Patent Application
20060020667
Electronic mail or email is one of the oldest applications on the Internet. Email are text messages that are relayed from one computer to another computer until it reaches its destination. An email message's destination is indicated by the recipient's email address, which is typically in an hierarchical format such as “account_name@domain.com”. The “com” in the email address is a top-level domain that indicates the type of organization that owns the account is a commercial enterprise. Other examples are “edu” for academic institutions, “org” for non-profit organizations, “gov” for government entities, “mil” for military organizations, etc. A two-character country code is also a top-level domain that may be appended to the email address so that the address becomes “account_name@domain.com.tw” for designating an email account owned by a company on Taiwan, for example.
When an email is sent to a recipient, the destination email address is translated into an Internet Protocol (IP) address, which is a unique numerical sequence separated by periods. Using this IP address, the email message is delivered to the destination. The process of translating the email address to an IP address is called domain name resolution and is performed by one or more domain name servers or systems (DNS). A geographical domain name server (GDNS) is used to resolve country-code or geographical level email addresses.
References will be made to these drawing figures to help illustrate embodiments of the invention:
In each geographical location 12-16, a geographical domain name server (GDNS) 20-22 resolves geographical-level domain names in a domain name contained in an email address. Geographical domain name servers 20-22 are in communication with their respective lower-level domain name servers (DNS) 24-27. There are typically more than one domain name servers organized in a hierarchical manner in each geographical location. For example, one domain name server may be capable of resolving “com” top-level domain names, and another is capable of resolving “gov” top-level domain names. Other domain name servers may be capable of resolving email addresses of a particular organization, such as “tsmc.com”, for example. These domain name servers are said to be authoritative for resolving their respective domains. Because domain name resolution is done recursively typically using more than one domain name servers, domain name servers 24-27 are used to represent one or more domain name servers used for the domain name resolution process.
A plurality of email servers 28-31 are further in communication with their respective domain name servers 24-27 located at each geographical location. Each email server may have a preferred domain name server with which it typically begins the domain name resolution process. Each email server 28-31 is further in communication with its respective users 40-45 residing in their geographical locations 12-16. For example, email services of USER A 40 are typically furnished by its respective email server 28. In
It should be understood that the links between components in
In conventional systems that use the two-character country code appended to the email address, the country code is used to determine which geographical domain name server services the recipient of the email. Further, when compared to a centralized email system in which emails of a multi-geographical domain enterprise is processed at a centralized server, the method described above is more efficient and faster in delivering the email messages. Delays may result from a bottleneck at the central server. Further, propagation delay may result if the sender and receiver of the email message are located in different geographical locations. Therefore, the delivery of the email message may require more than one cross-geographical boundary crossings.
Although the above description provides illustrative example messages exchanged between the server components, the invention is not so limited. Email message delivery is processed not at a central server, but in a distributed manner at servers associated with the sender of the email. Therefore, processing bottlenecks and delay propagations are avoided. Further, processed in this manner, the two-character country code is also no longer required, which provides for shortened email addresses.
The term “server” is used to refer to any computer or computing devices operable to perform the functions described herein and its use is not intended to limit or specify the implementation of the system and method described herein. Further, although the description references Internet Protocol, the system and method described herein is not limited thereto and is applicable and adaptable to protocols now known or later developed.
