BANGALORE, INDIA: Previously known as WildFire, Openfire is an easy to install cross platform instant messaging server based on XMPP protocol. The messaging server can be a great alternative to public chat services available to your employees where you can control number of users.

To create your own messaging system for your company, start with downloading 'Openfire fire_3_6_4' server and 'spark_2_5_8_1' client from www.igniterealtime.org/downloads/index.jsp. Install Openfire server package on the machine you want to use as server. In this implementation, we have used Windows XP. Installation is quick and easy. Once installed, you can launch administration console from Openfire window for configuring this messaging server. Configuration comprises four easy steps. First step include configuring servers domain name and port. Second step is for database setting.

You can choose from two options, either go for embedded database (HSQLDB) which is automatically configured or choose external database. External databases supported by Openfire are MySQL, Postgres, Microsoft SQL Server, and HSQLDB.

Also, you can install plenty of freely available plug ins for further enhancing usability of Openfire messaging server. Visit http://tinyurl.com/59x7fa to download available plug ins.

Once Openfire is installed on a Windows machine, you can start or stop Openfire server using this window. Click on 'Launch Admin' to configure the server.

After selecting language of your choice, you need to enter domain, admin console port and secure admin console port.

You can choose from two options under database setting; either go for automatically configured internal database or separately configure external database.

In the final step, enter administrative account credentials. These values are used to log into administrative account (user id: admin)

To create users, go to 'UserGroups' tab on the top and click on 'Create New User'. You can also search users from this window.

Install Spark chat client on user machines and allocate them their passwords created in the previous step. You're ready to start chatting.

Besides text chat, you can also do voice chat . Also, you can share files with other users through the chat window.

Administrator can broadcast important message to all the users by logging in to Openfire administrative account and then going to 'Sessions>Tools'.