Configuring Mail Services for Data Warehouse Administration Console (DAC)

The illustration below explains the steps involved to install and configure email services for Data Warehouse Administration Console (DAC) installed on a local machine.

The OS and software versions used for this illustration are as below:

1. Microsoft Windows XP SP3 (32-bit)

2. Informatica PowerCenter 9.1.0 HotFix2

3. Microsoft Outlook 2007
4. Oracle BI Data Warehouse Administration Console (DAC) 10.1.3.4.1

5. hMailServer Version 5.3.1-B1748
 

hMailServer is a free e-mail server for Microsoft Windows. It supports the common e-mail protocols (IMAP, SMTP and POP3) and can easily be integrated with many existing web mail systems. It has flexible score-based spam protection and can attach to your virus scanner to scan all incoming and outgoing email. This is a good option to use for configuring email services in absence of a Microsoft Exchange Server.

The Informatica PowerCenter Server and Clients, the mail server hMailServer, the DAC Server  and DAC Client and Microsoft Outlook are all installed on the same machine in this illustration. If the DAC Server is installed on a machine other than the local machine, install hMailServer on the DAC Server.

Before downloading, please verify if the software version is compatible with your Windows OS. The download link for hMailServer is below.

hMailServer

The installation and configuration steps shown below may differ for different versions of hMailServer and Windows OS.


Step 1 - Prerequisite Checks

• Verify that DAC Server is running.

• Port 25 is the default port used to transport or communicate email across the Internet using the SMTP protocol. Ensure that this port is not blocked or used by any other process on the DAC Server.

Step 2 - Installing the hMailServer

• Start the installation for hMailServer. Click Next to continue.

• Accept the License Agreement as shown below. Click Next to continue.

•  Select a folder on the local drive to install hMailServer as shown below. Click Next.

• Select both the components to install as shown below. Click Next.

• Use built-in database engine (Microsoft SQL Compact) as the default database server type. Click Next

• Click Next to continue on the screen below.

• Setup is ready to start installation in the destination folder. Click Install.

• At the hMailServer Security screen, specify a password for hMailServer Administrator as shown below.

• After the installation completes, ensure that the hMailServer service is started as shown below in Services.

Step 3 - Configuring the hMailServer

• The configurations shown below in hMailServer Administrator are only those that are needed to send emails from DAC Server.

• After the setup completes, run the hMailServer Administrator as shown below.

• Enter the password for hMailServer Administrator that was specified in the hMailServer Security screen as shown below.

• The hMailServer Administrator initial screen is shown below.

• Click on Domains on the left and click Add as shown below to add a domain.

• Specify the domain name below the Domain text box. For this illustration, the domain name is "dataintegration.com". Click Save to register the domain in the hMailServer as shown below.

• Next step is to add accounts to the hMailServer. For this illustration, we will create three accounts - "informatica", "dac" and "nelrick". The "informatica" account will be used by Informatica PowerCenter to send out emails. The "dac" account will be used by DAC Server to send out emails. The "nelrick" account will be used to receive emails.

• Click on Accounts on the left. Click Add as shown below to add a new account.

• Enter "informatica" in the Address text box and specify a password as shown below. The password will be encrypted. Click Save to add the account.

• Similarly, create a new account for "nelrick" as shown below.

• Similarly, create a new account for "dac" as shown below.

• In the tree view to the left, go to Settings > Protocols > SMTP. To the right, click on the Delivery of e-mail tab and specify the Local host name as shown below. For this illustration, this value is "localhost", else we can specify the computer name of the DAC Server i.e. the server on which hMailServer is also installed. Click Save.

• Go to Run. Type services.msc to open Services. Restart the hMailServer service. This is needed to reflect the new configurations done to the hMailServer.

Step 4 - Configuring the Microsoft Outlook client to receive emails

• Open Microsoft Outlook. Go to Tools > Account Settings.

• Under the Email tab, click New to add an account to receive emails.

• In the Add New E-mail Account screen as shown below, specify the account Name, E-mail Address and Password for "nelrick" while creating the "nelrick" account in the hMailServer.

• Select the Manually configure server settings or additional server types check box and click Next to continue.

• Select Internet E-mail radio button as shown below to connect to the hMailServer. Click Next.

• In the Internet E-mail Settings, specify the Local host name added in the  Delivery of e-mail tab in hMailServer Administrator as the Incoming mail server and Outgoing mail server (SMTP) as shown below. The password in Logon Information will be the same as specified while creating the "nelrick" account in hMailServer. If the hMailServer is installed on a different server, we need to specify the computer name of that server in the Incoming mail server and Outgoing mail server (SMTP) text box.

• Click Test Account Settings as shown above. The status should be Completed as shown below for both the tasks. This indicates that the "nelrick" account is configured to receive emails from the hMailServer.

• Click Finish.

 Step 5 - DAC Server Email Configuration

•  Login to the DAC Client. Go to Tools > DAC Server Management > DAC Server Setup. Click Yes to configure the email account for DAC Server.

•  Click on Email Configuration tab in Server Configuration as shown below. Since, the "nelrick" account is already configured in Microsoft Outlook to receive emails, we will configure this account to send the test email. The User name and Password will be the same that was used to create the "nelrick" account in hMailServer. If the Email server is on the local machine, specify 127.0.0.1 as the IP, else if the hMailServer is on a different machine, specify the IP of that machine as shown below.

• Click  Send Test Email. If the email is sent successfully, we get the below message.

• Open Microsoft Outlook. We should get a test email as below.

• Change the Email Configuration to "dac" account since we want to send emails from DAC Server using the "dac" account. The User name and Password will be the same that was used to create the "dac" account in hMailServer. The new configuration is shown below. Click Save.

  Step 6 - Configuring DAC Email Recipients 

• In the DAC Client, go to Setup > Email Recipients. Click on New to add a email recipient. Specify nelrick@dataintegration.com as the email address to receive email notifications from DAC Server as shown below.

 Step 7 - Start an Execution Plan to check email notifications from DAC

• In the DAC Client, go to Execute > Execution Plans. Select any one execution plan (the Basic Forecast Demo execution plan is selected in this example) and click Run Now to start the Execution Plan as shown below.

•  When the Execution Plan starts, DAC Server will send out an email notification as below.

• After the Execution Plan completes successfully, DAC Server will send out an email notification as below.