What you need to know about Microsoft's Groove Server

Computerworld - Groove collaboration software is a new part of the Microsoft Office suite, and its raising a lot of eyebrows, both on a higher level given Ray Ozzie's employment at Microsoft -- Ozzie was the creator of Groove -- and at a lower level, with businesses asking, "just what is this application?"

IT departments are taking that questioning a little further by wondering how Groove Server fits into the picture. Groove on the server end is built with Microsoft enterprise infrastructure in mind. It's a fairly lightweight installation, and the environment itself integrates tightly with Active Directory. The hooks between Office, SharePoint and Groove are probably the reason corporate IT shops might consider Groove as a collaboration solution.

Office Groove Server is a "container" product, meaning it's an umbrella for three subcomponents of Groove on the server: the Office Groove Server Manager, the Office Groove Server Relay and the Office Groove Server Data Bridge. In this article, I'll take a look at these three components, shed some light on their function and then touch on some deployment and licensing notes that you should be aware of.

Office Groove Server Manager

Simple management is key to any large-scale deployment, and the Office Groove Server Manager (OGSM) is built to give administrators sufficient control over the clients and servers that make up the Groove infrastructure in their businesses. While Groove is designed as a more free-form, ad-hoc and less "centralized" tool for team collaboration -- as opposed to SharePoint, for example, which is server-based and centrally controlled -- OGSM introduces a way for administrators to retain at least some control and some policy mechanism to manage an enterprise adoption of Groove.

OGSM is Web-based and presumably can be accessed from anywhere -- subject, of course, to access rules on your local network. OGSM integrates with Active Directory (AD) and allows you to federate Groove account creation with the AD database, so users have single usernames and passwords to access Groove services. Groove domains, similar to NT-style domains, allow you to define policies and restrictions to Groove clients and servers residing within that realm. Monitoring features allow you to audit access and activities within the Groove system. OGSM brings an administrator-style view and feature set to a tool that traditionally has been user-defined and user-managed.

Office Groove Server Relay

A big part of corporate collaboration these days involves working with contractors, vendors and other business partners. These third parties could benefit from a common collaborative space when they have to work together on the same task or project. Of course, effective IT and effective business and team management don't always follow the same means to an end; thus, the Office Groove Server Relay (OGSR) exists.