Groupware Servers Interview Preparation Guide

The front end server includes communication protocols that are used to communicate from one system to another system. This includes:
• Mail User Agent (MUA) - This allows easy delivery of mails from one user to another user and allows the user to communicate with one another as well.
• Email Messages- This includes composing of the mails, managing the mails and taking certain actions on them, sending them to other person, and receiving mails from other people with whom the communication is associated.
• Embedded services- This includes addressing, packaging, signing, and encrypting outgoing messages and it is a secure method that doesn’t allow third party to hinder in transferring of the message. This also includes the decrypting service that takes the message and displays it.
• Polling server updates such that it will be available to all the clients at one go.

Groupware systems come defined under two natures. These natures are as follows:
• Synchronous groupware: includes the class of application that assist a group of physically separated people to interact with one another using real time systems or objects that are shared over the network. Synchronous groupware requires real-time coordination with their clients to find out the exact nature of the communication they are having.
• Asynchronous groupware: includes the use of electronic mails, structured messages, agents, etc. in the system for the communication. It also requires a specified workflow, and computer conferencing, techniques to set a communication between two different parties. The collaborations are only be performed and maintained if there is no restriction on the transfer of the data.

There are certain levels of collaboration levels used in communication, conferencing and coordination between different people doing online collaboration with each other. This includes certain creation, management, information sharing and collaborative projects tools to make the transaction successfully. Communication is an important aspect of the collaborative computing and requires unstructured interchange of information between the parties like instant chat or messages.
Conferencing on the other hand is more of an interactive work performed by different individuals to attain a goal that is given.
Coordination is also an aspect and plays an important role in collaboration. It requires complex calculations and interdependent work to reach the goal that is given.

The functionalities that are performed from backend as follows:
The server usage the message storage directories and the directory user agent to keep track of all the clients that are in sync with the server or communicating with it.
• Directory services are provided to manage the names of the clients, their email addresses and the distribution lists so that they can be reached in case of any loss of information.
• Message Transfer Agents (MTA) delivers the email to the recipients who are residing somewhere else from time to time and allow them to answer them back.
• Email Application Programming Interface (API) allows easy integration of the subroutines and function that enable the program to access various components like MAPI, VIM, etc to be used with the email system.
The use some predefined protocols to establish the communication between the two computers or two servers defined at a location.

Binary Large objects (BLOBS) allow the application to be portable and that they can be multi-platform. These applications are platform dependent but not the architecture dependent. They provide copies of the application that can be used on different platforms. The files that are created get stored in a single database file and proper indexing is being done to make the search faster. B+ tree algorithm is used to make the search function and pointers are used that points to the beginning of the file to make it easier for the client to get the result. The object consists of the information about the file in the beginning of the storage location and allows it to be retrieved from that place. The database that is included supports transparency, isolation and locking of the files to make it more secure and usable.

The issues involved in communication as well as collaboration layers are as follows:
• The email system that is designed to support the client must be able to handle the text, images, video and sound and allow the clients to upload or use the same.
• The email support system should be able to check the format that is being used by the files that are getting uploaded or used. No file should have the same format.
• The email support systems are not need to be compatible between different organizations.
• The storage of the files that are in unstructured format should be addressed and indexed properly.
• Collaboration layer should allow different types of electronic document to be used by the system.
• They should have easy sharing options of these documents.
• The system should be able to store and locate the files over the network and allow the downloading to be done on the client machine.

The groupware systems are easy to implement but due to lack of hardware and software knowledge they always have implementation issues that need to be reported and sorted out before collaborating or communicating. The issues involved are as follows:
1. Collection: The collection of all the files at one place need to be done to increase the possibility of having the files properly indexed.
2. Organization: The resources need to be properly indexed and organized to make the search faster in case of any query.
3. Management and Processing: The management of the resources needs to be done to allow the processing of new entries and replacing the old entries with the new one.
4. The function need to be transparent of the physical location where the users and search tools are deployed, this helps in making the communication more secure.

Modules are assigned to every folder structure, in groupware it is maintained in the form of tree structure. The permissions have to be set respective of the users or groups and the folders associated with it. The modules that are associated with groupware are as follows:
• Portal module is a customizable module having an overview page that consists of the summaries of the folders and web-pages.
• Search module offers wide range of global search results by searching it throughout the folder items.
• Tasks module offers automatic highlights of the tasks and the services that is being offered by the groupware servers.

The steps that are taken by the users to ensure the management of the system are as follows:
1. Create a restore point and make a backup of the current data so that it can be restored at later stage.
2. Manage the session of each user to store their part of data and prepare it for necessary backups.
3. View all the system logs that are associated with logins, performance and the problems associated with the system.
4. View statistics received about the pages that are viewed, uploads happened, downloads done by users and other statistical information.
5. Manage database processes and the variables that are associated with it.
6. Manage contents and administrative tasks.

There are several data sources through which the simple groupware can be accessed. The accessing services are as: IMAP, SMTP, POP3, etc. The data that is outside the database need to be read by creating a folder and creating a mount-point for that data source. The data source can be imported by uploading the files to “<sgs-dir>/import” folder and the mount-point is set on that folder. The mount-point that is externally defined will allow easy integration of the groupware tree structure and it will copy all the data sources in that structure only. This allows the groupware database to be synchronized to get the better search results for all the users. The external folder structure can be shared by giving it all the permissions to be accessed through all the servers and systems.