The rapid growth of "connectedness", the Internet, corporate intranets and extranets call for new messaging requirements for supporting a broad range of user and message types.  Oracle9i Application Server Unified Messaging gives large enterprises, service providers, and online commercial applications an open, secure, massively scalable, distributed architecture that can accommodate explosive growth in both the number and type of messages while providing highly reliable messaging services. 

Description
Oracle9iAS Unified Messaging uses the Oracle9i database as a single message store for email, voice mail, and fax messages, taking advantage of Oracle's core competencies in providing access to, storing and managing all types of information. Using the highly scalable and reliable Oracle9i message store as a foundation, Oracle9iAS Unified Messaging provides message delivery, standards based client access,  telephone applications, wireless notification, browser-based clients (both web and wireless), and administration utilities.

Highly Flexible, Scalable Architecture 
Oracle9iAS Unified Messaging is designed to grow to almost any size while maintaining its performance and ease of administration. You can customize your Oracle9iAS Unified Messaging system based on the number of messages you need to store, how many users will access the system under peak loads, and how many messages will be sent and received over a time period. Oracle9iAS Unified Messaging's unique N-tier Internet computing architecture allows you to support thousands of users on a single piece of hardware, if necessary.  You have the option of creating a two-tier system with a single host supporting a few thousand users, or a three-tier system where the protocol access servers are separated from the message database supporting several thousand users. This architecture allows you to add hardware at any tier, virtually expanding to support an unlimited number of users. 

Flexible Oracle9iAS Unified Messaging architecture 
 

Oracle9i-based Unified Message Store
Oracle9iAS Unified Messaging 9.0.2 provides true unified messaging by storing all messages -- including email, voice mail, and fax -- in the same Oracle 9i database. This eliminates the need to synchronize message stores and the chore of administering multiple stores that each contain different message types. Oracle9iAS Unified Messaging users can access and manage all messages from the interface of their choice, including a web browser, phone, PDA, and fax. The Oracle9i database, the world's leading information management platform, enables Oracle9iAS Unified Messaging to offer unmatched data availability, data integrity, low recovery time, and fault-tolerance capability. Oracle9iAS Unified Messaging takes advantage of Oracle 9i's Real Application Clusters, multithreading, parallel processing, high availability support, and high performance so thousands of users can run with rapid response times. 

Open Standards-Based Messaging 
Oracle9iAS Unified Messaging lets users access their messages with the messaging client of their choice. Messages can be accessed using any Internet Message Access Protocol version 4 (IMAP4)- or Post Office Protocol version 3 (POP3)-compliant client such as Netscape Messenger, Microsoft Outlook Express, or Eudora Pro Lite.  Oracle9iAS Unified Messaging provides directory services using the light-weight directory access protocol (LDAP) standard compliant Oracle Internet Directory. 

Telephone Applications 
Oracle 9iAS Unified Messaging Telephone applications are built on the Enterprise Computer Telephony Forum (ECTF) standards. These standards, collectively known as "CT Server", define the infrastructure needed to build and support platform-independent computer telephony (CT) applications and allow Oracle9iAS Unified Messaging telephone applications to easily integrate with a variety of enterprise and carrier class switches. 

Oracle9iAS Unified Messaging provides a basic DTMF voice mail interface with the ability to change user preferences through the telephone interface. As Oracle9iAS Unified Messaging is a single store solution, actions taken on a message or account preferences through the voice channel are visible through all channels. Voice mail and faxes are stored directly in the users' inbox as industry standard MIME-compliant messages with .wav (voice) or .tif (fax) attachments, allowing easy rendering of messages through GUI clients. 

Unified Messaging Thin Client
The Oracle9iAS Unified Messaging thin client provides Internet access to Oracle9iAS Unified Messaging through a standard web browser. Browser-based clients provide all of the advantages of internet computing: increased reliability because no dedicated client is needed; decreased support and administration costs due to the system being maintained in a professional data center; and increased message access as there are no local message storage requirements. Users can access and manage all aspects of their Oracle9iAS Unified Messaging account (including calendar and to-do's) through the browser-based interface, with appropriate functionality also available via the wireless web using WML and the Oracle9iAS Wireless Edition infrastructure. 

Web based Calendar
Oracle Web Calendar (a component of Oracle9iAS Unified Messaging) provides web based calendaring and scheduling for enterprises and service providers. Oracle Web Calendar leverages components of Oracle9iAS and the Oracle 9i database to provide a scalable, reliable calendar solution. This approach provides users with full calendar functionality from any web browser and a single source of information for PDA synchronization. Organizations and individuals gain additional peace of mind knowing that their schedule and other personal information is stored in a secure, reliable Oracle 9i database. 

Extended Server Side Rules
Oracle9iAS Unified Messaging 9.0.2 extends the server side rules previously available in Oracle9iAS Email 5.2.  Rules now execute additional actions and can be applied to a wider range of mail events, including sending, relaying, deleting, and expunging a message from the system. These rules include a PL/SQL API that enables customers to write their own customized actions for rules. The server side rules also provide integration with Oracle 9i's Advanced Queue to mail-enable even more scalable, sophisticated e-business applications. A virus cleanup tool based on these rules is included with the product. This tool uses server side rules to delete or move suspicious incoming messages or messages that have already entered the email system to another queue or folder for inspection. 

Integration With Other Applications 
PL/SQL and Java programmers can create custom application interfaces to integrate Oracle9iAS Unified Messaging with other applications.  Oracle9iAS Unified Messaging Application Programming Interfaces enable applications to directly manipulate stored messages as well as create MIME-standard outgoing messages.  Combined with server side rules, applications integrated with Oracle9iAS Unified Messaging have a powerful means to efficiently process and manage an increasing number of messages. 

Enhanced Administration Features 
Oracle9iAS Unified Messaging simplifies administration and management by integrating with Oracle’s Enterprise Manager, allowing consolidated, web-based management of the total Oracle environment as well as integration into existing system monitoring infrastructures. For the hosting market, Oracle9iAS Unified Messaging 9.0.2 supports multiple domains with delegated administration on the same system. Oracle9iAS Unified Messaging also supports Simple Network Management Protocol MIB’s for system monitoring and alerts.

Oracle9iAS Unified Messaging: The Messaging Solution 
Oracle9iAS Unified Messaging is a highly scalable, open standards-based solution for providing messaging services (voice, email and fax) to meet the current and future needs of growing companies, large enterprises, and service providers. Oracle9iAS Unified Messaging uses the power and scalability of the Oracle 9i database to store and process messages of all types. Furthermore, customers can mail-enable their mission critical applications by integrating them with Oracle's customizable, flexible messaging system using Oracle9iAS Unified Messaging's PL/SQL application programming interfaces.