X.400 Naming Issues

["/R=ALFIE/R=AM/U=LASICH1/L=ATC D-ID/TN=337(221)-5702/FFN=Mark D. Lasich/"@mrgate.al.alcoa.com]

Sorry to revert to X.400 when the whole discussions of late are focusing 
on X.500. However:

We are in the process of determining an X.400 naming recommendation 
for our entire corporation. Of course the obvious fields are no problem 
(Country, ADMD, PRMD and even Organization). The real problems 
come in the Organizational Units. I know the fewer the better, but the 
problem we have to how to handle having multiple mail servers at one 
site (especially when trying to setup an X.400 backbone capable of 
supporting multi-vendor X.400 Email systems)?

For example, if I wanted to install small scale, low cost servers at my site, 
I might need 3-4 mail servers to handle the 1400 people I have here. To 
avoid the need to storing the addresses of each person on every server, 
I would like to route to the specific server based on one of the 
ORG_UNITS. 

ORG_UNIT1 seems likely to have as a location specifier, ATC for my 
site, so that would be the same for each server. Current thinking has us 
leaning to "naming" our servers in ORG_UNIT2 as PAA, PAB and PAC 
(after our state, PA). On this field we would route to the appropriate 
server.

To finally get to the question: does anyone have any recommendations 
on this? It this a reasonable approach? It seems as though many of the 
organizations that have implemented X.400 use only one ORG_UNIT. 
Do these people have one "grand server" (with a huge directory) that 
then routes messages internally, are they mapping to a proprietary Email 
solution, or how have they overcome this problem?

Any information would be very helpful - if this conversation is not 
germaine to this list, please Email me directly. Thanks:


-Mark D. Lasich
 Alcoa Technical Center (ATC)
 [e-mail]
 412/337-5702

Opinions stated are those of the author, any similarity to actual people or 
situations is purely coincidental.