GFI FAXmaker for Exchange/SMTP Manual GFI FAXmaker - an overview • 1
GFI FAXmaker - an overview
Introduction to GFI FAXmaker
GFI FAXmaker is a fax server that allows you to send and receive
faxes via your email infrastructure. Its email integration is unparalleled,
resulting in minimal administration overhead and user training. GFI
FAXmaker for Exchange/SMTP integrates with Microsoft Exchange
Server 2000/2003/5.5, Lotus Notes and with most popular
SMTP/POP3 Mail servers. GFI FAXmaker consists of:
• A FAX Server service which handles the sending and receiving of
faxes via the fax hardware.
• An Email2Fax gateway service that retrieves the faxes to be sent
via a sink or pop3 and sends inbound faxes and fax transmission
reports via SMTP.
• A fax printer driver and a fax message form which allow users to
send faxes via their e-mail client.
The fax message form integrates with the email architecture, i.e. it
does not have any direct links with the GFI FAXmaker Fax server
software. This allows for better scalability and manageability. Other
fax servers (including Microsoft fax) have proprietary communication
links between the fax client and the fax server, which is much less
scalable and results in more administration and troubleshooting.
How to deploy GFI FAXmaker for Exchange/SMTP 12
GFI FAXmaker has a very flexible SMTP based architecture allowing
you to deploy the fax server in a way that best suits your network and
type of mail server. You can also choose whether you want to install
GFI FAXmaker on your mail server or whether you want to run it on a
separate machine. (Unless you have Exchange 5.5, in which case you
must deploy it on a separate machine)
Since GFI FAXmaker does not require a lot of resources it can run in
the background on your mail server machine. However it is often
considered good practice to separate your mail server from fax device
hardware such as Brooktrout cards or ISDN cards. The choice will
probably depend on the size of your network. Smaller networks can
deploy GFI FAXmaker on the mail server, whilst larger networks
probably want to deploy GFI FAXmaker on a separate machine. This
separate machine does of course not need to be dedicated to GFI
FAXmaker.
How GFI FAXmaker works with Exchange 2000/2003
If you have Exchange 2000 or 2003 as your mail server you can
choose to install GFI FAXmaker on the mail server machine itself or
on a separate machine.
