January 03, 2006
Setting A Course Toward Instant Messaging Federation
Middle Ground
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Another emerging model is the clearinghouse. Based on open standards such as / or XMPP, a clearinghouse acts as a trusted middleman that manages domain discovery on behalf of its customers, and abstracts them from the complexities of routing and protocol implementations.
Clearinghouses differ from open, DNS-based federation in that participation and domain discovery are fully controlled. They are engineered to limit enterprises’ exposure and protect them from rogue intrusions. They also allow the enforcement of "good citizen" behavior, whereby violators of good conduct can be disconnected, and the integrity of the network preserved with little or no disruption. Clearinghouse offerings are likely to be offered as a value-added service by large network providers.
A Controlled Approach
While federation is a critical step in the development of IM to achieve its broader adoption as a business-critical infrastructure, it is highly unlikely that it will follow in the steps of e-mail. As such, enterprises will favor a controlled approach to connectivity over open discovery.
Corporations will proceed carefully in opening up and connecting their IM networks to third-party entities, and will do so only as it pertains to an identified business need. The concern for security will prevail over universal access – and as a result, the quality of traffic over IM networks will be much higher than that of e-mail, ultimately reducing the total cost of ownership of presence.
Maxime Seguineau is CEO and Chairman of , a vendor of secure, interoperable enterprise instant messaging, collaboration and presence systems.
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