InformationWeek
Defining The Business Value Of Technology
June 21, 1999
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N-Plex requires a nonintuitive multistep installation procedure. First, you install the unified management console, called Isocor Management Center and reboot the server. Then, launch IMC, and from within it, install the E-mail server and other optional components. To get the server running, you have to create an instance of a mail domain manually. Only after that's finished can you configure the Internet gateway and add users.
There are no helpful prompts or wizards; be sure to keep the well-written manual handy. In addition to the printed documentation, N-Plex includes enhanced electronic documentation in the Adobe Acrobat format. Using the manual, we were able to get N-Plex up and running within an hour. Those unfamiliar with E-mail software would take longer.
Local administration is through the IMC application, which provides a tree-based view of E-mail domains and users, connections, statistics, IMAP4 folders, and logs. (It's the same application as the WorldMail Management Center.) The IMC can be installed and run remotely on any NT workstation or server, as long as the proper remote-management agents are also installed to provide remote access. Experienced administrators will likely want to use IMC and will find it's right-mouse-oriented approach comfortable. Nontechnical users may be overwhelmed, and bemoan its lack of prompts or wizards.
N-Plex allows routine administration--account creation and deletion, changing quotes, auto-reply text (vacation messages), shared folder or mailing-list management--to be handled via a Web interface. Anything more complex requires use of the IMC.
To manage N-Plex using a Web interface, the Web/Directory Gateway must be manually installed and configured. Once that is accomplished, registered user-group administrators (as defined in IMC) can browse to a TCP/IP port and download a Java applet that lets them modify user information within their group of users. Ordinary users can make limited changes to their own information using the same method.
User information is maintained within an LDAP directory. To set up the directory, one must manually install and configure the LDAP server, which is included with N-Plex Global. An administrator who doesn't understand X.500-style directories would be hopelessly lost and find the documentation of little help. Although the step-by-step process is laid out, there's no explanation of what the different directory fields mean, and a mistake in setting up the management account or directory configuration would lead to a lot of problems later. N-Plex allows the use of an external LDAP directory.
Directory content may be viewed and changed from within the IMC, but most administrators will find the Web interface much easier to use, as it neatly masks the directory's structure.
An extra goody that we didn't expect to find was SNMP version 1 management. N-Plex includes a basic SNMP read-only browser. If the E-mail server's Windows NT SNMP Service is started, N-Plex provides real-time Management Information Base data for functions such as number and size of messages received and transmitted. As with most N-Plex features, it must be configured manually, and it's not a simple process.
Beyond basic E-mail, N-Plex includes two of the same extra features as Eudora WorldMail: mailing-list support and vacation messages. Unlike WorldMail, the product includes spam filtering; the Mail Filter is actually a separate component that must be installed. Mail can be blocked based on full user name or by domain name. Limits can also be set on maximum message size (as well as individual user mailbox size) and on the use of the N-Plex server to handle SMTP mail relaying.
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