enterprise instant messaging

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schnell

Gawd
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Jul 22, 2005
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What is everyone using for enterprise instant messaging? I have gotten lots of requests for this sort of thing in the past year or so.

I about fell out of my chair when I saw what Microsoft charges for Lync (former Office Communications Server) now. That is way too rich of my blood so I am looking into other options. Lots of people on the Spiceworks forums seem to like the combination of Openfire and Spark messenger, plus it is free and open source.

Anyone using Openfire/Spark or something else for enterprise messaging?
 
i'm using spark right now.....it's ok, its your standard XMPP/Jabber based chat client, no spiffy extras like OCS/Lync will do, but for a good old fashioned chat program it gets the job done.
 
I use openfire/spark. Lightweight, open source and just works! Though it's not in an enterprise environment :/

I use it at live sound events. If I'm doing the monitors on stage and need to communicate with the front of house engineer, I shoot him a quick message.
 
I've Heard alot of people go the openfire / spark route and love it. AD integration and a few addons.. love it.

If you want a more paid for version you could for OCS/Lync like B1zz is saying.
 
We use Office Communicator and it is alright. Some users take advantage of the screen sharing, video conferencing and dialing abilities, but most use it just for chat.

Prior to that we used openfire / spark
 
OCS here, part of MS BPOS. The screen sharing is pretty handy but the dialing doesn't get used much because I'm either at a desk with a phone or at home w/o decent QOS and the audio isn't that good.
 
Openfire and psi. Although I'm tempted to switch it to spark and turn on SSO. That'd make my life a bit easier.
 
I've been using AIM. Some of the emails I get make me feel like I am in a chat room:(
 
Another vote for OpenFire here with the client machines using either Adium or Pidgin.
 
Well I am testing openfire/spark and it seems to work pretty well.

Are you guys using the built in database or something else? How many users in your environment?
I am using the A/D integration but I cant seem to get SSO working, anyone using SSO?
The one main issue I have now is I would prefer if I could preload all the people in my A/D environment.


edit:apparently SSO uses Kerberos autehntication so it wont work for met yet since I am testing the openfire server part on an XP machine and it needs Kerberos Key Distribution Center which i would need server 2003 for.

http://community.igniterealtime.org/docs/DOC-1362
 
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schnell said:
Well I am testing openfire/spark and it seems to work pretty well.

Are you guys using the built in database or something else? How many users in your environment?
I am using the A/D integration but I cant seem to get SSO working, anyone using SSO?
The one main issue I have now is I would prefer if I could preload all the people in my A/D environment.


edit:apparently SSO uses Kerberos autehntication so it wont work for met yet since I am testing the openfire server part on an XP machine and it needs Kerberos Key Distribution Center which i would need server 2003 for.

http://community.igniterealtime.org/docs/DOC-1362
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Can't help you with SSO, but what do you mean by the bolded?
 
XOR != OR said:
Can't help you with SSO, but what do you mean by the bolded?
Click to expand...

I plan to build an msi file and push it out with group policy. What I am looking for is a way to automatically populate everyones "buddy list" with all the people who will be using spark so that each user does not have to manually add people to their list.
 
schnell said:
I plan to build an msi file and push it out with group policy. What I am looking for is a way to automatically populate everyones "buddy list" with all the people who will be using spark so that each user does not have to manually add people to their list.
Click to expand...

Openfire can use AD groups (i.e. OU's) booyah! that's what we use, groups automatically populate. :)
 
MikeTrike said:
Openfire can use AD groups (i.e. OU's) booyah! that's what we use, groups automatically populate. :)
Click to expand...

Care to elaborate? I assume you add the ou and it adds everyone in that ou to the buddy list but is there a way to script this?
 
schnell said:
I plan to build an msi file and push it out with group policy. What I am looking for is a way to automatically populate everyones "buddy list" with all the people who will be using spark so that each user does not have to manually add people to their list.
Click to expand...
If you already have AD integration set up with Openfire, you can set up new security groups and have everyone's contacts keyed off of that.

In the admin console, under Users/Groups, Groups. Find the security group you created, click on it ( I prefix my groups with the word Jabber for easy searching ). In this screen, check "Enable Contact Sharing", and give it a group name. By itself, this will set up the contact list for everyone in this group. However, you can also share this contact list with other security groups by selecting the appropriate options on this page.
 
schnell said:
Care to elaborate? I assume you add the ou and it adds everyone in that ou to the buddy list but is there a way to script this?
Click to expand...



