
                        E-Mail Gateways:
           Connecting LAN-Based Messaging to the World
                        by Brett Warthen

   With all of the complex terminology and standards in the
   current electronic mail market, it's easy to become confused
   about selecting an e-mail system.  The fact of the matter is
   that e-mail has become a big business, and major software
   companies like Novell, Lotus and Microsoft are all trying to
   stake a claim on portions of the market.

   As IBM once proved when they dominated the mainframe computer
   market, the marketing technique of FUD (fear, uncertainty and
   doubt) can be incredibly effective when the target market has
   a limited understanding of an environment.  In this article,
   we'll try to clear up the FUD, by explaining the terminology
   and discussing many solutions that are available today for
   connecting LAN-based messaging to other e-mail systems.


LAN-Based Messaging:  Defining the Players

   LAN-based e-mail is divided into at least 3 major camps:
   Novell, Lotus, Microsoft.

   Novell is unique, in that they are not providing an e-mail
   front-end as part of their solution.  Instead, they are
   concentrating on back-end e-mail transport engines that are
   supported by a growing number of "front-end" e-mail vendors.

   When discussing LAN e-mail, we often use terms like "front-
   end" and "back-end".  The "front-end" or "user agent" is the
   application that allows you to compose, read and reply to
   messages.  The "back-end" or "mail transport engine" is the
   application that provides mail delivery services and transport
   services between systems.  Essentially the user agent submits
   messages to the transport engine with requests for delivery,
   and the transport engine delivers any incoming messages to the
   user agent.

   Novell's mail transport strategy is two-tiered.  The basic
   product, NetWare MHS (short for Message Handling Service) is a
   DOS-based messaging store and forward engine, originally
   developed by Action Technologies as a transport service for
   their Coordinator electronic mail product.

   MHS and its Standard Message Format (SMF) API specification
   are currently supported with over 150 commercially available
   products.  Through the SMF interface, numerous e-mail
   applications can easily exchange mail, including Infinite
   Technologies' ExpressIT!, NoteWork Corporation's The NoteWork,
   Da Vinci Systems' eMail, BeyondMail from Beyond, Inc., and
   more.

   NetWare Global Messaging (NGM) is an NLM-based (NetWare
   Loadable Module/sever-based) messaging store and forward
   engine that Novell is in the process of introducing.  NGM will
   be backward compatible with MHS 1.5, and Novell plans to offer
   add-on connectivity modules for other environments including
   SMTP, X.400 and SNADS.  However, there are third party
   gateways available for MHS today that provide connectivity to
   these environments.  If you require this additional
   connectivity now, it may be prudent to explore the current
   market alternatives.

   Lotus and Microsoft are both essentially user agent vendors,
   selling electronic mail products, also based on technologies
   acquired from other companies.

   However, Lotus cc:Mail and Microsoft Mail both provide their
   own message transport services together with the user agent
   portion.  These transport services typically lack the range of
   third party support that exists for the Novell MHS
   environment.  To a large extent, these environments are less
   open for third party enhancements.

   Ironically, if you want to connect a Lotus cc:Mail e-mail
   system to a Microsoft Mail e-mail system, Novell's MHS is the
   most convenient common ground, as both products provide
   gateways that connect with Novell's MHS.

   Similarly, WordPerfect Office (WPO) from WordPerfect
   Corporation uses its own proprietary transport mechanism.  A
   growing number of WPO users are using the WPO to MHS gateway
   option and MHS as a transport mechanism between sites, as it
   is more widely supported.

   Recent studies by the Electronic Mail Association estimate
   that 60% of LAN-based electronic mailboxes are serviced by
   Novell's MHS as the primary transport service, clearly
   supporting the position that MHS has become the de facto
   standard for LAN-based messaging.  Contrary to a common
   misconception, MHS is available for both Novell and other DOS-
   compatible networks.

   Access outside of the LAN environment is most often
   accomplished through third party MHS gateways to X.400, SMTP
   and various public mail services like CompuServe and MCIMail.
   Vendors like Microsoft, Lotus and WordPerfect also provide
   their own suite of gateways specific to their products.


LAN-Based Messaging:  The Battleground

   The current battleground in the LAN-based messaging
   environment is over the APIs (Application Program Interfaces)
   that are used for communications between e-mail front-ends and
   their back-end engines.

   Novell's NetWare MHS and NetWare Global Messaging define an
   interface called the Standard Message Format (SMF), which is
   how an application interfaces to the Novell Messaging Engines.

