16-May-1996 21:28:46 -0700,2391;000000000001 Return-Path: Received: via tmail-4.0(2) for deroest; Thu, 16 May 1996 21:28:46 -0700 (PDT) Return-Path: Received: from mailer10.u.washington.edu by franklin01.u.washington.edu (5.65+UW96.04/UW-NDC Revision: 2.33 ) id AA19728; Thu, 16 May 96 21:28:45 -0700 Received: from mx2.cac.washington.edu by mailer10.u.washington.edu (5.65+UW96.04/UW-NDC Revision: 2.33 ) id AA46117; Thu, 16 May 96 21:28:44 -0700 Received: from mailhost2.cac.washington.edu by mx2.cac.washington.edu (5.65+UW96.04/UW-NDC Revision: 2.33 ) id AA20710; Thu, 16 May 96 21:28:40 -0700 Received: from red3.cac.washington.edu by mailhost2.cac.washington.edu (5.65+UW96.04/UW-NDC Revision: 2.33 ) id AA19096; Thu, 16 May 96 21:28:33 -0700 Date: Thu, 16 May 1996 21:28:32 -0700 (PDT) From: Oren Sreebny To: Muriel Dance , rsmith@ese.washington.edu, Nathan Dors , Dave Dittrich , David Wall , "David A. Cox" , Bernice Laden , Jim DeRoest , Sandy Moy , Donn Cave , Melody Winkle , Bruce Alexander , Ed Lightfoot , Rick Ells Subject: Test of Web-based discussion tools Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Folks - We've now got test versions of two web-based discussion tools available for you to try out (thanks to Donn's work): HyperNews and Digital's Alta Vista Workgroup Forum. The URL's are below, and I've put postings in each indicating what I think are the high-level evaluation points we need to think about. The immediate goal is to have something available by the end of the summer for Distance Ed to use in their fall classes, with scalability to the rest of campus to follow. Forum is at: http://saulfs02.u.washington.edu/forum/access/dispatch.cgi HyperNews is at: http://hardy.u.washington.edu/HyperNews/get/webdisc.html - Oren 29-Mar-1996 20:35:57 -0800,33779;000000000001 Return-Path: Received: via tmail-4.0(2) for deroest; Fri, 29 Mar 1996 20:35:57 -0800 (PST) Return-Path: Received: from mailer14.u.washington.edu by franklin01.u.washington.edu (5.65+UW96.03/UW-NDC Revision: 2.33 ) id AA19658; Fri, 29 Mar 96 20:35:56 -0800 Received: from mx2.cac.washington.edu by mailer14.u.washington.edu (5.65+UW96.03/UW-NDC Revision: 2.33 ) id AA54928; Fri, 29 Mar 96 20:35:55 -0800 Received: from mailhost1.cac.washington.edu by mx2.cac.washington.edu (5.65+UW96.03/UW-NDC Revision: 2.33 ) id AA29667; Fri, 29 Mar 96 20:35:53 -0800 Received: from red4.cac.washington.edu by mailhost1.cac.washington.edu (5.65+UW96.03/UW-NDC Revision: 2.33 ) id AA22982; Fri, 29 Mar 96 20:35:50 -0800 Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 20:35:50 -0800 (PST) From: Oren Sreebny To: oren@u.washington.edu, Sandy Moy , Muriel Dance , rsmith@ese.washington.edu, Jim DeRoest , Dave Dittrich , Nathan Dors Cc: Ed Lightfoot Subject: University of Washington @ Seattle - Collabra Information (fwd) Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII fyi, folks - This sounds a lot more like what we're looking for than Notes. I'm hoping that we'll be able to use Hypernews until this becomes real. Let me know what you think. - Oren ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 26 Mar 1996 21:17:47 -0800 From: Melissa Attard To: oren@cac.washington.edu Subject: University of Washington @ Seattle - Collabra Information Oren, Collabra's technology will be integrated with Navigator sometime this year. As you know, at this time we have a policy of free use of the downloaded version of Navigator for EDUs and a substantially reduced cost for purchasing media and documentation. We will continue this policy. Internet Collaboration Starting with Collabra Share Introduction On September 21, 1995 Netscape Communications announced the acquisition of Collabra Software. The acquisition of Collabra signaled the importance and growing use of Internet technologies for collaborative functions. In fact, the largest area of growth for the Internet is the development of "Intranets." Intranets mimic the way the Internet is used but are designed for accessing information within a company. Intranets allow organizations to share information, easily setup applications, send e-mail, have electronic discussions, access corporate databases, all using the same technologies that make the external Internet work so well. Why are Intranets so popular? Intranets are really a form of groupware using technologies from the Internet. Considering that the markets for both groupware and Internet products are growing rapidly, this popularity is not surprising. Experts estimated that sales of collaborative products in 1995 would exceed 2.3 billion dollars, more than double the figure for 1994. It was expected that during 1995, the installed base of collaborative computing products would exceed 30 million users and nearly double again in 1996. Likewise, the use of the Internet is exploding. IDC estimates that by the end of the century there will be 199 million users of the Internet and 3.5 million Intranet Web servers installed (Source: International Data Corporation (IDC). Already there are more people using the Netscape Navigator (over 20 million) than users of Microsoft Office which has been selling for many years. Today, Intranets are primarily setup to publish and access vital corporate information. Some of the most common types of information are: Human Resources information Employee