APIs for Distributed
Business
Applications
In today’s business world, more and more
critical applications must work in a distributed environment.
ISOCOR Messaging and Directory servers provide a way for applications
to communicate quickly, reliably and securely in this environment.
To enable this communication, ISOCOR provides a variety of APIs
to support existing applications as well as new application development.
Fast
results - with minimal effort
ISOCOR provides a variety of different APIs. Products
like PLEXLINK™ and ISOTRADE™ may be used out-of-the-box
with existing office automation applications or EDI translators:
other APIs such as those in the N-PLEX™ API SDK and IDAL
were developed to provide access to the standards-based messaging
and directory functionality of ISOCOR N-PLEX™, ISOPLEX™
and Global Directory Servers (GDS). The product documentation
provides the comprehensive detail customers need to integrate
existing products with these services. You may also leverage the
facilities of ISOCOR training services, where highly skilled developers
can assist you in fully understanding the concepts of all available
APIs.
Which
API is the right one for you?
Depending on the customer’s particular requirements,
one or more API products from ISOCOR may be needed. To assist
in making the right choice, this datasheet provides brief descriptions
of each API: more information is available in the PLEXLINK and
ISOTRADE datasheets and manuals for each API.
Internet
Mail
PLEXLINK POP3 Provider is the easiest way to add
Internet Mail Access to existing applications that support Microsoft’s
Simple MAPI or Extended MAPI. This Internet Transport Provider
for MAPI gives any MAPI application POP3 connectivity to any POP3
Internet Message Store. This product is available on both Windows
95 and NT 4.0. Furthermore, the product supports Delivery Status
Notifications, logon authentication via APOP, extended character
sets and multiple mailboxes — all of which are critical to
distributed business applications. PLEXLINK POP3 Provider is available
as a standalone product or as part of PLEXLINK, which combines
Internet Mail, X.400 messaging and X.500 directory access MAPI
providers.
API Diagram
#1
The N-PLEX API SDK provides supporting documentation
and example software for a number of APIs that give access to
the N-PLEX Enterprise and N-PLEX Global Internet Mail server and
Message Store. Four APIs are provided in the N-PLEX Server:
- Submission API. Enables platform and
language-independent Internet Mail access via RFC-822 ASCII
format files. May be used in conjunction with agent or gateway
APIs below.
- Mail Agent API. Delivers RFC-822 ASCII
format files to applications that act on incoming messages;
these can be used for adding query-by-mail, automatically triggered
actions and so forth.
- Gateway API. This expands the functionality
of the Agent API to cater to an entire domain for message conversion
between SMTP and external mail systems. The Gateway API also
uses an RFC-822 format ASCII file interface.
API Diagram #2
- Filtering API. A powerful tool which
allows an external application to scan and/or modify messages,
including modification of individual MIME body parts. Depending
on results, the application may direct the server to relay the
message or discard it with or without generating a delivery
status notification.
The N-PLEX API SDK can be utilized to add a wide
variety of services to N-PLEX. All applications use the Submission
API to send messages, but will utilize different APIs to access
incoming messages:
- Gateways. Gateways to proprietary mail
systems can be
developed using the Gateway API and Submission API.
- Mail Robots. Mail robots for varied
applications, including mailing list maintenance, retrieving
stock prices, and
querying databases can be developed using the agent and Submission
APIs.
- User Validation. A common complaint
about SMTP is the
lack of any means to validate that the sender is a subscriber
to the messaging service. The filtering API may be used to
intercept incoming messages and examine additional information
to validate the sender’s identity. This information might,
for example, be extra characters in the address or subject fields
that are checked by the user validation application and then
deleted. If the message is not validated, it is non-delivered;
otherwise, it is forwarded.
- Dirty Word Filtering. In secure environments
it is desirable to examine the contents of the message to see
if the contents are allowed to leave the domain. For example,
messages containing references to classified projects may be
either non-delivered (originator notified), or just not forwarded
(without the originator knowing) and logged for examination
by the security officer.
