Novell readies mail server for ISPs
By Emily Fitzloff
InfoWorld Electric
Posted at 7:19 AM PT, Feb 1, 1999
As Novell prepares to release later this quarter the next version of its Novell Directory Services (NDS), code-named SCADS (Scalable Directory Services), the company is already developing the next wave of applications built on the SCADS foundation.
The first of these applications will be a messaging server targeted at Internet service providers, code-named Liberty, that Novell plans to unveil at its annual Brainshare conference in March, according to company officials.
Liberty is a POP- and IMAP4-based e-mail server that runs on the NetWare infrastructure, featuring very high scalability, reliability, and performance, according to John Gailey, director of collaboration services at Novell.
Liberty is compatible with any e-mail client on the front end, including a Web-based client such as Novell Groupwise Web Access, Gailey said. Additionally, Novell is developing its own stand-alone client product for release later this year.
Liberty is based on the Novonyx Messaging Server for NetWare, a product of the Novell-Netscape joint venture that lasted from June 1997 until February 1998.
Although the goal of Novonyx was to port Netscape's SuiteSpot servers -- including Messaging Server -- to NetWare, Novell decided instead to build its own messaging server without Netscape code so it would better integrate with NDS, according to Novell executives.
Liberty's integration with SCADS will offer ISPs centralized management and security, according to the company.
Liberty is just the beginning of directory-enabled applications for ISPs, according to Gailey.
"We're using Liberty to show ISPs the benefits of the directory, but it's just e-mail. Once we get NDS into the ISPs, it will be a foundation for other applications like integrated billing, voice, fax, calendar, and other integrated services [ISPs] can offer their customers," Gailey said.
Novell officials acknowledge that ISPs will be a tough market to break into because many ISPs opt for freeware.
However, Novell executives said that the scalability, speed, performance, and ease of use of Liberty will convince ISPs to switch.
In addition, Novell plans to run Liberty on Intel hardware, which the company said will keep the cost lower than the hardware produced by competitors, such as the Sun Internet Mail Server (SIMS).
Novell said that it has tested Liberty against SIMS and has found that it can handle 40 to 60 messages per second, as opposed to SIMS' 10 messages per second.
Besides SIMS, Liberty's most direct commercial competitor will be Netscape's own Messaging Server 4.0 for ISPs, announced last September.
Liberty will enter closed beta testing later this month and is slated to ship in the second half of this year.
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