communications Research data Product development and project management data Internal catalogs Sales support data Equipment and shipment tracking Internal requests using forms Accessing corporate databases Having information available electronically shows immediate and clear benefits: reduced costs for printing and distributing documentation, faster delivery of information, and eliminating the problem of outdated information. Most companies that have set up Intranets also report an increased use of information, resulting in better informed employees. Moving into the second half of the decade, the Internet promises to offer a great set of technologies for all types of collaboration, not just publishing information. Some of the key reasons that the Internet will be such a compelling platform for groupware are: 1.It's ubiquitous 2.It's open 3.It's proven 4.It's easy 5.It's inexpensive Ubiquitous Since groupware is all about helping teams to interact and get things done, it doesn't work very well if you can't include everyone that needs to be involved. Likewise, the phone system wouldn't be nearly as useful if you could only call within your own company. Basing groupware on the Internet overcomes this problem because Web browsers are quickly becoming installed on most of the World's networked PCs. This will allow easy interaction with any set of people located anywhere in the World. Open The explosive growth of the Internet and Intranets is largely fueled by open standards. Every protocol, document format, and API is documented. For the first time, vendors of groupware will have a common set of protocols to work with and all products should be compatible with every other product. Making a product decision will no longer require an organization to commit to a proprietary architecture from one vendor. In addition, open systems usually lead to the most powerful solution set and very competitive prices. The IBM PC architecture is a good example of this. The IBM PC was without argument inferior to the Macintosh in the mid 1980s. Yet, since the IBM PC architecture was open it attracted hundreds of PC makers, peripheral makers, component makers, clone makers, and a whole industry developed around this architecture. Now, the number of hardware and software options for a PC buyer greatly outnumber those available to a Macintosh buyer. Proven Reliability and scalability are two critical success factors when rolling out a set of products to an entire enterprise. The Internet technologies are very proven in these areas because they have evolved and improved over many years and are already used by millions of people around the world. An example of this is the Netscape Web site which recently reached 40 million "hits" in a single day (number of times users accessed the site). Anything that can support millions of users a day, should be able to support an organization's internal needs. Easy Once users learn to "point and click" they can easily access any internal company information and follow links to related information. The ease-of-use of Web browsers is one of the primary drivers for the Web's explosive growth. This same ease-of-use works just as well to access internal information. The result is that companies can go on-line without any end-user training and then can roll-out new information and new applications without any incremental training. Inexpensive Groupware has developed the reputation of being complex and expensive. Lotus Notes, in particular, has been shown to cost in the neighborhood of $1,000 per user per year to maintain (Source: Cost of Ownership Study, Lotus Notes and Collabra Share, October 1995). Using Internet technologies is radically less expensive. Since more and more end users are already running Web browsers, often the only thing that is required is to setup one or more internal servers. The conversion of information into the HTML format is becoming very straightforward as more and more tools become available. In addition, there is no need to setup a complex replication network to share information. Administrators simply distribute information onto different servers and let everyone access it there. Why the Acquisition of Collabra? Seeing the potential for groupware on the Internet prompted Netscape to acquire Collabra Software. After investigating various companies and technologies that provide these types of capabilities, Netscape believed that Collabra had the best product family and underlying technology for collaboration and advanced messaging. Collabra's flagship product, Collabra Share is widely recognized as the leading conferencing solution and has won a long list of awards including PC Magazine's Editor's Choice award for groupware (1995). In addition, Collabra had a world-class team of engineers and senior management dedicated to creating and evolving software in this field. By applying Collabra's leading-edge technology and extensive expertise to future versions of Netscape Navigator and the Netscape Server product family, Netscape will be able to uniquely offer customers a state-of-the-art, open-systems based, platform independent, client/server information exchange and messaging solution. The overwhelming majority of Collabra's enterprise customers want to integrate their internal messaging and groupware