2 Planning Your Convergence Installation

This chapter provides information about planning your Oracle Communications Convergence installation. It also describes the Convergence logical and physical architectures.

About Convergence

Convergence is a feature-rich, interactive, high-performance next generation web-based communication client that delivers messaging, calendar, address book, and instant messaging services.

Convergence delivers its services using the capabilities common within the most popular types of web browsers, including Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, and Google Chrome.

Convergence is also highly customizable, making it as much a development platform as a client.

The Convergence messaging service provides:

  • Compose, reply, forward, and other typical email functions

  • Spell check

  • Message and attachment search (subject, sender, and so on)

  • Mail management: deleting, moving, marking messages

  • Quota

The Convergence calendar service provides:

  • Create, edit, delete events and tasks, and other typical calendar functions

  • Check availability, schedule meetings with others

  • Sharing calendars

The Convergence address book service provides:

  • Common address book across services

  • Create contacts and groups of contacts

  • Corporate address book

  • Import or export contact information

  • Send email or schedule events directly from the address book

The Convergence instant messaging service provides:

  • Presence integrated with contacts

  • Buddy lists, chat capability

Convergence Deployment Architecture

The following figure shows the Convergence components. The top layer shows the various Convergence services. The middle layer represents the Convergence server itself, deployed to an Oracle GlassFish Server domain. The bottom layer shows the dependencies that the Convergence server has on other applications to deliver its services and features.

Figure 2-1 Convergence Components

Description of Figure 2-1 follows
Description of "Figure 2-1 Convergence Components"

Convergence provides the following core services:

  • Service Proxies

  • XMPP over HTTP Gateway

  • Address Book Service

  • Authentication & Authorization

  • SSO (Oracle Access Manager/Messaging SSO)

  • Configuration management

  • Logging

  • Basic Monitoring

The service proxies communicate to their appropriate server using various protocols.

Figure 2-2 shows the logical architecture that depicts the logical building blocks of the components and the infrastructure services needed to support them.

The logical architecture does not specify the actual hardware required to implement the deployment scenario. However, it helps you visualize the interrelationship among components, provides a basis for further analysis of use cases and identified usage patterns, and becomes the starting point for the deployment design phase.

Figure 2-2 Convergence High-Level Logical Architecture

Convergence high-level logical architecture

You can add Convergence to an existing deployment, or plan a complete deployment that includes Convergence.

This is the basic deployment architecture for Convergence. There might be some alterations required, but essentially it is a similar architecture for all deployments.

Web Client Component

The Convergence client runs in a browser. The client uses Dojo to provide the basic infrastructure for the client components. The web client user interface provides features such as virtual list box, drag-and-drop, context menus, type ahead for address look up, and flexible layout and resizing. The client component retrieves data from the server by using protocol commands based on the AJAX technology. The client module also provides API modules for client extension and customization.

Web Server Static Component

Convergence uses static content files such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. These static files are deployed on a web container in the static docroot directory.

Server Components

The server components of Convergence are deployed as a web application into Oracle GlassFish Server domains. The server components reside in the application and interact with the back-end services such as Directory Server for authentication and user preferences, Messaging Server for mail-related services, Calendar for loading the user's calendar, and Instant Messaging for instant messaging. The Convergence server is a servlets-based implementation. The server provides the services that use the client to render data on the browser. The client API communicates with the services to fetch this data.

Convergence provides the following core services:

  • Authentication and authorization

  • Session management and Single Sign-On (SSO)

  • Protocol service

  • Configuration management (XML configuration files and Command Line Interface)

  • Proxy services for mail, calendar data from back-end communications servers

  • Centralized and secure request management

  • Logging and basic monitoring of activities

  • HTTP binding to XMPP service for instant messaging

Default Paths and File Names

Table 2-1 provides platform-specific information about the directories that are created when you install Convergence.

Table 2-1 Platform Convergence Directories

Description Oracle Solaris Red Hat Linux

Installation Directory

/opt/sun/comms/iwc

/opt/sun/comms/iwc

Data Directory

/var/opt/sun/comms/iwc/

/var/opt/sun/comms/iwc/

Binary Directory

/opt/sun/comms/iwc/sbin

/opt/sun/comms/iwc/sbin

Planning Considerations

Planning your Convergence installation involves:

  • Determining the services you plan to deliver to Convergence.

    • For each service, review the planning guidelines for the corresponding software application. For example, if you plan to deploy Convergence with the mail, calendar, and address book services, review the planning guidelines for Messaging Server, Calendar Server, and Contacts Server.

  • Designing your network around the services you plan to deliver.

  • Installing the Java SDK.

  • Installing and setting up Oracle GlassFish Server.

Some Convergence features are limited due to third-party applications. Consider the following limitations when planning your Convergence installation, and how to inform your users.

  • Some Convergence features are delivered over HTML5. Most browsers support HTML5 by default, some browsers need to be configured to support HTML5. Users accessing Convergence with Internet Explorer 10 or later must configure their browser not to run Convergence in Compatibility View. Users must not include the Convergence URL in the Websites you've added to Compatibility View list. If Convergence is deployed to an intranet zone, users must disable Display intranet sites in Compatibility View. See the discussion about compatibility view settings in the Internet Explorer online Help for more information.

  • You can configure Convergence to send encrypted or digitally signed email messages. Convergence uses S/MIME to sign and encrypt email. S/MIME features work only if email is sent using Internet Explorer or Firefox on a computer using the Windows OS.

  • You can enhance Convergence with Web real-time communication (WebRTC) features, such as voice and video calling and screen sharing. A screen sharing session can be initiated only from a Google Chrome browser. Mozilla Firefox users cannot initiate screen sharing, but can receive screen sharing requests. Once a screen sharing session has begun, a Firefox user has the same capabilities as a Chrome user.

    Chrome version 36 or later must be launched manually from a command line with the enable-usermedia-screen-capturing flag to be able to send screen sharing requests. For example, from a Windows command line, enter:

    start chrome --enable-usermedia-screen-capturing

    Internet Explorer and Apple Safari do not support any WebRTC features.

  • You can enable WebRTC features in Convergence using either WIT Software or Oracle WebRTC Session Controller. See the discussion about configuring WebRTC services in Convergence in Convergence System Administrator's Guide for more information. Internet Explorer does not support any of the services provided Oracle WebRTC Session Controller.

  • This release of Convergence does not include support for mobile devices such as tablets and smart phones.

Recommended Deployment Practices

The best deployment practice is to place the Messaging Server Webmail Server on the same host as Convergence to provide horizontal scalability and enable smooth growth of services.

From a functional perspective, Convergence provides complete mail service when the Webmail Server is located on a different host than Convergence. Therefore, in some deployments, the Webmail Server might be located on a different host.

Other components such as the message store and MTA, Calendar Server, and Instant Messaging Server can be located on other hosts.