| Oracle® Collaboration Suite Concepts Guide 10g Release 1 (10.1.2) Part Number B25491-03 |
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View PDF |
| Oracle® Collaboration Suite Concepts Guide 10g Release 1 (10.1.2) Part Number B25491-03 |
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|
View PDF |
Oracle Collaboration Suite 10g Mail is a reliable, scalable, and secure messaging system that uses Oracle Database 10g to store and manage your organization's e-mail, voice mail and fax messages. Oracle Mail provides message delivery, browser-based clients, and administration utilities by taking advantage of the Oracle core competencies in providing access to, storing, and managing all types of information.
This chapter contains the following sections:
The Oracle Mail system can be customized based on how many messages need to be stored, how many users access the system under peak loads, and how many messages are sent and received over a period of time. The Oracle Mail Internet computing architecture enables administrators to support thousands of users on a single system, if necessary. Administrators have the option of creating a two-tier system with a single host supporting a few thousand users, or a three-tier system with protocol access servers separate from the message database supporting many thousands of users. This architecture enables administrators to add hardware to any tier, expanding the system to support a virtually unlimited number of users.
The following sections describe the key features of Oracle Mail:
Oracle Mail stores all messages in an Oracle 10g Database. This enables Oracle Mail users to access and manage all their messages from the interface of their choice, including a Web browser, phone and PDA. Using the Oracle Database also lets Oracle Mail offer data availability, data integrity, low recovery time, and fault-tolerance as well as multithreading, parallel processing, high availability support, and high performance.
Oracle Mail simplifies administration and management by integrating with Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g, enabling consolidated, Web-based management of the total Oracle environment as well as integration into existing system-monitoring infrastructures. Oracle Mail also supports multiple domains with delegated administration on the same system, enabling hosting.
Oracle Mail administrators can use Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Grid Control for monitoring and tuning Oracle Mail processes. The following utilities for advanced administrative functionality are also provided with Oracle Mail.
Enhanced plug-in interface
Oracle Mail simplifies applying custom plug-ins to incoming and outgoing messages. This makes it easier for developers to apply their own functionality such as e-mail monitoring, anti-spam, and archiving to messages in transit.
Simplified Installation
By using default values and service discovery there are fewer installation steps.
Delivery Status Notifications
Delivery status notification messages are available in multiple languages.
Oracle Mail enables users to access messages with the standards-based messaging client of their choice. Messages can be accessed using any client compliant with IMAP4 or POP3. Oracle Mail provides directory services using Oracle's LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) compliant Oracle Internet Directory.
Oracle Mail provides robust protection against virus and unwanted e-mail (spam). Administrators can configure Oracle Mail to reject a message based on specific information contained in the message header. For example, e-mails with specific words in the ÒSubjectÓ field can be blocked. Additionally, administrators can define a list of inappropriate attachments in Oracle Mail, such as executable files, to prevent unwanted attachments from entering the messaging system.
Oracle Mail provides a wide range of server-side filters that enable certain actions to be taken at various events. A variety of built-in actions, such as move, delete, and forward can be used to quickly assemble complex filtering logic with optimized e-mail actions. Filters can be defined to cover a wide range of actions, such as delivery, copy, delete, and relay, enabling fine-grained control over a message's life span. In addition to built-in actions, server-side filters include a PL/SQL API, enabling end-users to write their own customized actions and conditions.
Oracle Mail provides functionality to enable Oracle Mail administrators to save e-mail messages in an archive for later retrieval. Additionally, third-party vendors can provide end-users with archiving capabilities. Oracle Mail administrators can easily enable message archiving on a per user basis through the administration interface.
PL/SQL and Java programmers can create custom applications to integrate Oracle Mail with other applications. Oracle Mail APIs enable applications to directly manipulate stored messages as well as create outgoing messages that follow the MIME standard. Combined with server-side rules, large numbers of messages can be processed and managed by applications integrated with Oracle Mail.