You don't need to script anything, just set that as an active group on the server and it will auto-populate the user list when they log in. It really integrates with AD environments very very very well.
 
MikeTrike said:
Openfire can use AD groups (i.e. OU's) booyah! that's what we use, groups automatically populate. :)
Click to expand...
Nitpicking, but it's been bugging me. Security Groups in Active Directory aren't OUs.

That is all, carry on. ;)
 
MikeTrike said:
Yeah my bad, OU's are on the brain! Probably because the OU's have identical names...
Click to expand...
I got ya. I always thought it was weird that you didn't attach Group Policies to...you know...groups.

Interesting bit of trivia ( hope this helps someone ); you can't have an OU and a group named the same thing under the same OU.
 
Office Communicator.

When you say "Enterprise" how many users are we talking?
 
XOR != OR said:
I got ya. I always thought it was weird that you didn't attach Group Policies to...you know...groups.

Interesting bit of trivia ( hope this helps someone ); you can't have an OU and a group named the same thing under the same OU.
Click to expand...

I'm guessing you do this stuff a lot more than I do. We've only had an AD environment for about a year. That and I'm responsible for four locations. Which includes LAN/WAN/SAN/WLAN/Servers/Virtualization/AS400/etc/yada/more/blah.

So I'm a doer of all, master of none in this type of environment. :(

And I only have one guy working under me, hooray!

But seriously, openfire is the shit and stupid simple to setup and implement. Which is why I like it, anything that makes my job a bit easier on a day to day basis helps.
 
Ditto on the Openfire/Spark combo. Works nicely. But it seems to need a re-install after a Java Update. Anyone else run into that?
 
MikeTrike said:
I'm guessing you do this stuff a lot more than I do. We've only had an AD environment for about a year. That and I'm responsible for four locations. Which includes LAN/WAN/SAN/WLAN/Servers/Virtualization/AS400/etc/yada/more/blah.

So I'm a doer of all, master of none in this type of environment. :(

And I only have one guy working under me, hooray!

But seriously, openfire is the shit and stupid simple to setup and implement. Which is why I like it, anything that makes my job a bit easier on a day to day basis helps.
Click to expand...
I may have a few years on ya, but otherwise it sounds like our job descriptions match.

And we share the same mindset; I'm a lazy admin. I want to set it up and forget about it ( I've got enough going on without having to baby sit an app ).
 
Diakiaoshinsama said:
Ditto on the Openfire/Spark combo. Works nicely. But it seems to need a re-install after a Java Update. Anyone else run into that?
Click to expand...

server or client? The server is funny about Java, would not recommend updating often.

Also the Spark client is crappy IMO, I switched to Psi and much prefer it over Spark. To each his own though.
 
Got it working. Made a few simple A/D security groups. It was simple check box in the edit groups of "enable contact list group sharing" and hit save on the Openfire server. They magically show up in the contact list on all the clients. Beautiful.

I am pretty happy with it thus far. I may try my hand at making a branded/skinned version this weekend.
 
Not to completely derail this, but for the guys suggesting open fire as the server what are you running it on. Windows, Linux, Flavor of Linux? I've set it up both ways, but what is everyone else a fan of
 
We're predominantly a WinBoxen shop, so we just dropped it on 08 R2 without a problem.

EDIT: It's also virtualized, if that excites or helps you as well. :)

EDIT 2: While on the subject of derailing, here's another useful tool for an intranet environment. http://www.mindtouch.com/ AD and SSO works pretty great from my testing. However I need to do more testing on XP. But Win7 is flawless, IE and Chrome for that matter detect the logged in user and authenticate to the intranet site via AD auth. Firefox is still retarded, but you can use your windows creds. manually when the box pops up (we disabled anonymous access to the site, hence the forced auth).
 
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calvinj said:
Not to completely derail this, but for the guys suggesting open fire as the server what are you running it on. Windows, Linux, Flavor of Linux? I've set it up both ways, but what is everyone else a fan of
Click to expand...
To save on licensing headaches, I go with linux + mysql. Works just fine, even the AD integration.
 
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