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| Sun Java System Messaging Server 6 2004Q2 Deployment Planning Guide | |
Chapter 5
Designing a Messaging TopologyThe architecture design provides for how Messaging Server components are distributed across hardware and software resources, which provides the basis for determining requirements for the deployment environment design.
This chapter describes how to design your messaging topology. A messaging topology describes the physical and logical layout of a networked messaging system. Specifically, a topology depicts the way the devices are arranged on a network and how they communicate with one another. In addition, a topology describes the way that data passes through a network. Topologies are bound to network protocols that direct the data flow.
This chapter contains the following sections:
Identifying Your Geographic NeedsThe first step in designing your messaging topology is to identify your geographic needs. In particular, you need to determine the messaging services you need to provide at each location within your organization:
Determining a Topology Design StrategyBefore you develop your topology, you need a strategy to determine where you are going to put your messaging servers in your enterprise. Depending on your goals, there are four common topologies that you can apply to your organization:
Central Topology
In a central topology, most or all major system components and messaging processes are located at one site. Clients at remote sites communicate over a Wide Area Network (WAN) to the centralized messaging servers. Figure 5-1 shows a central topology.
Figure 5-1 Central Topology
You should consider a central topology for your organization when:
- Messaging at remote sites is not mission critical.
- Users tend to send and receive small text messages.
- Your organization is located in one physical location or distributed across many small user populations.
- You do not have remote support personnel.
- Good bandwidth exists between remote sites and the central site (at least ISDN or better).
There are advantages to implementing a central topology. In general, a central topology has lower hardware and support costs. Central topologies tend to be easier to manage because you have a simplified messaging architecture and a directory replication structure with fewer replication agreements. With a simplified architecture and no need to coordinate installation among geographically distant sites, a central topology is faster to deploy.
That said, there are an equal number of disadvantages to implementing a central topology. A centralized approach heavily relies on a WAN. If the network does not function properly, users at the same site as well as users in remote locations could not send email to one another. Depending on network bandwidth and traffic, services might be slower during peak usage times. For users who send messages within the same domain, a central topology is inefficient. For example, looking at Figure 5-1, a message sent from one user in the Tokyo site would first travel to the Central site before being sent to another user in the Tokyo site.
Distributed Topology
In a distributed topology, most or all system components and messaging processes are distributed across multiple sites, usually at each remote site. The following figure shows a distributed topology.
Figure 5-2 Distributed Topology
You should consider a distributed topology for your site when:
If bandwidth significantly impacts your topology strategy, you should consider upgrading the bandwidth. In general, bandwidth is relatively inexpensive. You might also consider a Virtual Private Networking (VPN), which uses existing high bandwidth Internet pipes rather than dedicated lines behind a firewall.
There are advantages to implementing a distributed topology. Users at regional sites have faster access to their messages because they do not have to retrieve messages over the WAN. Furthermore, messages sent within a regional location will have less messaging traffic than in a central topology. However, satellite offices still rely on the WAN. Therefore, if lots of message traffic is generated in a satellite office, the WAN might need to be upgraded.
The disadvantages of implementing a distributed topology are that typically you will have higher hardware costs and higher support costs as you maintain more hardware at more locations. Support costs are also higher because of the complexity of the distributed topology. For example, failover in a distributed topology is more difficult to implement than in a central topology. In addition, it is much slower to initially deploy Messaging Server because there are multiple servers spread across multiple sites.
Hybrid Topology
In a hybrid topology, central and distributed topologies are combined to meet the needs of an organization. Figure 5-3 shows a hybrid topology.
Figure 5-3 Hybrid Topology
Organizations that benefit from a hybrid topology include those with many sites that have the ability to support a large user base. These sites that support them can house their own messaging servers. Some of these larger sites might have smaller satellite offices located in the general vicinity. But these satellite offices would not require their own messaging servers. Instead, the nearest major office would act as the central location for their services.
Service Provider Topology
In essence, a service provider topology is a large-scale central topology. Typically, a service provider hosts multiple domains and has a larger customer base than an enterprise. Systems are centralized and are able to support multiple users during peak hours. Figure 5-4 shows a service provider topology.
Figure 5-4 Service Provider Topology
Understanding Messaging Topology ElementsThis section describes the most common elements in a messaging topology. Having some familiarity with the basic elements will make it easier for you to design your own topology.
The following topics are covered:
Messaging Topology Components
In Determining a Topology Design Strategy, you were introduced to three components of a messaging topology: Messaging Server, Directory Server, and clients. This section will describe other components in a basic messaging topology.
Messaging Server. Houses and maintains user mailboxes; it can also be a server that contains just the MTA portion of Messaging Server as described in Internet Relay and MTA Relay.
Client. Accesses messaging services from Messaging Server (often through the Messaging Multiplexor).
Directory Server. Used by Messaging Server for name and alias lookup. Direct LDAP lookup determines where messages should be routed.
Messaging Multiplexor. Connects clients to appropriate Messaging servers for retrieving messages.
Internet Relay. Routes messages from the Internet and relays them across the firewall. Typically, a Messaging server is set up to perform this function.
MTA Relay. The incoming MTA routes incoming messages to valid addresses in the appropriate Messaging Server. The outgoing MTA accepts outgoing messages from clients, queries LDAP to find out where to send the message, then sends it off to the appropriate server or out across the firewall to the Internet. Typically, a Messaging server is set up to perform this function.
DNS Server. Resolves server names into IP addresses to allow messages to be routed to their proper address in the network.
