Connecting Notes and Exchange
The May 1, 1998, edition of Electronic Mail and Messaging News reported that Microsoft Exchange Server outsold Lotus Notes by 350,000 seats in the first quarter of 1998. Notes still leads the industry in terms of total seats (22.5 million to Exchange's 13.05 million), but Exchange is catching up. Because Exchange and Notes dominate the messaging market, you might soon face the task of connecting Exchange and Notes systems or migrating your network from one messaging platform to the other. This article reviews the Exchange connector that integrates the two systems and a group of tools that can help you migrate from Notes to Exchange.
The LinkAge Connection
Notes, which has been available since 1989, runs on several operating systems (OSs), but Exchange is limited to Windows NT. Exchange and Notes both support a range of messaging protocols, such as Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), through connectors and gateways, such as X.400. You can connect the two systems via a common protocol, and they will usually exchange messages and attachments with a high degree of fidelity. However, a common-protocol connection doesn't let the platforms synchronize directories' contents or enable either messaging product to recognize the other product's objects, such as distribution lists. A common-protocol connection also causes problems for mail-enabled applications that require the messaging system to embed into message structures information about how to route and process the applications' documents. For Notes and Exchange to achieve a satisfactory level of connectivity, you need a connector that recognizes the differences between the two messaging systems' structures and APIs.
In May 1997, Microsoft bought LinkAge Software, a small company in Toronto, Ontario, that specialized in connecting Exchange to other messaging systems, including Notes. As a term of the acquisition, the LinkAge engineering staff joined the Exchange development group and helped integrate LinkAge's previously standalone code into Exchange. The engineers developed a connector that enables point-to-point directory synchronization between Notes and Exchange and eliminates LinkAge's dependency on an interim SQL Server directory for connectivity between the two messaging products' databases.
To set up the connector, you create a foreign domain for Exchange on a machine running Notes Server 3.0 or later. On the same server, you set up a router mailbox for the connector and a holding container (a Notes database) for the foreign domain. Notes delivers messages for Exchange users to the router mailbox, which places the messages in the holding container. The connector regularly polls the container for new messages and transfers messages to Exchange recipients via the Message Transfer Agent (MTA). When an Exchange user sends a message to a Notes user, Exchange delivers the message to the connector, the connector transfers the message to the router mailbox, and Notes routes the message to the proper user.
The connector synchronizes the Exchange and Notes directories so that users of one messaging product can browse display names and addresses of the other product's users, and the connector passes Notes document links to Exchange messages. Microsoft ported the connector to Alpha, but not in time to include it in Exchange 5.5. You can find the Notes connector for Alphas in Exchange 5.5 Service Pack 1 (SP1).
Preparing to Connect
I recently set up a messaging system that incorporates Notes and Exchange. I wish I could report that connecting Notes to Exchange takes a couple worry-free minutes, but I can't. You must spend hours configuring both sides of the connector before messages can flow between the platforms. The configuration process is torturous, and I don't recommend that messaging amateurs attempt it. Many potential problems await the unwary, so you need to have experience administering Notes and Exchange before you try to configure a connection.
Microsoft recommends that you not run the connector on your Notes server. You can run both programs on the same computer, but in a production environment you're better off keeping the platforms separated so that if your Exchange server has problems they won't affect your Notes server, and vice versa. The connector's official hardware requirements are a Pentium-class CPU with 32MB of RAM and a 1GB hard disk. However, I recommend using the same class of server for the connector that you would use to host an Internet connection--for example, a 200MHz Pentium Pro system with 96MB to 128MB of RAM and at least three 2GB or larger hard disks.
I didn't notice a substantial degradation in performance on the servers I used to connect Notes and Exchange, but if you're considering running the connector, you need to conduct a realistic test before making any decisions about server configurations. For example, you can set up a LoadSim test to send messages through the connector to determine whether a certain hardware configuration can handle the load you expect your network to place on the connector.
I set up two servers within one site to run NT 4.0, NT 4.0 Service Pack 3 (SP3), Exchange 5.5, and Exchange 5.5 SP1. I decided to install the connector and Notes client software on one server, DBO-EXCHANGEIST. The connector uses the Notes client API to access the Notes server, and the easiest way to give the connector access to the API is to install a copy of the Notes client (release 4.52 or later). I set up the other server, PLATINUM, to run Notes Server 4.6 and Domino Server 4.6.
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