   Novell publishes a "NetWare SMF Solutions Guide" that lists
   third party products supporting SMF.  Instructions on
   acquiring this guide are included at the close of this
   article.

   The SMF specification is often times criticized by developers
   because it provides only a directory and file based interface
   for message submission and receipt.  In other words, message
   files are created following the SMF format, in specific
   directories.

   Three different versions of the SMF interface are currently in
   existence:

   SMF-64 (MHS 1.1 native interface, circa 1988) is limited to 8
   character user and workgroup names, one file attachment per
   message, and one recipient per message.

   SMF-70 (MHS 1.5 native interface, circa 1991) supports up to
   64 file attachments per message, and up to 64 recipients in a
   single transmission instance of a message.

   SMF-71 (NetWare Global Messaging and MHS 2.0, circa 1992)
   breaks the 8 character user and workgroup name limitations and
   lifts the limitation of 64 recipients in a single message.
   (NOTE:  At the time of this writing, MHS 2.0 is not yet
   shipping, and MHS 1.5 is still the current version of the DOS-
   based engine.)

   Lotus and Microsoft have announced competing procedural APIs
   for access to their message transport services.  Procedural
   APIs define function calls (DLLs in the Windows and OS/2
   environments, linkable libraries in the DOS environment) that
   applications can call from higher level languages for
   messaging related functions.

   Both the Lotus and Microsoft specifications are intended to
   allow front-ends to access a variety of different message
   transport engines.  This would have the largest effect on non-
   messaging applications that could include messaging as another
   function within the application.

   The Lotus specification, called VIM (Vendor Independent
   Messaging, also sometimes jokingly known as Vendors Ignoring
   Microsoft) was endorsed by Novell, Borland and Apple, with
   limited endorsement from IBM.  VIM grew out of the OMI (Open
   Messaging Interface) introduced, but never delivered, by Lotus
   in 1991.  VIM libraries are planned for the DOS, Windows and
   OS/2 environments.

   The Microsoft specification, called MAPI (Messaging
   Applications Programming Interface) is a Windows-centric API
   that will be included with future versions of the Windows
   product.  The idea is to provide messaging services to Windows
   applications, independent of the messaging transport service
   installed.

   At this stage, both VIM and MAPI are specifications waiting
   for libraries to enable application developers to begin
   sending messages through these APIs.  Novell has also pledged
   that both the VIM and MAPI specifications will be supported by
   Novell messaging engines.

   Mail enabled applications are an extremely exciting idea, and
   with the macro language flexibility of popular Windows
   applications like WordPerfect for Windows, Ami Pro, Microsoft
   Word for Windows, Microsoft Excel, and more, why should we
   have to wait for VIM or MAPI?

   Indeed, creating a message in the SMF format may be difficult
   from within a Windows macro, but several of the vendors of
   MHS/SMF-based e-mail front-ends provide messaging services
   that can be called via macros in Windows applications.  So, if
   you're in one of these applications, you can easily invoke a
   macro through a menu option or button bar to send the current
   document, or the selected text.

   Da Vinci Systems' eMail for Windows defines a set of DDE
   (Dynamic Data Exchange) functions that other applications can
   invoke to send messages via MHS.

   Finansa's WinMail and Infinite Technologies' ExpressIT! for
   Windows include DLLs (Dynamic Link Libraries) that can be
   called by any application or macro language for sending a
   message via MHS, without the limitations of an active DDE
   link.  The Infinite DLL is also available as a separate
   product, SendIT! for Windows.

   In the DOS environment, free utilities like SendIT! from
   Infinite Technologies make it easy to submit messages in the
   SMF format.


Novell MHS and Third Party Gateways

   MHS provides e-mail transport services between LANs and remote
   systems over asynchronous dial-up links, bridged LANs
   (internetwork connections in MHS terminology), and via public
   hub services like Novell's NHUB service and the CompuServe/MHS
   hub option.

   Novell NHUB is a public hub service provided free of charge by
   Novell (408-473-8989).  MHS hubs can connect to each other
   through NHUB, using NHUB as an intermediary hop.  MHS hubs
   must dial the NHUB phone number in San Jose, California in
   order to send or receive mail through this service.
   Presently, there are between 750 and 1000 MHS hubs that are
   registered for this service.