systems with their IP-based enterprise networks and the Internet. By becoming part of Netscape, the Collabra team will be able to deliver its leading-edge collaboration technology to the widest possible audience and deliver complete integration with the Internet, versus a proprietary approach that would require an Internet gateway. Vision of Combined Products The Netscape Navigator is evolving rapidly to be much more than a Web browser. Netscape Navigator 2.0 already includes an integrated e-mail client, an integrated news reader, and an extensible platform architecture with a "plug in" API for integrating third party applications and support for running Java and JavaScript applications. The Netscape Navigator is well on its way to becoming a robust, universal client for network-centric applications. Going forward, the combined Netscape and Collabra technical teams are actively developing a next-generation open-systems-based client/server information exchange and collaboration product family that will be the logical upgrade path for current Collabra customers, and for current Netscape customers on enterprise IP networks and the Internet. Specifically, Netscape plans for the next major release of Netscape Navigator -- following version 2.0 -- to incorporate most of the Collabra Share functionality within the Netscape open-systems platform. This next-generation product suite will offer world class messaging and discussion capabilities. In the messaging area, Netscape will offer a powerful e-mail client that is tightly integrated with the Web and based on open mail protocols such as SMTP, IMAP4, and POP3. It will also integrate with MAPI 1.0 e-mail clients such as Microsoft Exchange. This solution will include a directory architecture based on open systems standards. In the discussion area, Netscape will build on the capabilities of its existing News Server and news reader (part of Netscape Navigator 2.0). While these products are already available, the technologies they include were fundamentally designed to support the "public" discussions of Usenet with millions of potential participants. Additional capabilities are needed to make them a powerful solution for smaller teams that are collaborating internally. Some of the key capabilities that will be introduced in the "integrated" product are: Support for rich content (rich text, graphics, embedded objects, Java, JavaScript, and Plug-Ins) Advanced navigational tools (Next Unread, Previous, Ignore) Integration with e-mail Powerful full-text searching on the Server Strong security model Very easy to use Easy to administer Easy for end users to initiate new discussion groups Support for the mobile user with off-line usage These are exactly the kinds of functions that currently exist in Collabra Share that are being migrated into the News capabilities of the Netscape products. Netscape is working aggressively to move as many features as possible into the next major version of the Navigator and expects that the majority of Collabra features will be included in the first "integrated" release. The remaining Collabra features will be added over time. It is important to note that the first 'integrated" release will also have many new Internet-related features that were not in Collabra Share. The following diagram shows, architecturally, how Collabra Share will move from a standalone product to an integrated function of the Netscape Navigator. Figure 1. Migration of Collabra Share to Netscape Navigator Continued Support for Existing E-Mail One of the most popular features of Collabra Share is its tight integration with existing e-mail systems. Collabra uses the e-mail system for directory services, log-in, sending notifications, and replication. Netscape Navigator also integrates with e-mail by allowing a user to launch into their e-mail client from a Web page to send a message ("mailto" links). The Netscape Navigator also provides a MAPI Service Provider Interface (SPI) that allows a MAPI e-mail client to interface with an SMTP-based mail system. Netscape will continue to support and enhance Netscape Navigator's integration with e-mail clients, just as it currently does. Specific examples of this are the ability to send notifications and links to documents via e-mail. For organizations that use open systems mail servers (POP3/IMAP/SMTP), Netscape will offer a best-of-breed, integrated e-mail client. Netscape will also offer world-class mail servers for customers looking to build open systems messaging backbones. Benefits of the "Integrated" Product There is a long list of benefits of moving groupware functions directly into the Netscape products for administrators, end-users, and developers. For Administrators For IS Administrators, the acquisition promises to greatly simplify and streamline the process of managing messaging, collaboration, and Internet applications. In large companies, IS administrators are charged with managing multiple separate, proprietary systems. By merging Collabra Share's leading edge collaboration and messaging technology into the next-generation Netscape product family, IS administrators will be able to use Netscape server management software as a unified platform for managing the combined products. IS administrators will also no longer need to deploy and