Chapter 1: Integrating E-Mail

Chapter 1: Integrating E-Mail

Overview

Before you can make any headway when integrating electronic mail systems, it?s essential to understand how electronic mail standards and software work. Throughout this book, I cover the main standards used in each element of messaging and the implications that each standard has to the job of integrating this system with another.

The Challenge

When integrating different mail products you will be faced with a range of different standards. For example, there are many different ways of addressing a message and identifying users. Similarly, there are different ways of transferring messages over a network, including open standards such as X.400 and popular standards such as SMTP. The message itself is formatted according to different rules and any attached files are sent in different structures. Finally, when connecting networks, there are different network protocols, operating systems, and bridge devices to navigate. As you can see, the job of integrating mail products is not quite as straightforward as it might seem at first.

The Main Components

There are two main parts to any e-mail system software: the messaging back-end or server (often called the message transfer agent , or MTA), which looks after some or all of the jobs of storing the messages, delivering them to the correct address, and transferring messages between systems; and the user front-end or client software (often called the message user agent , or MUA; see Figure 1?1), which is used by the user to check if he or she has any...

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Integrating E-mail: From the Intranet to the Internet

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Chapter 1: Integrating E-Mail

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