Messaging – Page 2

31st March 2015

R16.3: Multi-Master Directory, XMPP Archive/Search & ACP127 support

We’re pleased to announce the availability of Isode’s latest release, R16.3, which can be downloaded now from our website. R16.3 is a major Isode release which adds new capabilities across the entire Isode product range, including:

M-Vault

We’ve introduced a multi-master capability to M-Vault, complementing the single-master approach to replication defined in the X.500 protocols around which M-Vault was developed. M-Vault is the first directory to offer both multi-master and X.500.

M-Link

M-Link gains a new Archive Server for archive of all messages (including 1:1 chat, MUC and PubSub). XMPP clients can access archives using Message Archive Management (MAM) as defined in XEP-0313. M-Link also gains three new web applications:

Message Archive Management, allowing browser-based access to information in the archive.
Statistics, a lightweight monitoring alternative to the M-Link Console GUI.
Forms Discovery and Publishing, for end-user publishing and display of FDP forms.

M-Switch

We’ve added gateway support for text based organisational message protocols, which we’re collectively describing as ACP127. The first release of this capability supports ACP127 and DOI 103S, a popular US variant, and enables conversion with STANAG 4406 (compliant to STANAG 4406 Annex D) and SMTP (following the MMHS over SMTP extensions).

In addition we’ve made extensive improvements to MConsole and M-Link Console to support the new M-Switch and M-Link family capabilities. For a full run-down of new capabilities in R16.3, please see the Product Release page. We’ll be publishing further blog posts over the coming weeks focusing on some of the new R16.3 capabilities.

6th October 2014

Isode at the HFIA #2: MoRaSky

The High Frequency Industry Association (HFIA) provides an â€œindustry driven forum for the interactive exchange of technical and information in the area of High Frequency Communications.â€ Phyiscal meetings of the group usually take place twice a year and in September 2014 Portsmouth was the location for the latest of these meetings. This is the second of two blog posts covering our attendance at this meeting, the first can be found here.

As an application developer, Isode is interested in how the whole modem/radio/sky system affects the data stream and, by extension, the performance of our applications.

In our final HFIA presentation, Isode’s Jim Peters gave an analysis of variations in the signal to noise ratio (SNR) based on over the air trials performed by our partner, Rockwell Rollins, between Cedar Rapids and Las Cruces. Jim is leading Isode’s “MoRaSky” project to develop a test tool that allows us to model the modem/radio/sky combination. This tool will help us test applications in the lab, prior to live OTA trials.

A PDF of the full text of Jim’s talk Analysis of Intermediate Term variation from OTA Measurements can be found by following the link. MoRaSky is available to all of our partners and integrators. If you’re interested in using MoRaSky, please contact us.

6th October 2014

Isode at the HFIA #1: Proposed Extensions to STANAG 5066

The High Frequency Industry Association (HFIA) provides an â€œindustry driven forum for the interactive exchange of technical and information in the area of High Frequency Communications.â€ Physical meetings of the group usually take place twice a year and in September 2014 Portsmouth was the location for the latest of these meetings. This is the first of two blog posts covering our attendance at this meeting.

As Isode has an interest in applications for constrained bandwidth communications, we often attend and occasionally present at these meetings. This year we had two presentations to share with the attendees.

Isode CEO, Steve Kille, gave a talk focusing on Isode’s proposed extensions to STANAG 5066 to improve performance of applications running over wideband HF links. The first was an update to a talk Isode gave at the February HFIA meeting, this time including hard measurements showing that Isode’s extensions (known as LFSN, Long Frame Sequence Number) result in significant performance gains.

This was followed by a live demonstration of the extensions in action, enabling co-existence of bulk and time critical applications over narrow-band and wide-band HF. The applications used were Multi-User Chat and Real-Time Military Forms (both using the XMPP protocol) and military email messaging.

28th August 2014

New Event: Isode at the High Frequency Industry Association

Isode will be presenting at the High Frequency Industry Association (HFIA) meeting at the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, Portsmouth, Hampshire, UK on 11th September 2014. We’ll be presenting two separate sessions:

An update to and measurement of the proposed STANAG 5066 extensions to improve ARQ performance, and
A demonstration of bulk and time critical applications co-existing over HF and WBHF and using those extensions.

We’ll be using a number of Isode applications for messaging including email, chat and forms data submission on a range of mobile devices during the demo.

30th July 2014

Creating & Managing a Security Label Policy (new whitepaper)

Security Labels are a key component of systems providing security, particularly for military and government use where they are used to provide protective marking on information and as the basis for access control. Security Label Policy (generally simply termed “security policy” in most security label standards) controls the detailed structure of security labels and how they are used to provide access control.

A new whitepaper on the Isode website explains our open standards approach to supporting security policies in extremely complex environments. It also shows how our tools can be used to support simple environments using open standards, avoiding the need for a proprietary approach.

The whitepaper introduces some of the key concepts in this area and then describes the capabilities of Isode’s Security Policy Information File (SPIF) Editor in a way that enables a quick evaluation of the product.

Whitepaper Update

We’ve also made significant updates to an earlier whitepaper Using OSCP, LDAP & HTTP for Certificate Checking in a Large Scale Distributed Environment and over Constrained Networks adding a new section, Management Tools, that illustrates our product capabilities in this area.