Universal Messaging is made up of a server component and a client API used by applications to communicate with the server. The server, known as the Realm Server, maintains all the information regarding resources and P2P services, and the security around these. The Realm Server supports direct connections using normal TCP/IP sockets and Secure Socket Layer (SSL) while also supporting HTTP directly with no additional processes or web server infrastructure required. By directly supporting HTTP the process of configuring a Realm Server for the Internet is greatly simplified.

Universal Messaging is highly portable - written in 100% pure Java. It therefore requires a copy of the Java Development Kit (JDK) or Java Runtime Environment (JRE) to be installed. The recommended release of the required JDK and JRE is 1.7.

In order to make the installation of Universal Messaging a pain free experience we provide our users with a set of options. Installers can run in either GUI or console mode in order to enable it to be run on nearly all systems without the requirement of having some sort of graphical display to perform the task. In addition to that, installers can include a Java Runtime Environment (JRE) or not which significantly affects the size of your download but ensures compatibility and normal operation of the product.

The installers can be downloaded directly from the web site.

This installation guide contains information on the following sections:

Please use the ninstancemanagertool (see Nirvana Instance Manager) to manage your UM installations.