Available technologies, their application and challenges
Information access and distribution can be undertaken using so-called "push" and "pull" technologies, examples of these being, respectively, Electronic Messaging and the World Wide Web. Information can be free form or structured, for example to meet the need for informal messaging or the stringent requirements for participation in Electronic Commerce.
Of particular importance is the question of using standards based or proprietary solutions. The latter has the effect of locking an organisation into a particular vendor's view of the world, with its own specific product sets, architecture and evolution. Open, standards-based solutions allow the opportunity to "mix and match", with the freedom to make use of specific preferred and "best of breed" products. In addition, open solutions generally offer the opportunity to reach and share information with a wider audience, in terms of their location and their organisation's choice of information technology platform.
NET-TEL technology is based on the use of X.400 and X.500 standards and architectures, taking full advantage of the benefits of technical investments in the worldwide standardisation process. NET-TEL also provides close-coupled access to the Internet Mail (SMTP/MIME) system and gateways to other popular proprietary messaging products. On the desktop and within servers, NET-TEL products integrate with Microsoft systems and applications technologies.
The remainder of this White Paper characterises the key information access and transport mechanisms in widespread use and their challenges.
Electronic Messaging One of the most powerful and flexible infrastructure technologies for business process and inter-personal communications, Electronic Messaging is far more than "simple" electronic mail, and the distinction between messaging and transaction processing systems has blurred. Messaging is a major Intranet/Internet application, with two significant protocols in use: "Internet Mail" (SMTP/MIME) and X.400, both of which run over Intranet/Internet network-protocols.
X.400 continues to provide a higher quality of service than "Internet Mail" (SMTP/MIME), and is generally used in business/mission critical environments (eg EDI and the US Defence Messaging System - DMS) where a reliable and auditable messaging service is required. SMTP is widely and freely available providing a generally reliable "lightweight" mail service which, with the addition of MIME support, allows for message and file attachments as with X.400. As the Internet standardisation process evolves "Internet Mail" will eventually match, and perhaps overtake, X.400 in terms of functionality and service level.
An X.400 message can include:
- text, using any mix of character sets (more important outside the US, where Internet standards evolved)
- any number of attachments, which may include:
- documents
- files
- faxes
- Internet/Intranet resource pointers (URLs)
- verbal annotations
- voice mail (from a PABX)
- programs
- static or moving images
- EDI/Electronic Commerce or other (program-program) transactions, eg diary scheduling requests
- pager/GSM alerts
An Electronic Messaging Service reliably delivers information with media and, as far as practical, application independence. Messages can be addressed to recipients independent of whether they will be received as e-mail, fax or a printed (posted) document. Attached documents can be converted to readable fax content by the messaging backbone, which can also convert the format of attachments on a per recipient per attachment basis to suit individual capabilities and preferences, for example "word processor format preference = Microsoft Word" and "spreadsheet format preference = Lotus 1-2-3".
In addition, rules-based auto-actions at a messaging server and/or client can:
- generate automated recipient defined replies
- cause messages to be forwarded, filed or deleted dependent on selected criteria
- check attachments for viruses
- generate pager/GSM alerts indicating a message or situation that needs attention
The World Wide Web and File Transfer
A key driver of the commercialisation, uptake and success of the Internet has been the World Wide Web. Simple in concept, use and navigation, the power of "the web" derives from its mass of accessible information and the ease with which this information can be related through "on the fly" links.
A highly dynamic and fast growing environment, the challenge with "the web" (whether private Intranet or global Internet) is to know where to find information of relevance and how to make your information visible. This is widely achieved through the use of automated indexing systems that follow supplied links, "crawling the web", coupled with search interfaces of varying sophistication, and is necessary because, unlike a directory or database, "the web" has no organised structure (schema).
Web technology has evolved rapidly, built on an extensible combination of a mark-up syntax for presenting formatted data and the use of file transfer to move this information between servers and clients. Web content today is a multimedia experience utilising a publishing medium that encompasses text, graphics, streaming video and sound, as well as providing for the activation of messaging and other applications. The performance, visual and interactive characteristics of web pages have additionally been extended through embedding various competing component-ware technologies, primarily Java & ActiveX, and the near term promise is for richer, higher resolution presentation and faster information retrieval.
Web technology and component-ware are operating system independent, with web clients positioned as alternate interfaces to workstation operating systems, and component-ware providing possible pay-per-use (on-demand) software. These network-server centric technologies in concert with the ubiquitous (current) low cost of access/use of the Internet, and consumer volume business opportunities, have fuelled alliances with two objectives:
- to attack the stranglehold of Microsoft Windows as the de facto workstation/PC interface and operating environment by introducing simpler, cheaper "network computers" comprising a web and messaging client coupled with associated (intranet) servers
- to standardise on web technology as the basis for "information appliances" delivering no-setup, instant-on, out-of-the-box connectivity solutions, eg WebTV, WebPhone
Electronic Commerce
Electronic Commerce has until recently meant EDI, Electronic Data Interchange, the business-to-business electronic exchange of documents such as Purchase Orders, Invoices and Payment Advices, supported by trading agreements establishing their legal standing. EDI transactions are usually effected using electronic messaging between trading partners via a Value Added Network (VAN) service provider, delivering a reliable and secure transfer path, any necessary format conversions and an audit trail for each transaction. X.400 is the preferred messaging service for EDI and this is further enhanced by the X.435 extensions for EDI transactions.
