What the heck is Groove? And do I really need another collaboration product? I don't know about you, but I do think the C word (collaboration) is just a little overused. Sure, we all need to work together, and we all need to share documents, but do we really need to collaborate? It wasn't all that long ago collaboration was a pejorative term–as in the Vichy government collaborating with the Nazis. So, as much as I hate it, here we go: Groove is a bit of desktop software designed to foster collaboration and communication between ad hoc groups using peer-to-peer communication. Naturally that is only half the story. The rest follows.

Groove is a shared work space with communication tools and file sharing. A Groove work space can be shared and replicated across different computers for different users asynchronously. There is no necessity for systems sharing a work space to be on the same network or to be simultaneously online. A pure peer-to-peer system requires concurrent connections, and Groove works best in this mode, but Groove has some clever workarounds to share data on disparate, disconnected systems.

Let's first look at how typical users may interact with Groove. Using the desktop client, a user creates a work space and then invites other Groove users to join the work space. Users who join that work space receive an identical copy of that work space on their machine. The fact each user has his or her own individual copy of the work space is not obvious. The local work space becomes a virtual hosted collaboration site. It feels as if it is remotely hosted even though it is not. Individual files or documents are synchronized whenever a user is online, but it is not necessary for any or all users to be online simultaneously.

Once work spaces are synchronized among users, only changes are transmitted from work space to work space. If two or more users modify a file at the same time, both or all versions are offered to the work group for resolution.

Computer users have long demonstrated a need and a desire for collaboration vehicles through their use of network shares, Exchange-shared folders, Lotus Team Spaces, and other data islands. The real problem with using these methods to share data is they often fall outside the reach of IT governance and thus operate without effective control. When was the last time you performed a corporate data inventory on file shares? The typical organization has no handle on what data on which file shares is relevant or critical to its business. Nor does it know which data is dated and no longer relevant. Groove probably is not going to solve these issues. What it does do is offer an easy-to-use tool for creating and managing shared work spaces.

The Groove Virtual Office system is composed of two major components: Office Groove 2007 (the client) and Office Groove Server 2007. You didn't really think Groove was a pure peer-to-peer play, did you? Groove Server consists of a Server Manager and the Groove Server Data Bridge. Groove Server provides a temporary home for data waiting to be synchronized between work spaces. The marketing hype touts the advantage of having all data stored locally–as opposed to residing on a server where it could presumably be compromised. The reality is the data still is on the server–and will remain there until all work spaces are synchronized. All data is encrypted using 192-bit Advanced Encryption System (AES) encryption. It remains encrypted locally, on the server, and on the wire. It probably is more secure than my online banking system, but I still wouldn't trust it with my Truth or Dare story.

Another component is the Groove Server Relay, which is a service that routes the data between and among Groove clients when they are not online. Changes I make to a document are recorded as just that; the delta is the only data that is transmitted from work space to work space. This presumably would add another layer of security. The binary delta between two versions of a Word document is not going to be useful without the original.

Peer to peer or client to client is the preferred method of communication. A Groove client will attempt to initiate a connection using three different ports and protocols: SSTP/:2492, SSTP/:443, and SSTP encapsulated in HTTP/:80. In that order, Groove will attempt a connection. The 2492 port is used for client-to-client connections. The latter two are used to connect to the relay server. Having the HTTP:/80 as the last connection option ensures Groove users can work through firewalls. Groove clients working simultaneously within the same network are able to operate in a true peer-to-peer manner using the 2492 port.

But what happens when all users are not online? Or more important (to me), what about synchronizing data from my work computer to a home computer or to any computer I happen to be using? In fact, that is the first use I found for Groove. I have a half-dozen USB drives and three 500GB external drives and about a terabyte of backup DVDs. I also work on four different computers, depending on where I am and what I am doing. Groove offers the perfect solution to keeping my files synchronized. When all of my other devices and attachments left me looking for data, I used to archive the day's work in a compressed file and e-mail it to a couple of free e-mail services. I then would fetch the files back using Firefox (or Internet Explorer, if necessary).

The problem was I never knew which version was the most current. I had files named bob_xml_article_revision_23_at_the_airport_mar_23_07.doc. Then I discovered Groove (after I discovered Office 2007). Now, I have a Groove work space with me as the only member. I keep all my current working files in that folder. Changes I made to this article from home magically were made to the work space on this computer when I woke it up this morning. No issues with versioning and no need to carry around a device of any kind.

The answer to my question–What happens in disconnected world?–is my Groove files are transmitted to and retained on a Groove Server. But you don't have a Groove Server, and you have no intention of buying one. Well, Big Brother–I mean Microsoft–has provided one for you. My Groove client connected to blugro1gms.groove.microsoft.com via this relay server: blugro1relay.groove.microsoft.com. So, by virtue of paying for a legal copy of Groove client, I am allowed to use Microsoft servers to enable remote work spaces. I find that incredibly convenient, although it does smack a bit of 1984. Since I am not abnormally paranoid and since I trust 192-bit encryption, that doesn't concern me. You always layer some PGP on top of AES, or you could buy your own Groove Server and thus control your own security. Seriously, this is the way to go if you intend to use Groove in your enterprise. You really don't want sensitive data on someone else's server.

Groove is not nearly as robust or feature rich as other collaboration platforms such as SharePoint, but that makes it even more attractive. One thing users seem to like about SharePoint is it empowers users to create and manage Web sites and team sites without direct intervention from IT. Groove takes that one step further. It is about as difficult to use as instant messaging. That simplicity means users are more likely to use it to exchange ideas and information. Microsoft does not intend to devalue the SharePoint equation with Groove, however. Groove 2007 includes a SharePoint library connector and InfoPath Forms Tools. Check out your documents from SharePoint, and drop them into a Groove work space. Work on them at home over the weekend, and check them back in when you get to work on Monday. In all likelihood, you are not going to have access to your corporate SharePoint libraries without using VPN. Groove is available anywhere you can access the Internet.

Groove has some limited messaging capabilities built in, but for even more functionality, I would integrate it with Microsoft Live Communication Server and Office Communicator. Microsoft saw the future correctly a few years ago when it decided to build up the Office Software Division. Once you get beyond the operating system, which is essentially transparent to most users, the Office suite of applications provides Microsoft's biggest presence in the corporate world. The decision to move SharePoint to the Office division ensured an even tighter interaction between server products and productivity products. The guys in Redmond have just about as much business smarts as they do software smarts. Some would argue their business acumen far exceeds their technical expertise. Whatever. I like open source, but I also like tightly coupled productivity tools. The bottom line is Groove is a winner. It isn't a best-of-category anything, but it works. It doesn't hog resources (earlier versions had a bad reputation as memory hogs), and since it is bundled with Office, it seems kind of free. Try it–you'll like it. TD