OSI/MHS Orientation Guide

Building Your Message Handling System
OSI/MHS Orientation Guide—424829-001
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Managing a Messaging Network or Hub
Managing a Messaging Network or Hub
Compaq provides a variety of tools to help you manage your backbone messaging
network or hub and receive some types of management data from messaging
applications.
What You Need to Do
To manage a messaging network or hub, you are likely to engage in most of the
following types of activities:
•
Establishing and maintaining a configuration, including MHS and all underlying
software. (See “Setting Up a Messaging Network or Hub.”)
•
Managing databases including message stores, protocol data storage for MHS
components, the OSI/MHS configuration database, and the registration database
(which contains information about routing, users, and other MTAs). Monitor PDU
stores to identify problem messages, and monitoring file sizes.
•
Analyzing message traffic and messaging system performance, and making required
modifications to ensure required service levels. For instance, monitoring entries in
OSI/MHS message queues, and using the information for load balancing across
parallel processes.
•
Troubleshooting interoperation problems and equipment failures. For instance,
monitoring suspicious events and trace interactions across communications lines.
(You can write filters to monitor specific types of events.)
•
Collecting usage data for accounting and billing.
•
Managing the community of users, ensuring the security of correspondence and of
the network. This task includes management of distribution lists and closed user
groups, as well as, potentially, the implementation of password server processes or
use of the Master Password Server (MPS) provided by Compaq.
Several of these functions can involve cooperation with managers of systems and
applications that use the messaging network. For instance, the addresses to use for a
connection are normally described on both sides of the connection; similarly,
troubleshooting a connection is usually a bilateral activity.
Management policy and procedures can vary widely, based on national and international
regulations and relationships among users of the network. For instance, private and
administration management domains (PRMDs and ADMDs) can have different
restrictions and responsibilities. Even among PRMDs, a network connecting different
operating entities within a corporation might have less stringent security requirements
than a network connecting different corporations.
Table 1-12 lists some possible differences in management requirements for ADMDs and
PRMDs.