Re: Instant chats and central servers

[poptix <poptix () poptix net>]

   Honestly if your company/NOC/whatever is going
to use something like this to communicate, I would
recommend running your own server, I've worked on
financial institutions networks that actually used
AIM for communications (ie, JoeBob: Can you change
the PIN # on account XYZ to 1234 MarySue: Sure),
and used a hotmail address for their ACH! (Automatic
Checking withdrawl/deposit) it's insanely irresponsible
to use a third party messaging service for anything
that your customers information could pass through.

   FYI, there are ICQ servers you can run locally, but
not for AIM or MSN, I would suggest an IRC server.

                        Matthew S. Hallacy

(if you're still in doubt, feel free to go read AOL
and MSN's ToS for their messaging services)


On 8 May 2001, Sean Donelan wrote:

> A question (and a test to see if I'm still subscribed)
>
> The various instant messenging services, such as AIM, ICQ, Microsoft,
> Yahoo, other Messenger uses a central server to manage "presence".
>
> No central server appears to mean no instant messages, am I correct?
>
> What does this have to do with NANOG, apparently it is becoming more
> common for backbone NOC folks to communicate with their friends in
> other NOCs via one of these instant chat programs.  I didn't realize
> how common it was until I was informed about it last month when AOL/AIM
> had difficulties.  This month Yahoo Messenger had power difficulties,
> which disrupted their central servers.
>
> If folks are using this these services for real-time communications,
> should we be trying to improve their reliability?  Or is this just a
> "feature" of how presence services work.