacfd!dalsil!mcdonald
Dallas Computer Services	* Internet  mcdonald@dallas.sil.org
Summer Institute of Linguistics * ATTmail   sil!mcdonald
7500 W Camp Wisdom Rd           * SILnet    MCDONALD@AM@DALLAS
Dallas, TX 75236                * FAXnet    (214)709-3387
USA                             * POTSnet   (214)709-3389
******************************************************************************
x.400: C=US; ADMD=WESTERN UNION; O=SIL; DDA.ELN=62897168
      include "VMS MAIL: DAN.MCDONALD" in text for automated delivery :-(
******************************************************************************

In article <1992Nov12.140452.48@dallas.sil.org> mcdonald@dallas.sil.org writes:
> [...] It doesn't consume
>much more resources than VMSMail.  It is a little harder to set up, but
>once its up it is very clean.

It is less resource intensive than interactive sessions on the
same hardware, but the physical hardware (VAXes) is comparatively
expensive and is proprietary. Using POP or IMAP and the clients
he described in his initial message, he could go out tomorrow
and replace his mail server with a cluster of machines running
Amoeba or an IBM mainframe and his users would probably never
notice the difference if the host name and IP address of the
server remained the same.

I'm aware that DEC is working on a portable VMS, but that's not
an option right now -- you're still stuck with buying VAXes to
run the mail servers, and the price/performance/maintenance cost for Vaxes
compared to small workstations or large PCs running Unix is just
not very good.

>>   b) you are willing to accept the limitations and syntactical
>>      complexity involved in getting the Mail-11 transport to cope
>>      with non-DEC network software and protocols
>
>Sorry, but neither Allin1 IOS or MAILWORKS uses Mail-11.  They are both
>based on Message Router (which is now provided under the DECNET end-node
>license).  A gateway is needed to get to the rest of the world, however, of
>which there are several.  The best is from Innosoft.

Message Router is nothing more than a Mail-11 external transport
manager with a simplified external interface to the foreign
protocols. The X.400, SMTP, and PSI transports that work with Message
Router are certainly better than their earlier couterparts that
dealt directly with the Mail-11 internal interface, but they
still are difficult to configure correctly and produce headers
that are unpleasant to parse on non-DEC, non-MR systems. 

My basic paradigm for mail systems says that *anything* related
to protocol or address conversion should be as invisible as
possible to the end user. Neither the traditional All-in-1
(allin1 IOS, as you call it) or Mailworks make sending mail to
widely varying addresses -- SMTP, UUCP bang paths, Novell MHS
gateways,etc. -- simple or syntactically consistent. Of course,
part of that is due to the differing address structures
themselves, but I don't find the method that either version of
Allin1 uses intuitive or particularly easy to use or explain to
end users.

>>   c) can afford the licensing cost for significant numbers of
>>      microcomputer clients.
>If you are already running Pathworks, then there is no additional licensing
>fee.  Mailworks for DOS comes with the PATHworks for DOS client license,
>and MAilworks for MAC comes with the Pathworks for MAC client license.

Has DEC added Pathworks to the CSLG CD-ROMs? Last I checked
(beginning of this year), Pathworks wasn't available via CSLG.
Pathworks is also rather touchy about network hardware, doesn't
deal well with routed networks instead of bridged networks, and
DEC tends to be slow to support new and lower cost networking
hardware for microcomputers. 

The original poster already has a functioning distributed mail
system with a reasonable interface, direct SMTP support, support
for a wide range of network hardware and software via packet
drivers and the PD community, and it doesn't cost him much more
than the support costs of getting the documentation edited for
his site and packaging the clients for his users. I can't see
where Allin1 or Pathworks buys him any real advantages.


>Dan McDonald                    * UUCP      ...utacfd!dalsil!mcdonald
-- 
David Boyes
dboyes@rice.edu