Cloudswell SCIM Enterprise Server
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IM for business:
Introduction Next-generation IM Putting IM to work IM still not secure 1. SCIM Enterprise Server 2. Lotus Sametime 3. Microsoft Exchange Comparison Sample scenario About RMIT Labs |
SCIM stands for Secure Cryptographic Instant Messenger, and one can hardly disagree with the name—the system supports 1024-bit encryption between the clients and the server. This application leans more toward the chat style of IM in that users can’t leave messages on the server for users who are offline.
The SCIM client is very simple to install, though in the review version it is distributed as an executable that is locked to a server at a specific IP address. The client is limited to plain text, but it is fairly easy to use once you get the hang of what all the buttons do. The client is written in Java, so it can be made to work on just about any device or operating system with a Java Virtual Machine (JVM)
The SCIM Server is a bit more complicated, requiring Windows 2000 Server SP3, Sun Java 2, MySQL database, and PHP Extensions for IIS. The Java, MySQL, and PHP components are all free and provided on the installation CD.
Install documentation is very detailed, but the installation process seems needlessly complex and requires each package to be installed and configured separately.
The server is administered using PHP pages via a Web browser, and these are generally very easy to use. We had a couple of problems importing the data from Active Directory on our server, as it grabbed the wrong field for the user name, and we were unable to add users directly from the admin pages, but the add user feature direct from the client worked perfectly.
This looks like a very good secure, interoperable, and clean system, but it needs a bit of work on the installation process. Once you have it running there is no problem, though it would be nice if it could draw its user database directly and interactively from a corporate source (LDAP, Active Directory, etc.).
| Product: | SCIM Enterprise Server |
| Price: | AU$6995 (500 users) |
| Vendor: | Cloudswell |
| Phone: | (02) 8430 0865 |
| Web: | www.cloudswell.com |
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| Interoperability: |
Supports Windows, Mac (OS X), and Linux. |
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| Futureproofing: |
½Slightly behind the competition in features, but new features will be available in March. |
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| ROI: |
A very inexpensive solution. |
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| Service: |
3-month warranty; e-mail, phone, and onsite support available. |
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| Rating: |
½ |
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Jabber is a good solution. Not only is it an open standard, however, you can find many open source and even commercial solutions.
See: http://www.jabber.org.au/