Deploying instant messaging with external communities

Clients in an IBM® Sametime® community can communicate with users in other communities through the Sametime Gateway Server. The Sametime Gateway Server supports instant messaging between your internal Sametime communities, external Sametime communities that are hosted outside of your intranet, and third-party instant messaging communities hosted on AOL, GoogleTalk, Microsoft Office Communications Server, and Microsoft Lync Server.

Before you begin

Use Sametime Gateway to connect to external communities that are either hosted on Sametime Community Servers deployed outside of your organization, or are hosted on third-party instant messaging systems. If some of your Sametime users are connecting from outside of the firewall but belong to a community hosted inside the firewall, you do not need to deploy Sametime Gateway. For information on supporting users who belong to internal communities but access them from outside of the firewall, see Deploying Sametime servers in the extranet.

About this task

The Sametime Gateway Server uses a DB2® database for storing information about connection settings for communicating with external communities. You will create the database as part of the installation process.

Complete the tasks in the following topics to install a Sametime Gateway Server:

  1. Reviewing the checklist to deploy Sametime Gateway
    Deploying Sametime Connect to exchange messages with AOL, Google, MSN, and other Sametime communities.
  2. Installing Sametime Gateway
    Choose the platform on which you want to install Sametime Gateway.
  3. Completing required installation tasks for Sametime Gateway
    To complete the installation of your Sametime Gateway server, configure your server for optimal performance. Completion of these tasks provides you with information that will help you manage and maintain your server. These tasks are required -- not optional tasks. For Sametime Gateway clusters, some procedures must be repeated on each server in a cluster.
  4. Connecting servers to Sametime Gateway
    To complete IBM Sametime Gateway Server setup, you connect servers to the Sametime Gateway Server by performing some configuration steps on the local Sametime server, adding the local community to the Sametime Gateway Server, registering your Sametime Gateway server with AOL so that Sametime Gateway Server can connect to the AOL clearinghouse, and then, after you complete your registration, adding the AOL clearinghouse community to the Sametime Gateway Server. Finally, you want to note the port numbers so you can provide these ports to external communities.
  5. Configuring a Sametime Gateway
    Configure one or more IBM Sametime Gateway Servers.
  6. Setting up load balancing for a cluster of Sametime Gateway Servers
    Install a load balancer in front of a cluster of IBM Sametime servers to distribute connections among the servers. The cluster should have at least two IBM WebSphere® SIP proxy servers deployed in front of it, so that the load balancer can direct connections to those proxy servers for forwarding to the individual Sametime servers in the cluster.
  7. Configuring WebSphere proxy server for load balancing in a Sametime Gateway cluster
    To best support high availability and provide failover services, a cluster of IBM Sametime Gateway Servers should be fronted with at least two IBM WebSphere proxy servers and IBM Load Balancer.
  8. Configuring TLS/SSL for Sametime Gateway
    Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Secure Sockets Later (SSL) provide encrypted SIP communications between Sametime Gateway Server and the external instant messaging communities such as AOL, Office Communications Server, and Sametime communities, but only if the other Sametime community requires SSL. TLS/SSL also provides encrypted XMPP communications for XMPP communities. The TLS/SSL protocols allow Sametime messages to communicate across a network in a way designed to prevent eavesdropping, tampering, and message forgery. Use these steps to set up SSL with a certificate signed by a Certificate Authority and exchange trusted certificates with external communities.
Parent topic: Deploying