Firewall. Restricts Internet access of your internal site. You might even have a firewall between departments in your organization.
Mail Relays
This section describes how you can use mail relays to protect your Messaging system as well as to control the flow of message traffic to and from your site.
An Internet relay is a single point of contact that receives messages from sites external to your organization. An Internet relay sends the incoming messages across the firewall to the inbound MTA, typically another Messaging Server.
The inbound MTA then queries the directory to determine where to send the message within the organization. The Internet relay is located in the demilitarized zone (DMZ) of the firewall (between the external and internal walls of the firewall), and does not have access to any information about servers other than the inbound MTA.
The outbound MTA accepts outgoing messages from clients. It queries LDAP to find out where to send the message, then sends it off to the appropriate server or out across the firewall to the Internet. This offloads the MTA work from messaging servers that are used by users to retrieve messages. Figure 5-5 illustrates the idea.
Figure 5-5 Mail Relays in Messaging Topology
Messaging Multiplexor (MMP) and Messenger Express Multiplexor (MEM)
The MMP enables you to mask the layout of your Messaging servers from your end users. Consequently, you assign users to a generic MMP without having them point to the specific server where their mail boxes reside. Message access clients point to the MMP for retrieving incoming messages.
When such a client connects and authenticates, the MMP looks up the user information in the directory to determine where the user’s messages are held. The MMP then connects the client to that specific server. The following figure shows how the MMP acts as a proxy for IMAP4 and POP3 connections to Messaging servers. You can multiplex HTTP services (like Messenger Express) by enabling the MEM feature. The following figure shows how multiplexors function in a Messaging Server environment.
Figure 5-6 Multiplexor Overview
Gateways
Your organization might contain legacy messaging systems that use proprietary methods for messaging handling. Until you migrate your users, both messaging strategies must co-exist. To access these legacy systems, you can use an SMTP gateway, which enables SMTP connections between the new system and the other legacy systems.
Creating a Messaging Topology ExampleOnce you have a basic understanding of your topological needs, your strategy, and the topology elements, you can create your messaging topology. To help you create a messaging topology, this section uses the example of the Siroe Corporation.
The Siroe Corporation is a multi-media organization headquartered in New York, with two smaller offices in Los Angeles and Chicago, and two satellite offices in San Diego and in Minneapolis.
Step 1: Identifying Messaging Goals
The first step in creating a topology is to understand the goals of your organization. Similar to Chapter 2, "Analyzing Your Requirements," Siroe’s messaging goals can be categorized into business objectives, technical, and financial constraints.
Siroe’s Business Objectives
The finance, marketing, legal, IT, and engineering groups are located in New York. The creative groups are located in Los Angeles and in San Diego. The technical support groups are located in Chicago and Minneapolis. Most messages are sent between Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York.
Employees at the Siroe Corporation rely on email as their primary method of communication. On average, employees send approximately 15 messages per day with attachments in the form of spreadsheets, presentations, or animation.
The deployment planners determined that messaging servers would be set up in Chicago, Los Angeles, and in New York. Since the volume of email traffic in San Diego and in Minneapolis is relatively light, these satellite offices will only have mail clients connecting to servers that are located in Chicago and in Los Angeles.
Siroe’s Financial and Technical Constraints
Because of budgetary restrictions, Siroe will be using the existing infrastructure and hardware that is already in place, moving servers to locations where there is critical need. 24x7 support will be available only in the New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles offices. All offices will be connected by T3 lines.
Step 2: Choosing Your Topology Strategy
The second step in creating your messaging topology is to choose your topology strategy, described in Determining a Topology Design Strategy. The Siroe Corporation evaluated their business objectives as well as their financial and technical constraints. They determined:
- Messaging servers did not need to be deployed at satellite sites, only mail clients.
- Good bandwidth exists at satellite sites (T3 lines).
- Regardless of location, mail users send and receive large messages throughout the corporation.
- There are large user populations in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, but not in Minneapolis or San Diego.
- Support personnel exist in New York, Los Angeles, and in Chicago.
The Siroe Corporation then mapped their objectives and constraints to a common design strategy. Figure 5-7 shows that the Siroe Corporation has chosen a hybrid topology.
Figure 5-7 Hybrid Topology for the Siroe Corporation
Because New York has the highest message transaction rate of messages entering and leaving the system, it has the most number of messaging servers. The smaller offices, Los Angeles and Chicago, also support San Diego and Minneapolis. But these satellite offices do not require their own messaging servers. Instead, Chicago and Los Angeles act as the central location for their services.
Step 3: Planning Your Topology Elements
The final step in creating your messaging topology is to plan your topology elements in your actual deployment, as described in Understanding Messaging Topology Elements. The following figure illustrates the topology elements in the Chicago and Minneapolis offices.
Figure 5-8 Topological Elements in the Siroe Messaging Deployment for Chicago and Minneapolis
Because 30 percent of the workforce is made up of third-party vendors and contractors, internal firewalls are used in addition to the external firewalls in the topology to restrict access to locations within the company. Internet relays are placed in the topology to route messages from the Internet and relay them across the firewall. MTA relays are added to route incoming and outgoing messages. Separating incoming and outgoing messages helps to manage the high volume of message traffic. The MMP connects employees’ POP and IMAP mail clients to their mailboxes in the Messaging Servers. By using an MMP, employees don’t have to know their specific mail host when they log in, and administrators can seamlessly move employees’ mailboxes to different mail server locations.
Creating a messaging topology enables you to account for the physical and logical placement of all the elements in your deployment. Doing so ensures minimal rework of your installation.
