[openmapi.org devel] Understanding OpenMAPI architecture and rationales

[Florian von Kurnatowski]

All,

I'd like to introduce myself first; I run product management for  
Scalix, a leading Exchange alternative. Given our deep support for  
MAPI, Outlook and other related ecosystem components we're currently  
looking into whether or not support of OpenMAPI is of relevance and  
benefit to us, and, if so, what path would be best to follow to get  
there.

It occurs that there is already some work on the way to integrate  
Scalix with OpenMAPI. At this point, this is an independent project,  
so obviously we would have the options of contributing to this project  
as well, to do the integration ourselves or to just wait and see.

At this point, I'm trying to understand the rationale for a central  
part of OpenMAPI's architecture. It is pretty clear and obvious that  
offering 3rd-party apps that wish to integrate with a Groupware Server/ 
MAPI backend common APIs makes it easier for the application vendors  
to start integrating with Exchange-alternative MAPI-"compliant"  
solutions.

I would, however, like to better understand the role of the MAPI Proxy  
component within the architecture, in particular why there is a  
specific protocol defined for proxy access. There are already a number  
of approaches out there that layer MAPI-type services on top of  
various network architectures, a prominent one obviously being  
Microsoft's WebDAV entry point into Exchange. I understand that there  
are various areas where a dedicated proxy server component may provide  
additional benefits (probably with regards to notification), etc, yet  
I am still wondering if the "cost" of having an extra component in the  
code path (debugging, performance, latency, maintenance, complexity of  
architecture, etc.) isn't too high to possibly find it desirable to go  
with a simplified architecture where all backends that would want to  
support the OpenMAPI initiative would provide a common webservices  
type MAPI API that the other API modules for Java, etc., could be  
written to work against, i.e. consider OpenMAPI a project to comeup  
with the spec (and maybe a reference implementation) for such protocol.

Furthermore, as we'd like to fully understand the architecture and  
benefits of the NMAPI proxy, where can we currently find/acquire the  
source code of this component?

Any pointers appreicated and looking forward to a fruitful discussion.

Tx,
Florian.

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