maintain separate desktop applications. Other benefits include: Minimal training required since many users are already comfortable with the Netscape Navigator. Support for all popular server and client hardware and operating system platforms Localized versions available for Western Europe and Asia Ability to interoperate with products from other vendors that are based on open standards Integration and compatibility with MIS Internet strategies No need for gateways to the Internet since the protocols and formats are the same. For End Users The most obvious benefits for users are a much wider set of people to collaborate with and a universal client for accessing all types of internal and external information. Discussions can include users around the World, not just people within a user's organization. Instead of learning how to use a number of different applications and running them concurrently, users can access all kinds of different information sources through a single interface. Other benefits include: Can share richer document content -- any kind of multimedia information Apply Collabra's powerful navigational tools to a wider set of information For Developers Developer's of collaborative tools and in-house applications will benefit from a very rich development environment based around open standards such as HTML, Java, and JavaScript. These tools currently include: The ability to develop "plug in" extensions to the Netscape Navigator The ability to easily access SQL databases from a Web server Open APIs for directly accessing the Web, News, and Mail servers The ability to develop dynamically loaded, platform independent applications using Java. The ability to develop quick, customized applications using Java Script. Utilizing Collabra Share Today Prior to having the Collabra Share functionality integrated into Netscape Navigator many customers use Collabra Share as a standalone product to meet their groupware needs. Collabra Share is complementary to the Netscape Navigator in the areas of electronic discussions and document sharing. Netscape Navigator provides the best solution for publishing information, setting up forms-based applications, accessing corporate databases, running SMTP-based e-mail, and developing custom applications. The two products are sold separately or bundled depending on customer requirements. Benefits of Conferencing Among the various types of groupware, conferencing (electronic discussions) has proven to be one of the most popular and compelling applications. Numerous studies have shown that discussion databases are the most popular use of Lotus Notes and a recent Collabra Customer Survey (conducted in Spring '95) also confirmed that the most valued use of Collabra Share was for electronic discussions, not for merely sharing information. Conferencing is a strategic application that delivers the following types of very real and compelling benefits: Reduce meetings -- Over half of all Collabra customers report fewer meetings. Enhance team communications -- "Increased communications effectiveness ten-fold!" reported one Collabra customer. Increases teamwork -- Encourages group involvement in decision making, reviewing items, and answering questions. Builds a valuable corporate knowledge base -- The vast majority of expertise that a company has is exchanged in on going discussions of ideas and issues, not in formal documents. Allows dispersed teams to work together -- More and more teams are dispersed and find it very difficult to have meetings. Conferencing allows discussion without regard to time or location. These types of benefits are not merely "nice to have," they are at the heart of an effective organization that must compete in increasingly competitive markets. Conferencing is a rich groupware category that is all about accomplishing things electronically such as: making decisions, brainstorming, getting answers to questions, getting input on projects, reviewing documents and proposals, and resolving issues. These are critical activities that justify a powerful tool. A best-of-breed application, like Collabra Share, offers the most powerful and innovative features for accomplishing these types of activities. Getting Started Today Since a Collabra Share installation can be migrated to the future versions of Netscape Navigator, there is no reason to wait until the integrated product is available to begin collaborating across your organization. There are many advantages to deploying groupware now versus later: Immediately begin reducing the need for meetings Immediately reduce e-mail inbox overload Begin to build a valuable corporate knowledge base Begin shifting the habits of end users Give administrators early and valuable experience with groupware technologies Immediately start increasing team communications Immediately begin on-line discussions with key partners Utilizing Collabra Share now vs. waiting for the "integrated" product makes sense for many companies. Since the "integrated" product is expected to be released in the second half of 1996, installing Collabra Share now vs. waiting makes sense for companies that have an immediate need for conferencing and its benefits, and can deploy Collabra Share and migrate without a huge effort. Generally, the smaller the installation the easier it