See the Oracle Collaboration Suite Application Development Concepts chapter in this guide for more information about Oracle Mail APIs.
See Oracle Mail Application Developer's Guide for more information about developing for Oracle Mail.
Oracle Mail includes the following three clients to meet your e-mail needs:
Oracle Mail features the Oracle Web Access client, a browser-based application that brings together user-friendly design with a rich feature set to offer a desktop-like experience. The user interface incorporates Dynamic-HTML technology, enabling ease of use through desktop-like interactions. The Oracle Web Access client supports standard Web browsers, including Internet Explorer, and Mozilla Firefox.
Key features of the Web Access client:
Drag-and-drop: Users can move items as they wish with convenient drag and drop functionality.
Quick sorting and search: Mail searching is made easy by entering just a few letters of a person's name or a subject title to display all relevant entries.
Calendar integration: Users can launch the Oracle Calendar Web client from any time slot in the Web Access client TimeBar; clicking on an empty slot in the time bar brings up a new meeting request page.
Contacts: Access to personal address books and corporate directory look-up, including an organizational chart and daily view of another user's agenda.
Oracle Connector for Outlook extends the functionality of Microsoft Outlook, providing Oracle Collaboration Suite users with a familiar and unified environment for their calendaring and e-mail tasks.
Oracle Connector for Outlook 10.1.3
The latest release of Oracle Connector for Outlook, version 10.1.3, provides you with new features and improvements over the previous release. The architecture of Oracle Connector for Outlook 10.1.3 has been redesigned to provide Outlook users with:
POP Server support: You can now use Oracle Connector for Outlook with both IMAP and POP mail servers.
Multi-threading: The new architecture of Oracle Connector for Outlook enables you to continue to read and send e-mails while network-intensive operations proceed in the background.
Increased responsiveness: This new release of Oracle Connector for Outlook retains more user responsiveness under poor networking conditions, such as WAN.
For a comprehensive list of new features and functionality in Oracle Connector for Outlook 10.1.3, see the "What's new" topic under "Getting started" in the Oracle Connector for Outlook online help.
For more information about Oracle Connector for Outlook, see Oracle Collaboration Suite 10g Calendar Concepts chapter in this guide and "Deploying Oracle Calendar" in Chapter 5 of Oracle Collaboration Suite Deployment Guide.
Oracle WebMail provides Internet access to Oracle Mail through a standard Web browser. Browser-based clients provide all of the advantages of internet computing: increased reliability because no dedicated client is needed; decreased support and administration costs due to the system being maintained in a professional data center; and increased message access because there are no local message storage requirements. Users can access and manage all aspects of their Oracle Mail account from Oracle WebMail.
Oracle WebMail also supports spell checking in several languages, multilingual character sets, and the Read Receipt feature, which enables users to send read receipt requests to track when their e-mails have been read by recipients. These features are also available in the Oracle Web Access client.
Oracle Mozilla Extension (OMX) is a client-side integration plug-in between Mozilla Thunderbird and the Oracle Calendar desktop client. The OMX plug-in provides an integrated mail and calendaring experience for Oracle Collaboration Suite users. The Oracle Mozilla Extension enables you to launch the Oracle Calendar desktop client from Thunderbird, as well as create Tasks and Meetings. Additionally, while using Thunderbird, you can contextually select an e-mail and open a single user's agenda, or multiple users' agendas in the Oracle Calendar desktop client.
The Oracle Mozilla Extension also provides Oracle Collaboration Suite users with integration with Oracle Real-Time Collaboration. While using Mozilla Thunderbird, you can start an Oracle Collaboration Suite Web Conference based on an e-mail's sender or recipient.
See Oracle Mail Administrator's Guide for more information about Oracle Mail administration, configuration, and troubleshooting.
See Chapter 8, "Deploying Oracle Mail" in Oracle Collaboration Suite Deployment Guide for more information about Oracle Mail deployment.
See Oracle Mail Application Developer's Guide for more information about developing for Oracle Mail.
