This section describes how to install additional modules to Community Server.
Single-Sign-on Modules
The single sign on modules allow you to use a single user account for both your Community Server site and an additional site or sites. For example, you probably have an existing corporate site and now you want to add forums, blogs, and a media gallery. Community Server is a great solution but out of the box, provided users have an account on your corporate site, your users will need two accounts and have to login twice to your both your coporate and Community Server site. The single sign on modules make it so one account can be used on both sites.
Mail Gateway
Out of the box, Community Server provides a rich web experience that allows you to use interact with forums, blogs, etc. using a rich text editor. What about those times when it would be more convenient and productive for you to reply to a forum post via email rather than having to go to the website? Mail Gateway exists to make it possible for those of us who live in our mail program to continue living in our mail program because we can interact with the community via email. Mail Gateway can dramatically increase participation in a community as a result.
Enterprise Search
Out of the box, Community Server provides built in search for all of the applications (except Wiki content). The search technology built into Community Server is a traditional SQL based approach that utilizes the database for storage. Enterprise Search makes use of an open source search engine called Lucine. Lucine creates a file based index (which makes SQL data storage a non issue). File I/O is generally less expensive from a performance standpoint when compared to SQL I/O so Enterprise Search tends to perform better than traditional search technology when under heavy stress. Enterprise Search also makes searching wiki content possible and offers community members the ability to subscribe to search results via RSS.
Caching
Out of the box, Community Server makes use of the caching technology that is built into ASP.NET. However, if you are planning a large deployment then you may need to consider additional caching options. We recommend and support the use of memcached. memcached is a distributed memory cache system that can utilize even the oldest of machines to provide caching support to your application.
Language Packs
Language Packs can be used to localize Community Server in different languages. This includes supporting foreign languages (e.g. French, Spanish etc.) or to change the text used in Community Server to better suit your branding. For example you may prefer to change Groups to Hubs or change user profiles to user spaces.