will be to deploy and migrate. Using the Collabra Share Client/Server Edition, it may be possible to put up to 500 users on a single server. Migrating a single server will be fairly quick and straightforward. Even a few servers should not be that difficult. Companies that would need to install a large number of servers and an involved replication topology may be better off waiting for the "integrated" product. If a customer matches the following criteria then they are a good candidate for using Collabra Share prior to the "integrated" product from Netscape. Can gain significant benefit from conferencing functionality immediately Currently use VIM or MAPI based e-mail systems that Collabra Share is designed to work with Currently use or are planning to use Netscape Navigator which Collabra Share integrates with Are agile enough to deploy Collabra quickly and then migrate without a lot of extra effort. The larger the installation the more time and effort that will be required for migration. Mostly Windows and Macintosh users. Collabra Share does not have a client for UNIX users. Don't currently have the server (UNIX or Windows NT) or network infrastructure (TCP/IP) to support the Netscape products, but want to get started with collaboration today. Migration and Co-Existence This section describes the objectives that Netscape has for the migration from Collabra Share to the Netscape Navigator, the migration tools that are expected, and an example migration scenario. A complete migration guide will be available at a later time. Migration Objectives It is Netscape's intention to make the migration from Collabra Share to the Netscape Navigator as simple and easy as possible. The migration tools and documentation that will be available are aimed at ensuring the following: 1.Smooth Transition -- A smooth transition from Collabra Share to the "integrated" product 2.Co-existence Supported -- Co-existence between Collabra Share and the "integrated" product is supported 3.Accurate Content Conversion -- All Collabra documents are accurately converted 4.Security Maintained -- The level of security for Collabra Share forums is maintained. Migration Tools The migration from Collabra Share to the next major release of the Netscape Navigator will be facilitated by a set of migration tools referred to in this paper as the "Migration Agent." These tools will also support co-existence between Collabra Share and the Netscape products as depicted in Figure 2. Figure 2. The Migration Agent The Migration Agent will perform bi-directional replication between Collabra Forum Categories and Internet Newsgroups. This will allow all of the documents in a Collabra installation to be moved into a network of News Servers or for the two sets of servers to co-exist during the transition. The specific functions that the Migration Agent will cover are described below. By understanding the migration from Collabra Share to the Netscape Navigator, prospective customers can decide if it makes sense to deploy Collabra now vs. waiting and existing customers can begin preparing for the upcoming migration to the Netscape Navigator. Moving the content of Collabra forums into Internal Newsgroups Collabra documents can contain rich text, attachments, OLE embedded objects, links to the Web, and links to other documents. All of these content types will be supported by a future version of the News Server. Each document in Collabra Share will be converted into an equivalent document on a News Server. The only limitation that Netscape is aware of is supporting "in-place" editing of OLE embedded objects. Read/Unread Information The Collabra Share Server stores which documents each user has read in a forum. Netscape does not expect this information to be able to be preserved when moving the information into the Netscape News Server. The Netscape Navigator stores this type of information on the client machine. Users will likely need to catch up on all of the forums that they participate in before switching. Forum Membership Currently each Collabra forum has a list of members that are currently participating in the forum. Each of these members also has specific privileges in the forum (read, read/write, and moderate). Netscape expects that forum membership and privileges will be able to be transferred to the News Server but not synchronized on a continuous basis to support co-existence. Replication/Server Configuration Collabra customers that have more than 200 or so users typically have multiple servers and replicate between them. The configuration of a Collabra network depends on many things but is primarily based on Performance: Users per server Information Distribution Strategy: Distributing forums vs. replicating all forums to each local server Supported Topologies: Collabra servers are generally connected in a hierarchical style When migrating to the News Server and the replication that it includes, the replication topology may be able to be maintained but it is more likely that a new topology will be optimal. This is because the News Server will have different performance characteristics (more users per server), and because it supports more types of replication topologies. Collabra Share replication is performed by a standalone Replication Agent which can connect to multiple