Chapter 1 Introduction and Overview

This Guide was developed to help you, the system administrator, understand and plan for the deployment of the Sun Java System Connector for Microsoft Outlook to the end users in your organization. The deployment process can proceed along many different paths depending on your original and destination network configurations, the administrative structure of your organization, and your own informed sense of the extent to which your users can and should be involved in the process of installing and configuring their own desktop software.

Your organization will use Sun Java System Connector software so that your users can use Microsoft Outlook as their e-mail and calendar client while connected to Sun Java System servers. The Connector software must be installed and configured for each of your desktop users to facilitate the necessary ongoing communications between Outlook and the Sun Java System server. Sun also provides a Desktop Deployment Toolkit, a collection of software tools for system administrators designed to simplify both the administrator's work and the user tasks associated with installing and configuring the Sun Java System Connector software for individual users.

The Desktop Deployment Toolkit lets the administrator create customized end-user installation packages for the Connector software, with pre-set configuration parameters to simplify and streamline the user’s process, and to enforce any configuration settings the administrator deems necessary or desirable for a particular user or group of users. The Deployment Configuration Program saves those pre-set configuration parameters in an .ini text file, and then bundles the .ini file with an installation program—the Setup Wizard—for end users. When an end user activates the package, the Setup Wizard reads the .ini file to install and configure the Connector software on his or her desktop according to the administrator’s specifications.

As you plan for your deployment and use the Deployment Toolkit to prepare installation packets for your users, you will find many choices available for how the new software will be distributed, installed and configured on individual user desktops. Some of your choices will be dictated by logistical imperatives, while other choices will be derived from your personal familiarity with your organization, your network, and your users.

This Guide is intended to help you anticipate these choices, and explain the significance and implications of your options before you start using the Deployment Toolkit.

Why Use the Deployment Toolkit?

With the Deployment Toolkit, an administrator can control a wide range of configuration parameters for desktop users. Mandating many or most configuration settings will bypass the need for users to ponder options, make choices and set values themselves. These automated or semi-automated installations will spare the corporate help desk many calls for guidance, support, and solutions to the inevitable problems that arise when user choices produce unexpected results. Overall, the toolkit substantially reduces the cost, time and effort required to deploy the Sun Java System Connector software.

A system administrator may create different installation packages for different groups of desktop end user—for example, to enforce different configuration schemes for users in the Sales department vs. the Engineering department and so forth, or to offer configuration options to some groups of users while setting fixed parameters (eliminating the choices) for other groups.

If your organization is migrating from Microsoft Exchange, the users' installation packages will also preserve the considerable value of their existing Outlook data stored in .pst files on user desktops, as well as their Notes, Journals and Contacts stored on the Exchange server. The bundled installation packages include a conversion utility that quickly converts all such data to pure Internet addresses, so users will be able to reply to older messages, appointment invitees will receive change notices, and address books and personal distribution lists will remain serviceable after your migration to the Sun Java System server.

Deployment Process Per Desktop: Three Tasks

Deployment of the Sun Java System Connector software to each user desktop requires three distinct tasks:

Installation: The necessary and appropriate software must be physically installed to the Outlook user's desktop. Software installation requires access privileges that often are disallowed to many or most end users. In this case, most enterprises implement a “push” method for software distribution from the system administrator to user desktops that bypasses the requirement for user access privileges. (This “push” method of distribution is explained in more detail below, under Desktop Installation Methods.) If your network serves “locked-down” Windows environments where end users cannot install software, we strongly recommend this sort of automated configuration management as a way to avoid many individual desktop visits.

Configuration: The Sun Java System Connector is installed with an assortment of configuration parameters including the server names and port numbers, user password options, directory search defaults, the log file path, and so forth. While users or administrators can manually configure these settings within Outlook at each desktop, it is far more efficient for administrators to pre-configure these for groups of users and avoid desktop visits.

