Welcome to Ipswitch Instant Messaging

What is instant messaging?

Instant messaging is a means of communication between two people on a network, much like email. However, instant messaging is different from email because it lets you get an instant response to your sent message through an online conversation in a controllable, contained, secure and confidential environment. Sending a message opens up a window in which you can type messages that both you and your contact, or contacts, can see and read.

Ipswitch IM provides its own user management system, but it can be used with Windows NT, Ipswitch IMail Server or LDAP authentication. This integration allows you or your administrators to leverage existing user databases while providing new functionality to the users.

Although Ipswitch IM allows you to send and receive messages from other Ipswitch IM Servers on behalf of the local clients, Ipswitch Instant Messaging's traffic never needs to leave your company's internal network system. This means your instant messaging business conversations are always secure. Ipswitch IM is easy to install and administer, and its easy-to-use features improve productivity and provide a robust alternative to the less secure public instant messaging networks.

Ipswitch IM Server provides

• Unlimited user accounts (depending on hardware resources)
• Integration with Ipswitch's IMail user database
• Integration with the Windows NT/2000/XP user database
• Integration with any LDAP-accessible user database

Things to Know

• If you must go through a firewall, Ipswitch Instant Messaging accepts connections on TCP Abbreviation of Transmission Control Protocol, and pronounced as separate letters. TCP is one of the main protocols in TCP/IP networks. Whereas the IP protocol deals only with packets, TCP enables two hosts to establish a connection and exchange streams of data. TCP guarantees delivery of data and also guarantees that packets will be delivered in the same order in which they were sent. Port In TCP/IP and UDP networks, a port is an endpoint to a logical connection and the way a client program specifies a specific server program on a computer in a network. Some ports have numbers that are preassigned to them by the IANA, and these are known as well-known ports (specified in RFC 1700). Port numbers range from 0 to 65536, but only ports numbers 0 to 1024 are reserved for privileged services and designated as well-known ports. This list of well-known port numbers specifies the port used by the server process as its contact port.: 5177.
• You must have a static IP address All hosts on the Internet are identified by a unique numeric code, called the IP address. 156.21.50.1 is an IP address. The Domain Name System is used to map the IP address to a name..
• If you use a NAT network, the installation process requires a few additional steps.
• All messages are encrypted at the client A client is a program running on a networked computer that requests services from a server program, which is usually running on another networked computer. The client communicates with the server using a protocol. For example, an FTP client communicates with an FTP server using the FTP protocol. level and logged on the Ipswitch Messaging Server.