Although you can configure that store-and-forward transfer relationship from Groove Manager, it's Groove Server Relay that does all the heavy lifting. This package handles Groove talking across firewalls and also takes care of offline communications. It does this much the same as an SMTP e-mail server would. The client Groovers encrypt their data locally prior to transmission, and Relay stores that content, either because one or more users are offline or because two Groovers are talking across firewalls. What's nice is that Relay is highly configurable in this regard, enabling administrators to store Groove data for only seconds or as long as several days depending on their internal policies or that particular Groove team's needs. We felt it could have used a little more configuration muscle on the firewall side. Relay does a good job of enabling communications across firewalls, but it's mostly an on-off operation. In the future, we'd like to see more in the way of controlling specific security features (type of encryption, types of content allowed to pass, and usage auditing, to name three) between two external firewall gateways.

The Bottom Line Microsoft Office Groove Server 2007 Microsoft, microsoft.com Good  7.0 criteria score weight Ease-of-use 6 20% Features 8 20% Management 8 15% Scalability 8 20% Security 6 15% Value 5 10% Cost: Subject to volume license discounts, base list price per server (Groove Manager, Groove Relay, Groove DataBridge) $4,347 each. Groove Enterprise Services averages $70 per user per year Platforms: Microsoft Windows Server 2003 (server); Microsoft Windows XP, Microsoft Windows Vista (client) Bottom Line: Office Groove Server 2007 is a platform meant to ease the IT burden of managing 100 or more Office Groove 2007 users. Covering management and security, and even file transfers and communication with back-end line-of-business apps via Web Services, this is one Office Server package that really doesn’t need SharePoint. About our Reviews and Scoring Methodology

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Last is the Groove DataBridge, which does exactly what the name implies. DataBridge acts as an access point for third-party software solutions or custom applications to let Groovers connect their workspaces to different back-end systems. Think accounting systems, CRM, databases, ERP systems, and all the other veins of data your info workers would like to mine. DataBridge is meant to talk to these applications and has its own Web services API to make it happen. That API comes at a bit of an accessibility cost, however; although most of Groove Server is accessible by general IT or end-users straight out of the box, DataBridge will need a developer.

You're thinking that the combined digital might of this trio is enough to make Office Groove Server self-sustaining. Especially with the DataBridge component, you're wondering why it needs to talk to Office SharePoint Server at all. Well, you're on the money because it doesn't. Groove is a client-led application, which is why the client package discussed above does all the blabbing with SharePoint. Groove Server is there solely to bolster the client.

Herding servers
Installing Groove Server is a mite tricky. For one, it wants multiple boxes and they all need to be running a 64-bit CPU, plus the usual allotment of Windows Server 2003 and the .Net Framework 2.0. You can probably manage a single-box Groove Server install with virtual machines in a test lab. But for production networks, Groove Server wants not only its own IIS server so that you can see Groove Manager, but a SQL Server installation as well. Large networks that wish to make use of Groove Server's store-and-forward feature to manage file transfers will

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also need to install the Groove Relay Server, and yes, this has to be a separate machine as well. Last, managing user directories will require an Active Directory server (preferably, though most LDAP 3.0-compatible directories should work, too). If you consider that most folks who reach this point will have already implemented Active Directory, and that SQL Server and IIS can, in less demanding networks, share a server, it brings the total number of new servers to three for a minimal Groove server deployment.

Once installed, you'll live your Groove Server life in Groove Manager. To start, you need to define a Groove Server administrator and then set up and initial Groove Management Domain. You can define multiple domains later on to organize users, departments, or teams, but you'll need that initial Management Domain to get rolling.