   The CompuServe/MHS hub is a surcharged public hub service
   provided by CompuServe, Inc (614-457-MAIL).  Thanks to
   CompuServe's extensive data network, CompuServe provides local
   phone numbers for dial-up access in most areas of the United
   States, as well as a growing number of international access
   points.  Additionally, the CompuServe/MHS hub service provides
   access to CompuServe Mail accounts, internet addresses, AT&T
   Mail and AT&T Easylink, as well as FAX services.

   The MHS product also defines a gateway interface to allow
   third party gateway products to provide delivery services to
   other environments.  When MHS receives a message that is
   addressed to an installed gateway process, MHS will load the
   defined gateway process to perform e-mail delivery.

   When connecting your LAN-based messaging system to the outside
   world with gateways, it's important to evaluate all
   alternatives, as there are usually several different ways to
   get from here to there.

   For example, if you want to connect your LAN to the Internet,
   you could choose an SMTP or UUCP gateway, or you could use a
   commercial service like the CompuServe/MHS hub.

   Third party gateway products exist to provide connectivity to
   the following environments (to name but a few):

      SMTP - An SMTP gateway requires a dedicated active link to
      the internet, which is generally an option only for
      universities, federal government agencies and defense
      contractors.  SMTP gateway services are provided by
      Computer Mail Services' S-Bridge (313-352-6700) product,
      and a shareware product named XGATE (download XGATE.ZIP
      from PCVENF Library 13 on CompuServe or use the keyword
      XGATE with Library @ Infinite).

      UUCP - A UUCP gateway connects MHS to a Unix host using
      UUCP over dial-up or dedicated asynchronous lines.  Using a
      popular shareware gateway named UGATE (download UGATE.ZIP
      from PCVENF Library 13 on CompuServe or use the keyword
      UGATE with Library @ Infinite) to dial into the UUNET
      service is an inexpensive way to gain connectivity with the
      internet.  NoteWork Corporation (617-734-4317) also
      connects the MHS and UUCP environments with The NoteWork
      MHS/UUCP Gateway.

      Internet - SMTP and UUCP gateways can be used to gain
      connectivity with the internet.   Additionally, the
      CompuServe/MHS hub service provides connectivity to most
      internet addresses, and is a viable option for low volume
      mail exchange with internet addresses.

      X.400 - X.400 is the accepted international standard for e-
      mail connectivity between computer systems, and can be
      effective when many different types of computer messaging
      systems must be interconnected.  X.400 gateway services are
      provided by Retix (213-399-2200), Touch Communications
      (408-374-2500) and Frontier Technologies Corporation (414-
      241-4555).  With NetWare Global Messaging, Novell will also
      soon be providing an optional X.400 connectivity module.

      However, costs for X.400 gateways, which range between $10
      to $20 thousand and up, are not within the budgets of most
      LAN systems.  This cost becomes even more expensive when
      you consider that X.400 is generally not a standard feature
      on other computer systems, and must be purchased as an
      additional cost option.  For the majority of situations
      today, direct gateway solutions between environments are
      more cost effective and less complicated to install and
      maintain.

      IBM SNADS, PROFS, Office Vision - IBM Mainframe
      connectivity is available from Novell with their Messaging
      Connect product, as well as gateway services from
      SoftSwitch.

      AS/400 - Blue Rainbow Software (206-357-8971) provides a
      gateway between MHS and Office Vision/400 on an IBM AS/400
      midrange computer.

      VAXMail, DEC All-in-One - Connectivity to DEC VAX based e-
      mail systems is available through products from Joiner
      Associates (608-238-4454) and Xitel (215-647-2866).

      Wang Office - Lightspeed Mail Gateway from MacSoft (805-
      324-4291) provides e-mail exchange between MHS and Wang
      Office.

      MCIMail - For MCIMail connectivity, M-Bridge from Computer
      Mail Services (313-352-6700) is available.

      AT&T Mail - NoteWork Corporation (617-734-4317) offers an
      MHS to AT&T Mail gateway, A-GATE for MHS, while similar
      connectivity is offered through the CompuServe/MHS hub
      service.

      FidoNet - For connecting FidoNet based bulletin boards with
      MHS, there is a shareware product named FidoGate (download
      FIDOGT.ZIP from PCVENF Library 13 on CompuServe or use the
      keyword FIDOGATE with Library @ Infinite).

   Thanks to Novell's relatively open specifications for defining
   gateway processes, there are also quite a few third party MHS
   gateway products that provide non-traditional extensions to e-
   mail capabilities.