The establishment of Internet based virtual stores, fronted by web based interfaces, aiming to capture consumer volume credit card transactions, has expanded the definition of Electronic Commerce and the requirements of its trading model to include eCommerce: Web based trading. Added to this are various "electronic money" schemes and virtual banks with which consumers deposit funds and through which "cyberspace" trading takes place. Internet security technology is being enhanced to provide a secure and sufficiently reliable infrastructure such that financial institutions and credit card issuers are able to assume the liability necessary to build consumer confidence and use of this emerging technology.
EDI is an established and strong sector. eCommerce can now be expected to achieve commodity infrastructure status as Internet security technology matures.
Collaborative Applications: GroupWare and Workflow
Collaborative Applications cover a broad range of information sharing and distribution mechanisms to support team working, including:
- discussion forums, bulletin boards, newsgroups and shared message or document
folders.
The key characteristics are that electronic discussions are grouped by subject (threads), and that participants can view the range of subjects and decide which to review or contribute to, or to start new conversation topics. The technology to support this is messaging based, with articles (which can be multimedia messages) posted to shared folders which others can be authorised to read and reply to. More sophisticated systems also allow for users to be notified of activity in forums in which they have registered an interest
- video, voice and shared application/whiteboard conferencing - virtual meetings.
Using a combination of real-time streaming, remote management and multicast protocols, images and sounds can be transmitted across the Intranet/Internet and applications can be shared allowing tutorial and group contribution styles of teamwork and interaction between distributed participants
- group scheduling and online diaries.
Allowing the online identification of free/busy slots across a network of diaries, which can include resources such as meeting rooms and audio visual equipment, for group scheduling, and online review of individual's diaries. The scheduling protocols utilise the messaging backbone to transmit meeting requests and confirmations
- workflow.
Where electronic versions of Business Process documents such as Expense Claims, Holiday Bookings and Bid Approvals are transmitted via the messaging backbone to a predetermined sequence of recipients for comment/approval
- online libraries/databases, which can include company/departmental documents, policies, standard forms, customer records and software. Similar to discussion forums, but generally read/query-only
- wide participation in discussions
- one copy of information, always the most up-to-date version
- customer/project/goal oriented team focus
- record of (the reasoning for) decisions
- distributed storage and management of corporate intelligence/wisdom
Directories provide a range of essential information management services that can be located centrally or across a widely distributed network of servers. Synonymous with so-called White, Yellow and Blue Pages services (where the equivalent paper directories store information by name, category or organisation) but with the advantage of being updated in real-time, directories are being used to build, manage, keep up-to-date and synchronise resource information for a wide variety of uses, such as:
- individual and organisational/functional contact details,
eg e-mail and postal addresses, telephone and fax numbers - individual and organisational/functional security keys and certificates for public key cryptography systems
- single logon to network resources
- network topology and routing, enabling least cost/highest performance information routing
- application/service configuration
- individual and organisational information handling capabilities and preferences,
eg maximum message size, and to support automated conversion of message attachments by the messaging backbone so that the recipient is able to work with the received documents even though they originated in an incompatible format
Security
The importance and need for security increases with the value and sensitivity of information and transactions (eg medical records, commercial orders), particularly in the light of the growing use of the Internet which is still an insecure and occasionally unreliable environment.
Information Security involves the use of cryptographic techniques to provide one or more of the following types of service:
- Confidentiality: the protection against information falling into the wrong hands, through use of encryption
- Integrity: the assurance that the information has not been modified between source and destination
- Authentication: the assurance that the information actually came from its purported information source, through the use of digital signatures and security certificates
- Non-repudiation: an assurance acceptable to a third party that the transfer or transaction in question actually happened, with verification of the parties involved
Server focus
- client/user validation
- SSL/SET for eCommerce and Web forms
- Message Origin Authentication checks at each MTA
- server-server validation and transfer encryption, enabling secured routing (messaging firewall)
- policing of security labelling to prevent leakage of protected information and documents
- anti-virus firewalls through attachment checking
- key/certificate generation, repudiation and distribution
- encryption and decryption of messages or individual attachments
- digital signature and signature verification of messages or individual attachments
- message originator authentication
- non-repudiation of message transfer or transaction
- network layer firewalls
- IETF developments with IP Security
Back to Part 5: The NET-TEL Response to the Information Challenge
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