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Comparison of CITES Calendar Services

CITES > calendaring > comparison

• CITES calendar software options
• Software comparison
• Software compatibility
• CITES calendar support
• Questions to consider
• Vendor information
• CITES service information

CITES calendar software options

Calendar software allows users to maintain an online schedule; propose, accept, or decline meetings with other users on a network; view other users' schedules; and reserve resources such as conference rooms.

CITES supports and offers subscription services for two calendar products:

1. Oracle Calendar
2. Microsoft Exchange Server

Both products are used extensively by large corporations and universities, but they differ widely in their functionality and strengths. In order to meet diverse campus needs, CITES supports and offers subscription services for both products.

Some of the world's largest corporations and over 100 universities in the United States use Oracle Calendar. Its strengths include clients for nearly every desktop platform, good server management, and high scalability.

Microsoft Exchange Server is now the industry's leading messaging and collaboration server. With more than 100 million licenses sold worldwide, Exchange Server has become the messaging standard for the majority of Fortune 500 companies. CITES has offered Exchange services for the past five years to a limited subset of the campus community and currently manages over 1,500 accounts.

A key difference between the two services is in how messages are stored and relayed between users. Oracle's calendar server stores all users' calendars together in a single database. Each time you look at a user's schedule, you are seeing up-to-the-minute information about their free/busy times, including unconfirmed meetings.

Calendaring with Microsoft Exchange Server, by contrast, is message-based: all meetings are created, stored, forwarded, and retrieved as email messages. This delay in sharing information sometimes leads to scheduling conflicts. For instance, between the time you create the meeting and the time your coworker accepts it, other users will not know that the meeting exists by viewing your coworker's calendar. The meeting will not exist in your coworker's calendar until he or she accepts it.

 

Software comparison

	Oracle Calendar	Microsoft Exchange
Description	stand-alone calendaring product	groupware calendaring product that includes a complete messaging system integrated with email and Microsoft's network infrastructure
Desktop clients	Windows Macintosh Unix (Linux, Solaris, Irix, HPUX, and AIX) Oracle Calendar Outlook Connector (allows the use of Outlook as a front end to Oracle Calendar)	Windows Macintosh
Web-based client	available	available
PDA synchronization	Palm- and Palm OS-compatible Windows/CE devices (e.g., Compaq iPAQ, HP Jornada) mobile devices (e.g., RIM Blackberry) are available, but are not supported by CITES	Palm- and Palm OS-compatible Windows/CE devices (e.g., Compaq iPAQ, HP Jornada) RIM two-way paging devices are available and supported by CITES
Price	$2/month/account	Varies by quota size (e.g., $3/month for 100MB quota; $5/month for 500MB quota, etc.)

Software compatibility

Currently no industry standards exist among calendar products. Oracle Calendar and Microsoft Exchange cannot share user schedules. This means that Oracle Calendar users can check the availability of other Oracle Calendar users, but they cannot check the availability of Microsoft Exchange users, and vice versa.

Oracle Calendar users can invite Exchange users (and vice versa) to meetings through email using a standard protocol (iCalendar or vCalendar) understood by both servers; however, users will need to wait for an email response before knowing invitees' availabilities.

Given this lack of standardization, CITES recommends that groups work with only one calendar product so that all the features and functions of the calendar product will be available.

 

CITES calendar support

The CITES Help Desk provides support for both Oracle Calendar and Microsoft Exchange. Additionally, classes can be requested from the FAST3 Training Center for training in Oracle Calendar and Outlook (Microsoft's email/calendar client for Exchange Server).

 

Questions to consider

The calendar service you choose should reflect the work environment and communication needs of your individual unit, or perhaps a group of units. A unit decision maker needs to evaluate which solution best fits the unit's needs, mission, and information technology environment. In addition to the product features listed above in the Software comparison, the following issues should be considered:

1. Do your users need a groupware calendar service (i.e., integrated calendar, email, tasks, journal) or a stand-alone calendar service?
2. What, if any, calendar or groupware services are being used in your department? What product compatibility requirements does your department have?
3. What, if any, calendar or groupware services are being used by units with whom your unit frequently interacts? What product compatibility requirements exist between these units?

 

Vendor information

Oracle

Microsoft Exchange

 

CITES service information

Oracle Calendar

Microsoft Exchange