servers. Replication is designed to be in a hierarchical style with "hub" servers. News Servers, on the other hand, can interface with one more other News Servers in a completely distributed style. Administration Collabra Share supports Policy-Based Administration and Policy-Based Replication through the "Admin" menu in the Collabra Share client. There are many enterprise settings that can be configured by a Collabra administrator such as setting up users and their permissions, setting up new sites, and configuring replication. While many of the concepts will be the same with the Netscape products, Netscape expects that administrative model will be quite different and that some re-learning and re-configuration will be required. End User Training Collabra Share users have been trained in one way or another on how to use the product. To enable users to quickly move to the new "integrated" product, Netscape will provide "Getting Started" information for previous Collabra Share users. This information will describe how to perform each Collabra function in the new product and can be e-mailed or viewed as part of on-line help. This is in addition to regular product documentation and on-line help. Migration Example Following is an example to illustrate the process of migration. This example may be more complicated than one that you are considering but will illustrate all of the possible aspects of migration. A hypothetical Collabra Share customer called Millenia Aerospace has rolled out Collabra Share across the company. They have two main locations: one in San Francisco and one in Denver. The San Francisco ("SF") location is a large site with 700 people. The Denver ("DV") location is smaller but still has 200 people. There are also eight sales offices that have 5-15 people each. Each of the sales offices is connected to the Corporate LAN with a 56k line. Millenia Aerospace currently uses MS Mail and is planning to begin moving to Microsoft Exchange after it begins shipping. Millenia Aerospace is in the midst of rolling out Windows NT. They have installed numerous Windows NT servers at the SF location but none at the DV location or any of the sales offices yet. Current Collabra Installation The SF location has four Collabra Share servers running on Windows NT: one main server and three departmental servers. Collabra forums are distributed among these four servers. Any user at the SF location can access all four servers. The entire SF site is kept in sync with other sites by a single Replication Agent ("Replication Agent" refers to an Agent Manager and Replication Agent running together) that runs on a dedicated Windows 95 machine. The DV location has not deployed Windows NT yet and is running the Collabra Share Workgroup Edition using two Netware file servers each of which also hosts an MS Mail post office. Because each Netware server has a complete set of all of the forums, the DV location has a Replication Agent which keeps the two servers synchronized. Each sales office is running the Workgroup Edition on a local Netware server. The Replication Agent at the SF site synchronizes with Replication Agents at each of the sales offices via e-mail and with one of the Netware file servers over the Corporate WAN. Figure 3. Collabra Share Installation for Millenia Aerospace. Step 1 -- Convert the SF Site In the first phase of migration Millenia Aerospace will convert all of the clients and servers at the main SF location to the Netscape Navigator and News Servers. They have already rolled out Netscape Navigator to all of their users so they don't need to worry about installing any new client software. They decide that they are going to install a parallel network until they are sure that everything has been converted properly and is working. The first thing they do is install a News Server at the SF location and ensure that it is properly configured and running. Then they install the Migration Agent on a dedicated Windows machine because of the amount of replication that it will handle during the transition. They configure the Migration Agent so that it "points" to the new News Server that has just been installed and each of the four Collabra servers. All of this can be done without affecting the existing Collabra installation. They replicate all of the Collabra data into the News Server during a week night so that it will not affect the performance of any of the Collabra servers. The schedule for replication is setup during the day and then begins running in the evening. All of the Collabra forums are converted which takes a few hours. Once the replication is complete, the next step is to transfer the membership of each forum to the News Server. The final step is to run a verification process to ensure the integrity of the data on the News Server. At this point all of the Collabra forums have been duplicated on the News Server. The administrator first pilots the use of the new server with 20 users to gain some experience and work out any kinks in the process before converting the entire company. He sends instructions to these 20 users on how to switch to using the Netscape Navigator. During this period the News Server is scheduled to replicate with the Collabra servers every two hours so that they stay in sync during the transition. After