Coexistence Manager for Notes 3.10 - Quick Start Guide

CMN Free/Busy Connector

Ellen knows that calendar features are popular among all American Widgets users, but obviously the features will be useful only if they have access to accurate, timely free/busy information for all users. CMN’s Free/Busy (F/B) Connector is a coordinated set of applications that enable Exchange and Domino to query the calendar availability of each other's users. Sharing free/busy data between Notes and Exchange simplifies calendar updates when accepting a meeting invitation, or changing the day/time or canceling a meeting, or making some other change to an existing meeting or recurring meeting series.

When a user in one environment requests free/busy information about a user in the other environment, the asking server’s query must be translated into a form that the other server will understand. Likewise, the data reply has to be translated into a form that the asking server will understand. This is true of free/busy queries and replies in both directions, and a separate translation application is required for each direction.

In addition to the query, translation and reply functions, both the Exchange and Domino servers require a service to facilitate data communications between themselves and external data sources (e.g., each other). EExchange On-Premise uses Exchange Web Service (EWS) and Exchange Online uses Graph API for communications with other applications, while Domino requires a server task. And finally, Exchange also uses an Autodiscover service to track and report the location (URL) of the Exchange.

In a typical configuration, CMN’s bidirectional Free/Busy Connector contains five components to facilitate the flow of F/B queries and replies between the two environments, as shown here. For technical reasons, the Domino server task (called QCalCon) must be installed on the Domino server. It is possible to install the other four CMN F/B Connector components on a single server, but American Widgets sees sufficient query volume to warrant separate servers, for optimal performance. Ellen therefore opts to deploy the components on two servers.