Merce is an integrated IS infrastructure solution. It provides all the core networking services required by a mid- to large corporate enterprise or an academic campus. Merce provides:

• A single user directory: each user gets a single Merce username and password
• Email messaging and IM
• Web access
• File serving
• Virus and malware filtering
• Real-time network and server monitoring
• Firewall
• Gateway email security and spam filtering

All these are managed from a single browser-based management console. Hundreds of Merce servers can be connected to a single administrative console in an organisation and managed by one administrator. Together they can deliver services to hundrds of thousands of users.

Merce provides a browser-based interface. The underlying OS is hidden from the system administrator for all normal activities.

Merce stores all meta-data in a relational database. This allows the secure and robust storage of information like user lists and passwords. It also allows extensions to be built to integrate Merce data into business applications or reporting tools.

In Merce, each human user is given a unique Merce username and password. He can use this username to access all services which require identification, e.g. email, Web access, Merce administrative pages, file servers, etc.

Merce servers work in a master-slave architecture, with one server in an enterprise providing the administrative controls and reports. This is the server which displays the Merce Management Interface (MMI) through a browser-based UI. This server is sometimes loosely referred to as "master server" though it can also perform all functions of a "slave" server. Any number of other servers may be part of the Merce network of servers. All servers (including the one with the MMI) can potentially provide end-user services, since the MMI does not require a dedicated server. The master and slave servers communicate using an internal synchronisation layer which uses secure public-key-based cryptography. The servers share administrative and reporting information. All administration is done by the system administrator via the MMI. These actions get relayed to all servers via the internal synchronisation layer. The slaves report all usage statistics, logs, etc. to the master a few times a day, again via the synchronisation layer. This two-way communication is very robust and works well even with unreliable data links.

Since a single Merce server can display the MMI as well as deliver all end-user services, the smallest Merce installation can operate with a single server and deliver 100% of Merce functionality.

This synchronisation layer allows Merce to scale up to handle large, worldwide organisations. A Merce-enabled enterprise can easily deploy more than a hundred servers in a single integrated network, and manage them all through a single MMI.

A Merce server can act as a file server for user data. Users can use their regular desktops running popular MS Windows operating systems to store and retrieve files on these servers --- they will usually not be aware that the server they are connecting to is running Merce.

Therefore, the Merce user will "map network drive" to access his file server shared area, by supplying the same Merce username and password that he uses for email or Web access. There will be no need to remember multiple passwords.

The power of Merce data protection will apply to the user data stored on file servers. Thus, Merce AutoD2D backups will protect user data against accidental disk failure. Merce also supports soft disk quotas, which will allow the administrator to keep a watch on the server disk consumption of each user. If a user exceeds his quota limit, his account will automatically be disabled by Merce. The administrator can re-enable the account.

Merce provides an enterprise email infrastructure. One or more Merce servers can work in a synchronised manner to provide email services for small or large organisations. This facility provides location-independent email addresses, i.e. all users in a company will have email addresses of the form user@companydomain.com irrespective of which location or office they work out of. Merce will hide the location information, and will internally route each user's email to the correct server.

Merce mail servers support POP3 and IMAP4 for mailbox access, and SMTP for outgoing emails.

Emails in Merce can be archived on the server for future record. A copy of each incoming and outgoing email is archived in a special location on the server and can be accessed by an authorised system administrator. If an employee leaves the organisation, his emails are available in this archive for future reference. If a company uses insecure or unstable desktop computers whose contents periodically get wiped out due to viruses or hardware faults, then email will not be lost forever; they are there in the archive on the Merce server(s).

Merce tracks and reports email traffic volumes. The system administrator gets reports of total email traffic, with per-user figures. Like all Merce reports, these are consolidated across all sites and servers and integrated into one location for an enterprise-wide view.

Merce can perform virus checking of all messages on the fly. It supports a variety of anti-virus systems including commercial virus filters from Trend Micro. Virus signature databases are downloaded from the Internet automatically and updated on all Merce servers at frequent intervals, to ensure effective virus filtering.

Merce MailGate, an optional module, can provide perimeter email security for the entire organisation. It provides class-leading spam filtering.

Merce offers instant messaging based on a multi-protocol IM server backbone. All locations of your enterprise can connect over IM without using valuable Internet bandwidth to use Google Chat or Yahoo IM. All chat transcripts are recorded and can be made available for future reference.

Merce can provide controlled Web access to users. With Merce, an organisation can decide its Internet access policies. This allows you to provide Web access for business purposes but cut down wasteful and non-essential business access, e.g. time spent on checking cricket scores or online share trading. This not only improves employee productivity, it also reduces the bandwidth needed for Internet links, thus saving money for the enterprise while improving profitability.

Different groups of users often need different set of access restrictions to browse the Web. This is supported by Merce.

In a Merce-enabled enterprise, Web access may require typing in the user's Merce username and password. Access is granted or denied based on the username or the desktop computer's IP address. If access rules are based on username, a user gets to experience a uniform set of access rights when he accesses the Web, irrespective of which desk he is sitting at today.

Web access is tracked and reported. The accesses initiated by users at all sites are consolidated into aggregate reports, with details per user and per Website. If a user accesses the Web from various offices of the company, all of these accesses are aggregated into the consolidated report under his user ID.

Bandwidth used for Internet access can be controlled. Different groups of users, or different sites, or different types of files, can be allocated different bandwidth limits. This can restrict the bandwidth used by junior officers to give priority to senior officers, or restrict the bandwidth used when downloading ZIP files (usually software or other archives), or restrict personal usage of free Webmail sites from office. All bandwidth limits can be associated with time-of-day attributes.

A user on Merce can register a reminder request for a specific date. Merce will send her the reminder by email on the given date. A user on Merce can register a vacation message, which will be sent out automatically to anyone who writes email to her, whenever an email comes into the user's mailbox. A user may also choose to forward her own incoming emails to any other user, or to an external account outside the enterprise. While doing this, she may choose to retain one copy of messages in her local mailbox on Merce.

When a Merce user writes email to anyone else in her enterprise, the mail client can look up the Merce address book on the fly. This is provided using the LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) service and all modern email clients support it. Merce automatically synchronises its LDAP address book with its user database.

Merce servers can be backed up on other Merce servers, including each other (cross backup). This backup ensures that data is not lost in the event of a complete server failure.

Merce supports server failover, both manually and automatically, in the event of a server failure. In the case of manual failover, the operator has to power-shut down the failed server, and give one command on the backup server to fail over all services from primary to backup. In the case of automatic failover, the servers will monitor each other using a heartbeat mechanism and will take over services automatically in case one server fails. Automatic failover is provided through the optional Merce Cluster Suite. Manual failover is built into Merce.

User accounts can have expiry dates. Password expiry periods can also be set. Bulk creation and deletion of user accounts is supported -- a single CSV file can be used to create up to 1,000 accounts.