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Re: [Asrg] Re: 6. Proposals - Pull System (revisited)

2003-12-01 15:41:23
On Mon, Dec 01, 2003 at 10:10:52PM +0100, Dag Kihlman wrote:
just estimations, but any textbook on server to server communication in
DCOM, CORBA, Web Services etc stress the fact that network trips waste
server resources. Web Services are actually designed for single
request-response solutions (even if sessions, cache and similar technologies
are available). Any mail without an attatchment is so small that I cannot
see why what is true in more complex programs would not be true in SMTP.

DCOM and CORBA are most likely to be seen on a trusted network, not on
the open Internet. I don't know that they make an effort to address the
resource consumption issue. 

Web services are different, because the only work the server has to do
is getting the reply out. In the case of email, the server is accepting
responsibility for a larger workload - filtering, and possibly sending
bounces, or delivery to multiple mailboxes.

So, for general protocol design, I'd agree that an 'SMTP replacement'
should probably require fewer round trips than current SMTP. Perhaps
something like:

1: MTA id, Sender, # of recipients, (recipient list, if below some
threshhold), size of content
1b: Server ACK/NAK/??
2: Recipient list if above threshhold
2b: Server ACK/NAK/??
3: Content. (Or token, for Pull implementations)
3b: Server ACK/NAK/??

I have nothing against looking at replacements for SMTP - but I would
suggest that it should occur on a sub-list. It's a longer term project
than tweaking the existing protocol, and I'd prefer that it not bog down
discussions of changes that could be made more rapidly.

-- 
David Maxwell, david(_at_)vex(_dot_)net|david(_at_)maxwell(_dot_)net -->
Any sufficiently advanced Common Sense will seem like magic... 
                                              - me


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