      Message Forwarding agents allow messages sent to one
      address to be forwarded or copied to another address
      without requiring user intervention, which is useful for
      traveling users or users who must temporarily receive their
      e-mail at another location.  (ForwardIT! from Infinite
      Technologies 410-363-1097, Da Vinci Assistant from Da Vinci
      Systems 919-881-4320)

      Alpha Numeric Paging gateways, such as PageIT! from
      Infinite Technologies (410-363-1097), provide the ability
      for messages to be sent via electronic mail to alpha
      numeric (full text) pagers.  Salesmen and service
      technicians can receive their e-mail easily while out of
      the office, and receive additional information on phone
      calls and service calls.

      Remote File Retrieval utilities, like MHS Librarian from
      Infinite Technologies (410-363-1097), allow users to
      request files and other data through e-mail requests,
      providing bulletin board type capabilities on top of store
      and forward e-mail systems.

      Discussion Lists are another name for the type of service
      provided by the popular List Servers on the internet.
      Essentially, users are allowed to subscribe to a list,
      generally by an e-mail request for subscription, and any
      messages sent to the list address are automatically
      rebroadcast to the list of subscribers.  In the MHS world,
      popular discussion lists include LIBRARY @ NOVELL (send a
      request with GUIDE for more information) and LIBRARY @
      INFINITE (send a request with INDEX for more information,
      or SUBSCRIBE to subscribe).  Both of these lists are
      available through the CSERVE and NHUB public hubs (LIBRARY
      @ NOVELL requires that your host be defined to NHUB).

      The LIBRARY @ INFINITE service was built using the MHS
      Librarian product from Infinite Technologies (410-363-
      1097).

      The LIBRARY @ NOVELL service is a customized application
      built using the rules and message filtering capabilities of
      BeyondMail (617-621-0095) in conjunction with the
      Distributor product from WorkFrame, Inc. (617-491-4678)

      Voice Mail links to e-mail systems are provided by a number
      of innovative products from VoxLink (615-297-4271).  E-mail
      messages can be converted to voice mail messages, and voice
      mail messages can even be sent via e-mail and played over a
      PC speaker.
      Print Job transmission between sites is provided by a
      unique application called MhsQ! by Infinite Technologies
      (410-363-1097).  Essentially, e-mail jobs sent to a NetWare
      print queue on one system can be automatically compressed
      and transmitted via MHS to another site where they are
      printed.  Admittedly a unique application, MhsQ!
      illustrates some of the open-ended possibilities for
      extending MHS with gateway processes.

      FAX gateways are provided by quite a few vendors.  At a
      minimum, these products provide the ability for users to
      submit out-bound FAX requests through MHS e-mail.  More
      advanced systems also support the ability to route in-bound
      FAXes to MHS mailboxes for viewing.  Two of the most
      popular products in this market are the Optus FacSys (908-
      271-9568) and Castelle FaxPress (408-496-0474).

   MHS gateway possibilities don't stop with these.  For more
   information on developing your own custom MHS gateways, Novell
   publishes the "NetWare SMF Programmer's Reference".
   Additionally, a utility called RunIT!, that ships with the
   Infinite Technologies' MHS Scheduler product also allows you
   to easily create your own batch files that run as MHS
   gateways, allowing tape backups or other automated tasks to
   run on the MHS server.


What to Choose?

   By this stage, it should be apparent that I am a strong
   believer in the Novell Messaging environment, and the
   complimentary third party products and utilities developed for
   this environment.

   It is no secret that my company has made a significant
   investment in producing products for this environment.
   However, we chose MHS because of its openness, widespread
   third party support, and the overall flexibility of the MHS
   environment.

   First and foremost, I am an e-mail user requiring wide area
   connectivity to allow my business to communicate with
   distributors, resellers, end-users and other industry
   contacts.  I chose the MHS platform for my business, because
   thanks to third party gateway support, it was the only
   solution that could adequately fit these needs.


 ==================================================================

   Brett Warthen is President of Infinite Technologies in Owings
   Mills, Maryland, a software development company specializing
   in electronic mail and add-on utilities for e-mail systems.
   Brett is also a volunteer sysop on the Novell NetWire family
   of forums on CompuServe.  You can reach Brett via e-mail at
   the following addresses:

            MHS:  Brett @ Infinite (via CSERVE or NHUB)
     CompuServe:  >MHS:Brett@Infinite
       Internet:  Brett@Infinite.mhs.compuserve.com
            FAX:  +1-410-363-3779
