Lotus Instant Messaging/Web Conferencing (Sametime): Building Sametime Enabled Applications

130 Lotus Instant Messaging/Web Conferencing (Sametime): Building Sametime-Enabled Applications

remaining major accounting firms and auditors are recommending that all

electronic communications be auditable.

While less ominous than a barrage of government regulations, the move towards

corporate responsibility has a tendency to trickle down the organization and has

caused many IT organizations to implement new archiving rules, including

maintaining IM transcripts. In the public sector, open meeting and so-called

“sunshine” laws that require open records of local and state governments (in the

United States) are also being extended to IM and e-mail messages, in effect

making them public record. Of course, in order to be a public record, there must

be a record kept (a transcript, in the case of IM).

5.1.4 Appropriate use review

Last but not least, we use a quite sanitary term for Big Brother. It is true that in

many organizations, IM traffic and e-mail are being monitored for the purpose of

identifying inappropriate use of company resources. Without passing judgment

on the practices, it is fair to say that companies have varying levels of rights (and

responsibilities) to ensure that the use of instant messaging is legal, appropriate,

and business oriented. Privacy laws in some regions of the world provide more

protection for individuals, however, the pressures of regulations and competition

also cause companies to have a need to protect their own interests, especially in

matters that (were records not kept) would cause them and their shareholders

financial harm.

Now that we have outlined some of the reasons for IM chat recording with

Sametime, let us discuss how it is implemented.

5.2 Developer considerations

Sametime chat logging can be enabled on two types of Sametime text

messages:

򐂰 One-to-one instant messages

򐂰 N-way chats and meetings (IM component)

The Sametime server implements two methods for processing chats. Basic,

one-to-one IMs are connected by the servers, and at that point the servers act

simply as routers for encrypted (by default) messages. N-way chats implement a

mechanism called a

Place, (which is described in detail in 8.1.1, “What are

Places and why use them?” on page 184) to exchange messages among

multiple participants. Either type of message traffic can be intercepted by a chat

recorder built using the Chat Recorder SPI. Although the Sametime Connect

client allows users to chat with AOL Instant Messenger users (AIM), you cannot

Chapter 5. Chat Logging/DDA Toolkit 131

build a chat logger to capture these with the Chat Logging SPI. This is due to the

fact that the service is server-based, and AIM chats are client-based.

5.2.1 Modes

There are two modes of chat logging available: strict and relaxed. Strict logging

requires that a message be successfully logged in order to continue the chat

session. If an error is encountered, the chat session is terminated. Relaxed

logging logs all the messages it encounters, with or without errors, always

allowing chat to continue even if logging fails. All servers in a multiple server

environment must be set to run in the same mode.

5.2.2 Distributed environments

As multiple Sametime servers can coexist and work together in an organization,

chat logging follows specific rules on which server is chosen to intercept the chat

and record it. For an N-way chat or meeting, the chat is logged on the server

handling the Place. This could be one of many servers. For a simple instant

message session, the chats are logged on the home server of the user accepting

the invitation to chat (recipient).

In a distributed environment, all Sametime servers should be configured to either

have chat logging enabled or not. If this is not the case, some chats will be

logged and some will not, and the appearance of transcripts will be arbitrary.

5.2.3 Synchronous and asynchronous implementations

A chat logging DLL can be implemented asynchronously (message is sent

regardless of its logged state) or synchronously (message is not sent until it is

logged successfully). Sametime provides the Chat Logging SPI sample for

synchronous implementation. You can develop your own chat logging DLL with

asynchronous implementation.

More developer considerations can be found in the Sametime 3.0 Directory and

Database Access Toolkit Developer’s Guide (see 2.2.1, “Sametime Software

Note: The Chat Recorder SPI only allows the server to capture chat traffic,

and not entire meetings. There is a separate facility for recording meetings in

the Sametime meeting setup options.

Note: Chats logged in synchronous mode slow performance of the Sametime

instant messages, because chats must be successfully logged before being

forwarded to the recipient.