successfully converting 20 users, the administrator sends instructions to the rest of the SF location on how to convert to using the Netscape Navigator. Since the News Server is very scaleable, the administrator decides to try handling the entire location with one fast NT Server. At this point the entire SF location has been converted to using the Netscape Navigator. The Migration Agent continues to run at some interval so that the SF location stays synchronized with the DV location and the sales offices during the transition. Step 2 -- Convert the DV Location and Setup News Server Replication In the second step of migration, one NT server is installed at the DV location to host Netscape servers. The administrator sets up a second News Server on this machine and then sets up replication between the two servers. Replication is an integrated component of each News Server. Replication is configured on each of the two servers which can be done from a single location. Once all of the newsgroups have been replicated to the new server, the administrator sends out instructions to everyone at the DV location with instructions on how to convert. Also at this point, the administrator sends instructions to all of the users at sales offices and instructs them to access the newsgroups at the SF location. This is much simpler than setting up additional servers at each sales office. Step 3 -- Turn Off Collabra Once it is clear that all of the users are successfully participating in discussions using the Netscape Navigator, the administrator stops running the Migration Agent, the Collabra Share Servers, and the Replication Agents. Step 4 -- Tuning If the performance of the News Server is not adequate to handle all of the SF users and the users at the sales offices, then the server could be upgraded (more memory or processors) or a second News Server could be installed. Melissa Attard Netscape Communications 415.528.2722 ph, 415.528.4140 fx melissa@netscape.com 25-Mar-1996 10:15:34 -0800,1259;000000000001 Return-Path: Received: via tmail-4.0(2) for deroest; Mon, 25 Mar 1996 10:15:34 -0800 (PST) Return-Path: Received: from melville.u.washington.edu by franklin01.u.washington.edu (5.65+UW96.03/UW-NDC Revision: 2.33 ) id AA18320; Mon, 25 Mar 96 10:15:33 -0800 Received: from xceed.cac.washington.edu by melville.u.washington.edu (5.65+UW96.03/UW-NDC Revision: 2.33 ) id AA57860; Mon, 25 Mar 96 10:15:31 -0800 X-Sender: donn@franklin01.u.washington.edu Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Mon, 25 Mar 1996 10:22:51 -0800 To: Sandy Moy From: donn@u.washington.edu (Donn Cave) Subject: Re: Conferencing Software (fwd) Cc: Jim DeRoest At 9:49 AM 3/25/96, Sandy Moy wrote: >Can some of us play with your version? If so, how? where? Anyone can play. It's on saulfs02 at the moment. (We could equally well run it on hardy or something like that, except that the version of NCSA httpd I was using doesn't seem to work right on Ultrix.) Donn Cave, University Computing Services, University of Washington donn@u.washington.edu 25-Mar-1996 14:28:22 -0800,1604;000000000001 Return-Path: Received: via tmail-4.0(2) for deroest; Mon, 25 Mar 1996 14:28:21 -0800 (PST) Return-Path: Received: from melville.u.washington.edu by franklin01.u.washington.edu (5.65+UW96.03/UW-NDC Revision: 2.33 ) id AA17700; Mon, 25 Mar 96 14:28:20 -0800 Received: from xceed.cac.washington.edu by melville.u.washington.edu (5.65+UW96.03/UW-NDC Revision: 2.33 ) id AA109804; Mon, 25 Mar 96 14:28:05 -0800 X-Sender: donn@franklin01.u.washington.edu Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Mon, 25 Mar 1996 14:35:31 -0800 To: Sandy Moy From: donn@u.washington.edu (Donn Cave) Subject: Re: Conferencing Software (fwd) Cc: Jim DeRoest At 2:14 PM 3/25/96, Sandy Moy wrote: >okay, sorry to be so dense, but don't I need a URL or something? I tried >http://saulfs02.u.washington.edu/HyperNews/get/testbed.html >and was told that my URL is broken. The URL I've been using is pretty minimal - http://saulfs02 >Aurora is back and I will pass the instructions on to her to test once I >can figure them out. She doesn't need to test this if they've already been using HyperNews. This test installation is not how (and maybe not where) they'll be using it, since I assume we can't as a matter of practice make services like this indiscriminately available to the entire globe. Donn Cave, University Computing Services, University of Washington donn@u.washington.edu 7-May-1996 10:00:43 -0700,4706;000000000001 Return-Path: Received: via tmail-4.0(2) for deroest; Tue, 7 May 1996 10:00:43 -0700 (PDT) Return-Path: Received: from mailer10.u.washington.edu by franklin01.u.washington.edu (5.65+UW96.04/UW-NDC Revision: 2.33 ) id AA20716; Tue, 7 May 96 10:00:42 -0700 Received: from mx1.cac.washington.edu by mailer10.u.washington.edu (5.65+UW96.04/UW-NDC Revision: 2.33 ) id AA28177; Tue, 7 May 96 10:00:41 -0700 Received: from melville.u.washington.edu by mx1.cac.washington.edu (5.65+UW96.04/UW-NDC Revision: 2.33 ) id AA07625; Tue, 7 May 96 10:00:39 -0700 Received: from xceed.cac.washington.edu by melville.u.washington.edu (5.65+UW96.04/UW-NDC Revision: 2.33 ) id AA88002; Tue, 7 May 96 10:00:38 -0700 X-Sender: donn@franklin01.u.washington.edu Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Tue, 7 May 1996 10:00:49 -0700 