A pull-based e-mail architecture

Conventional e-mail systems are prone to problems that impact their scalability and dependability. E-mail systems operate following a "push-based" approach: the sender side server pushes the e-mails it wants to send to the corresponding receivers' servers. This approach can impose processing and storage overhead on the receiver side. This paper presents an e-mail architecture in which messages are sent directly from senders to receivers using a "pull-based" approach. The sender stores locally all e-mails it intends to send, and notify their receivers using a global, distributed notification service. Receivers can then retrieve such notifications and decide if they want to receive the corresponding e-mails. If so, e-mails can be retrieved directly from their senders. This proposal is inspired from file sharing peer-topeer systems, in which users locate and retrieve the contents they are looking for. A prototype was built to show the feasibility of the proposal....

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2008
• Where: SAC
• Authors: Edson Kageyama, Carlos Maziero, Altair Olivo Santin
• Keywords: Applied Computing, E-mail, E-mail Systems, SAC 2008, Systems