Conversion: The desktop Setup Wizard can convert Exchange users’ Contacts, Journal and Notes data to local (desktop) Personal Folders (.pst) files for the Sun Java System Connector. Any such existing personal data files associated with Microsoft Exchange and Outlook must be converted to be compatible with the Sun Java System server and Connector software. (This task does not apply to new e-mail users who were not previously working with Microsoft Exchange.) If a user has password-protected his or her data files, these conversions will require the password associated with the protected files. The conversion function is processor-intensive and may run on the user's computer for many minutes or even hours if a user has large amounts of data to convert. For this reason the conversion utility lets a user defer the conversion of larger files to a later time, such as during a lunch break or even overnight.

The Deployment Configuration Program lets a system administrator create installation packages that will automate some or all of these tasks for end users, depending on the administrator's deployment strategy for any particular group of users.

Deployment Toolkit Components

The Sun Java System Connector Desktop Deployment Toolkit consists of these components:

Deployment Configuration Program: Sun's tool that lets system administrators create bundled, customized installation packages for end users. These packages can then install and configure the Sun Java System Connector software and, if appropriate, convert data from Exchange local stores.

Sun Java System Connector Setup Wizard: Sun's tool that lets end users install the Sun Java System Connector software, configure its operations and features based on the administrator's settings, and convert existing Outlook data files (.pst files) associated with Exchange into a form that the Sun Java System Connector can use. (The Setup Wizard is one part of the bundled end-user installation package created by the Deployment Configuration Program, as described above.)

Sun's Install kit (MSI) for the Sun Java System Connector: Sun's installation utility for the software that facilitates ongoing, permanent communications between Microsoft Outlook features and the Sun Java System server. This is supplied as part of the package from Sun.

Special Kits for using Microsoft System Management Services (SMS) to install the Sun Java System Connector: Sun utilities that support the “push” functionality of Microsoft's SMS to let a system administrator distribute and install the Sun Java System Connector desktop components to user desktops with minimal or no user involvement. This “push” method of distribution is explained below, under Desktop Installation Methods.

In addition to the above-listed components of the Deployment Toolkit, the items listed below (available from other vendors) may be necessary for your users to install the Sun Java System Connector for Microsoft Outlook:

Microsoft installation program for Web Publishing Wizard (WPW): Microsoft's WPW is a tool used to generate HTML-coded documents, typically in the form of web pages to be viewed in a web browser. But WPW can also be used to “publish” information for other purposes—to create documents containing certain types of data and upload the documents to locations where other applications can find them and extract the pertinent data. The Sun Java System Connector uses WPW this way to facilitate the transfer of users' free/busy data between Outlook and the Sun Java System server, and WPW therefore is a necessary intermediary and a required component of every user's installation of the Sun Java System Connector.



Note	The WPW, however, is not included in the Deployment Toolkit package because it is a Microsoft product, so you must obtain the Web Publishing Wizard from Microsoft. The installation program for Microsoft’s WPW is available as a free download from http://www.microsoft.com.

Microsoft Install kits (MSIs) for Some Versions of Outlook (required only if some of your users are using Outlook 2000, not required if all users are running Outlook 2002 or 2003): The Sun Java System Connector uses LDAP services to communicate with the Sun Java System directory, and the LDAP protocol is a standard feature of Outlook 2002 and 2003. The LDAP protocol is only an optional feature in Outlook 2000, not a part of a “standard” Microsoft Office installation. If any of your users are using Outlook 2000 you will need the corresponding original Microsoft installation CD(s) or files to install the LDAP component. These kits are not included in Sun's Deployment Toolkit package because they are Microsoft products.

Copy these CDs into a directory structure on a shared folder on your network to permit the Setup Wizard to install LDAP without prompting each user to insert the original Outlook or Office CD. You should create a top level directory with no files in it, as shown in Figure 1-1. For each different version of Outlook or Office your users are running, create a subdirectory under that and copy the installation kit into the subdirectory.

Figure 1-1 Recommended Directory Structure for LDAP Source Files

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Sun Java System Connector for Microsoft Outlook 7 2005Q1 Deployment Planning Guide