Connectors: What's new?

With this blog I would like to open a series of Connector blogs and will start with what is new in Transporter Connectors.

We have made significant changes in this release of Connectors in Transporter Suite, including:

1. Ability to configure and control Connectors through Power Shell independently. Connector Tasks are divided in to two sets: DominoDirectoryConnector and DominoFreeBusyConnector and each supports 6 tasks: New, Get, Set, Remove, Start and Stop. The “New” commands create the appropriate connector object in the Configuration Container, and the “Set” tasks allow you to fully configure those objects. The “Start” and “Stop” commands allow you to start and stop the service, one service per connector unlike previous version. Using Start command with a combination of self-explanatory keys (–FullReloadToAD –FullReloadToDomino –UpdateToAD and –UpdateToDomino), you are able to control synchronization. And obviously the Remove task allows you to delete Connector object from AD.

2. Directory Synchronization can be deployed as a standalone connector and does not depend on mailflow, however FreeBusy connector requires objects to be populated by Directory Connector on both Domino and AD. The Directory Connector design supports standard as well shared name space configuration.

3. Directory Synchronization can be set up through a wizard that allows you to choose one of 4 sync modes with a simple explanation of each action.

4.  Although the Directory Connector is not designed to perform direct upgrades from previous versions, through Power Shell with DominoDirectoryConnector you can take ownership of the DirSync objects created by E2K3 Directory Connector.

5. The Connector configuration previously set in the ini file has been converted to XML format and dramatically simplified.

6. Mapping tables are much simpler and file names are easy to follow.

Separating the Directory connector from messaging allows us to use the industry standard SMTP protocol for mail transport, which brings reliability, better SMTP/MIME format handling, ability to leverage existing servers and SMTP paths, and predictable performance.

New GUI allows the admin to configure and control both Directory and FreeBusy connectors from the same screen as well as perform migration of Domino users, mailboxes and applications.

And at the end I would like to mention that Power Shell allows you to set the Connectors’ diagnostic level through Get/Set-TransporterEvenLogLevel, and that is a perfect tool for troubleshooting connectors. Thank you and let me know if you would like to see blog for specific area.

Have a great day.

Kahren