Directory
PLEXLINK provides the most straightforward way
to add directory access to MAPI-aware applications. It contains
an X.500 MAPI provider which allows MAPI address book functions
to be utilized over the DAP protocol. Thus, existing Extended
MAPI compatible office automation applications such as Microsoft
Exchange and the Outlook Client, and e-mail clients from Lotus
and other suppliers, can access a global directory by installing
PLEXLINK together with a directory implementation such as the
ISOCOR Global Directory Server. PLEXLINK can also be used by custom
applications that need directory access, such as a corporate telephone
book, or electronic commerce applications.
The ISOCOR Directory Access Library (IDAL) is
a client side API to X.500 which provides a programmatic interface
to the X.500 Directory Access Protocol (DAP). This API supports
a large extensible range of object classes, and comes complete
with OSI stacks for TCP/IP (RFC1006), X.25, APS and PAD. It provides
access to all directory functionality (a superset of PLEXLINK)
and may be used to interface with the most powerful directory
applications.
API Diagram
#3 X.400
Messaging
PLEXLINK also provides the most straightforward
way to add X.400 messaging access. It contains an X.400 MAPI transport
provider that can be used with ISOCOR’s ISOPLEX, N-PLEX or
any X.400 compatible messaging server, over both local (P1) and
remote (P7) protocols. Thus, existing Extended MAPI compatible
office automation applications such as the Microsoft Exchange
Client and e-mail clients from Lotus and other suppliers can access
X.400 messaging services by installing PLEXLINK together with
an X.400 Message Store like ISOPLEX or N-PLEX. Personal ISOTRADE
is similar to PLEXLINK, which adds support for EDI transactions
using X.435 (P35) or standard X.400 IPM (P2). Users constructing
a new message will see a new tab in the message options, which
enables them to select via a checkbox the message type they would
like to see applied to this new transaction. Personal ISOTRADE
Secure and PLEXLINK Secure add security extensions for encryption
and authentication to the base products.
ISOTRADE, which is available on NT and a variety
of UNIX platforms, offers a simple file interface for X.400 messaging.
It is compatible with most third party EDI translators, and allows
the handling of EDI document interchanges via ISOPLEX and other
X.400 MTAs. It can also be used for reliable transmission of raw
data output from your applications over a robust X.400 backbone.
XMC is the most reliable API and is available
on various platforms which allows users to gain access to the
X.400 Messaging Server products over P7 (Remote User Agent) and
P1 (Local User Agent or gateways), plus P3 encoders and decoders.
This API comes complete with full OSI transport stacks, and also
includes encoders and decoders for P1 (Message Transfer Protocol),
P2 (1984 Civilian Message Format), P22 (1988 Civilian Message
Format), P35 (EDI Message Format), P7 (Message Submission &
Retrieval Protocol) and P772 (Military Message Format). Other
application possibilities include X.400 management, accounting
or mail robot features. X/Open API support is provided by ISOCOR
where a standard messaging API is required. It is available on
a wide variety of platforms and implements the IM 84 and 88 packages,
EDI messaging package, MT interface of the MH package, and the
XOM specifications of X/Open.ManagementManagement API - To integrate
ISOCOR’s Internet Mail Server from a management perspective
into pre-existing customer applications, access to ISOCOR’s
management protocol is also available. All Internet Mail services
may be configured and monitored via the N-PLEX Management Protocol.
This protocol provides the ability to send ASCII text commands
to the server via a TCP/IP connection and receive ASCII text responses.
Since this is a text stream, it can be generated and parsed by
programs written in any language on any host operating system.
This provides total flexibility for service providers and corporate
IT/MIS departments for integration with existing applications.
The Management API may be used to integrate N-PLEX
with automated service provisioning applications. The application
may retrieve data from a Web form or a database, and use it to
add new users to N-PLEX servers – configuring user names,
logins and passwords to match information entered in the Web form
or database. The application may also set default values for disk
quota, service availability times and other parameters depending
on the type of service subscribed to.
Accounting – N-PLEX Hub, N-PLEX Enterprise,
N-PLEX Global and ISOPLEX servers provide accounting options that
can be used to collect statistics for use in billing or general
performance monitoring. The accounting package is configurable
to collect any set of statistics into a file in a user-defined
format for later processing. Statistics are collected for X.400
and Internet messaging, including the message switch and message
server. Other available information includes:
- Connect and disconnect times for users and
servers
- Size and number of messages sent and received
- Storage used for incoming messages and remote
folders
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