To: Oren Sreebny , Jim DeRoest , donn@cac.washington.edu From: donn@u.washington.edu (Donn Cave) Subject: Re: HyperNews? Cc: sandy@cac.washington.edu At 9:22 AM 5/7/96, Oren Sreebny wrote: | When last seen, our heroes were setting up a test HyperNews site for Buzz | Hunt to use this quarter. Did that get set up? What's the URL? And | what are your feelings about the ability of HyperNews to scale up to use | for Distance Ed this fall and possible the whole campus either at that | time or subsequently? http://hardy.u/HyperNews/Psych/get/spring96/psych448/question1b.html and question1c, question2a, 2b, 2c. I set up a separately authenticated subgroup for Psych, along with a default group that no one's using. The default group will only sign up members who have UW addresses, but they wanted to have outside participation, so theirs will sign up anyone but will only allow the administrator (Aurora Graf) to create "base articles" - everyone else is limited to followups on existing topics. She sectioned off her topics, because in her experience if all 40-50 of them were working off the same topic it would have been unmanageable. As it is, I think you will find that it's not easy to work your way through the various followup threads - any response can branch off into its own thread, so you really have to wander around. It would help if it were faster. I don't know where the problem is, if it's httpd, the Perl software or both. Ms. Graf is relatively experienced at this, and still seems to find it unwieldy. She created her series of question2 articles with an obviously inadvertent extra .html in them, so the URL would be question2a.html.html. I don't know if she even noticed that - I did notice it by accident, and hacked up alternate references for them. The point is, the creation of base articles evidently requires some skill. I haven't had time to get really familiar with this stuff, but I suspect that deleting a base article and its responses, and other such administrivia, is either not possible or similarly difficult. For bugs, the main problem has been something that Buz & Aurora see on their Mac Netscape client, and so far as we can tell may not happen to anyone else. On an authentication challenge, sometimes it fails with a "broken pipe" message ... might have something to do with cached URL vs. cached authentication information, if the former expires before the latter or something like that, for example. I talked her into trying Lynx, and of course that worked fine, so she's starting to accept that it's a problem with her browser. Maybe as the affected browser software gets to be better specified, it will be a simpler consulting task to tell people "Oh, of course you have the wrong browser, that one just won't work." I get "broken URL" problems when I try to use the buttons, haven't had time to check that out. Aurora would like to use external URLs for the base articles - point them somewhere she has write access to, so she can modify them after the fact. That's supposed to work but seems to be broken, haven't had time to check that out. I don't know what Distance Education has in mind, but it wouldn't hurt to drag them through a little of it to see what they're getting into. If they like it, the main thing would probably be the question of long term support - how long do we want to keep testing it, do we want to commit to it on a longer term basis, etc. The whole campus is a different kettle of fish, so to speak. Donn Cave, University Computing Services, University of Washington donn@u.washington.edu 16-May-1996 21:28:46 -0700,2391;000000000001 Return-Path: Received: via tmail-4.0(2) for deroest; Thu, 16 May 1996 21:28:46 -0700 (PDT) Return-Path: Received: from mailer10.u.washington.edu by franklin01.u.washington.edu (5.65+UW96.04/UW-NDC Revision: 2.33 ) id AA19728; Thu, 16 May 96 21:28:45 -0700 Received: from mx2.cac.washington.edu by mailer10.u.washington.edu (5.65+UW96.04/UW-NDC Revision: 2.33 ) id AA46117; Thu, 16 May 96 21:28:44 -0700 Received: from mailhost2.cac.washington.edu by mx2.cac.washington.edu (5.65+UW96.04/UW-NDC Revision: 2.33 ) id AA20710; Thu, 16 May 96 21:28:40 -0700 Received: from red3.cac.washington.edu by mailhost2.cac.washington.edu (5.65+UW96.04/UW-NDC Revision: 2.33 ) id AA19096; Thu, 16 May 96 21:28:33 -0700 Date: Thu, 16 May 1996 21:28:32 -0700 (PDT) From: Oren Sreebny To: Muriel Dance , rsmith@ese.washington.edu, Nathan Dors , Dave Dittrich , David Wall , "David A. Cox" , Bernice Laden , Jim DeRoest , Sandy Moy , Donn Cave , Melody Winkle , Bruce Alexander , Ed Lightfoot , Rick Ells Subject: Test of Web-based discussion tools Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Folks - We've now got test versions of two web-based discussion tools available for you to try out (thanks to Donn's work): HyperNews and Digital's Alta Vista Workgroup Forum. The URL's are below, and I've put postings in each indicating what I think are the high-level evaluation points we need to think about. The immediate goal is to have something available by the end of the summer for Distance Ed to use in their fall classes, with scalability to the rest of campus to follow. Forum is at: http://saulfs02.u.washington.edu/forum/access/dispatch.cgi HyperNews is at: http://hardy.u.washington.edu/HyperNews/get/webdisc.html - Oren