kwe@bu-cs.BU.EDU (kwe@bu-it.bu.edu (Kent W. England)) (07/25/89)
A while back I asked about mail gateways for 3com, VMS, and
TCP/IP. Here is a summary of what I heard. First, the request:
-----------Posting---------------
From: kwe@bu-cs.BU.EDU (kwe@bu-it.bu.edu (Kent W. England))
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.lans
Subject: 3Mail, VAXmail, and SMTP
Could someone enlighten me on products that gateway 3Mail,
VAXmail, and SMTP? It would seem to me that he should have a local
gateway that understands 3Mail and VAXmail. One or both should
understand SMTP. He is willing to put the gateway software either on
a microvax or a PC/3server...
-----------Summary----------------
I received a lot of help on this one. Thanks to all. I have
a list of excerpted responses with credits following this executive
summary. I will never bad mouth PC-LAN discussions on comp.dcom.lans
again. :-) Nice to know that the expertise for building these "toy"
networks is getting as sophisticated as real networking. (Sorry,
after all, I must get my digs in. :-)
I got the standard advice for the VMS-TCP/IP connection.
There is CMU-TEK TCP/IP from Carnegie-Mellon, WIN/TCP from Wollengong,
and Multinet from SRI. Of course, this covers telnet, ftp and other
associated TCP/IP services, in addition to SMTP.
I only got one real product for 3Com to SMTP; There is a
product from Management Systems Designers, Inc. called Promulgate. It
is a bidirectional SMTP <--> 3Com Mail gateway. You can contact them
at (703) 281-4295, or fax (703) 281-7636. Greg Bolino is a systems
engineer who tell you all about it - or contact Mike Matyas at MSD
703-281-7440.
There are other products in development or options that I have
below. I am not happy with the supposed price tag of Promulgate-
sounds like the quintessential government development contract. It
costs around $30k, including the 386i Sun required to run it!
I have not had the time to research all these products, but I
did not want to delay the required summary posting too long. If I
come up with anything brilliant, I will let you know.
-----------Summary responses--------------
-----------VMS end of things--------------
------From tengi@Princeton.EDU (Christopher Tengi)
I don't know about 3mail, but I believe that the CMU-TEK TCP/IP
package has the right stuff to let VMS users send and get mail via
SMTP. I also think that TWG does the same thing with their WIN/TCP
product. Basically, the VMS user sends mail to an address like
IN%user@host, where IN% tells the VMS mail user agent to use a
different transport path (something like IN_MAILSHR.EXE). I hope this
helps.
-----From Mark A. Verber <verber@pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu>
My suggestion would be to get all three talk smtp mail. For Vax/VMS
get some tcp/ip package (WTG, MultiNet from SRI, or the free but buggy
Tek/CMU) and a real mailer (pmdf) not this VAXmail stuff. For the
3com the is nothing really decent. There is a guy on our campus who
has hacked up a useable, but crufty 3com <--> smtp mail gateway. The
gateway sits on the 3com server and spends most of it's time waiting
for incoming connections. Every so often it stops listening for
connections and delivers the mail it has recieved to the 3com mail
server. It then picks up the mail waiting for delivery off the 3com
net, sends it, and goes back to listening for incoming mail. He is
willing to distributed (I think for free). I believe the code written
in Pascal.
-----------3com end of things--------------
-----From Candace_Engelsen@SPD.3Mail.3Com.COM
Hello, Kent. I am the product manager for Mail at 3Com. You can also
reach me by telephone at 408-970-1881.
We have gateways available from 3Com Mail to most other systems, with
new ones available later this summer. Below are some options:
Currently available:
Promulgate - SMTP gateway to 3Com Mail - contact Mike Matyas at MSD 703-
281-7440
Future options:
X.400 gateway - 3Com's will ship late summer; Dec is already shipping;
contact me at 3Com and your Dec sales rep.
DEC MR/3Com gateway - DEC is finishing this later summer; contact Dave
Lennig, 513- 984-7500 for preliminary product info; will be sold by
DEC sales reps when released.
--------From wet!epsilon@ames.arc.nasa.gov
This is a reply from a similar third party posting to ca.unix.
Let me know if you come up with anything else.
-=EPS=-
<EPSCOTT@CALSTATE.BITNET>
>From uucp Thu Jun 1 18:20 EDT 1989
From: hoptoad!SPD.3Mail.3Com.COM!Candace_Engelsen
Subject: Unix Mail Gateway
To: wet!epsilon
There is a product from Management Systems Designers, Inc. called
Promulgate. It is a bidirectional SMTP <--> 3Com Mail gateway. You can
contact them at (703) 281-4295, or fax (703) 281-7636. Greg Bolino is a
systems engineer who tell you all about it.
>From cs.utexas.edu!nluug.nl!uvabick!matthew@harvard.UUCP (Matthew Lewis)
Well, I asked part of the same question a while ago, about a gateway
between 3+Mail and SMTP. The answer is as follows:
1. A company called Management Systems Designers, Inc. has a good but
expensive solution - a Sun 386i with two Ethernet interfaces and
custom software. Info. below.
2. StarNine Software is supposed to be working on such a gateway to run on a PC server running 3com with a similar setup.
3. I found a company in England which wrote software to gateway the
two. It uses a serial link to the Unix system using UUPC, more
or less.
------From Jim Forster <forster@cisco.com>
I have heard that a product called "cc Mail", from a company of the
same name in Palo Alto, seems to be useful create PC-stuff to SMTP
gateways. I don't have any experience with it, but the folks at
Proteon seem to be big on it.
------From eli@ursa-major.SPDCC.COM (Steve Elias)
hi Kent. i don't have the info immediately at hand, but there is
a company in the DC area which sells such a gateway (3Mail to smtp).
they want $30k for it. including a sun 386i. too much money.
they are willing to sell just the software to some folks -- but
they want around $17k. i told them no way...
also, 3com now sells library routines which allow access to 3Mail.
hence i believe it is possible to write software for a PC running
3com's stuff and PC-nfs... and thus provide the gateway...
-------From portal!cup.portal.com!dbuerger@harvard.harvard.edu
Kent, I have software that Al Marshall at Proteon wrote, which
links CC:Mail (a PC-based commercial email package) with SMTP
mailers. In fact, that's how Proteon links its PCs to the Internet.
--------From Gregory_Bolino.vienna.msd@a.darpa.mil
Management Systems Designers, Inc. has developed and is currently
marketing a 3+Mail to SMTP mail gateway product called PROMULGATE. The
product has been commercially available for over six months and is
currently in use at several government clients (DARPA, NASA-Goddard,
Naval Air Development Center, etc). This message was brought to you
through a working PROMULGATE gateway.
Contact: A. Renee Cusack
Management Systems Designers
131 Park St., N.E.
Vienna, Virginia 22180
(703)-281-7440
----------From George Marshall <mar@bridge2.ESD.3Com.COM>
3Com has a list of products known or believed to work with 3com products,
including mail gateways. There are several mail gateway packages on the
recomended list, including one from Promulgate (or maybe that's the name
of the software product...)
Call 800-net-3com for general product info (the above info should be in
the "Compatible Products Directory" and a pointer to a local rep, if you
need one.
-------From sob@bcm.tmc.edu (Stan Barber)
If you can get them to get rid of 3mail and use cc:mail, you can make
it all work for around $1000 (software included). Otherwise, it is a
real pain. CC:mail works with 3+ and Novell and the two can talk to
each other.