Email Aggregation Server Polling Staggering
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Solution Overview
Problem
As the number of system users grows, the number of mailboxes that mail user agents (MUAs) need to poll for email messages increases, leading to potential over- or under-utilization of polling resources, necessitating efficient scheduling of polling operations to maintain optimal resource usage.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of an email aggregation server that polls mailboxes at regular intervals, staggers next polling times based on a formula (Tn(x) = Tc + I + xΔt), and distributes polling tasks to avoid peak loads by performing abbreviated and reconciliation polling uniformly across subintervals, and staggering fallback polling times to prevent simultaneous high processing loads.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Quantity of substance
If the number of mailboxes polled by MUAs increases to accommodate growing system users, then the system can serve more users, but the polling resources become over-utilized or under-utilized leading to inefficient resource usage
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the polling operations by dividing mailboxes into different groups or categories, and applies different polling strategies to different segments. This allows the system to optimize resource allocation by polling active mailboxes more frequently while reducing or eliminating polling for inactive mailboxes, thereby resolving the contradiction between serving more users and maintaining efficient resource utilization.
2Reliability
If polling operations are performed frequently to maintain up-to-date email records, then email freshness is improved, but processing burden on email servers increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements dynamic polling intervals that adjust based on mailbox activity status. Active mailboxes are polled more frequently to ensure email freshness, while inactive mailboxes are polled less frequently or not at all. This dynamic adjustment resolves the contradiction by adapting the polling frequency to actual needs, maintaining reliability where necessary while reducing processing burden overall.
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes the polling parameter (time interval) based on the state of the mailbox. By monitoring mailbox activity and adjusting the polling interval accordingly, the system maintains up-to-date records for active mailboxes while minimizing server processing burden for inactive ones, thus resolving the contradiction between freshness and processing load.
3Speed
If multiple mailboxes are polled simultaneously to reduce total polling time, then email retrieval speed is improved, but resource overload and system instability occur
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments polling operations into different time slots or batches, preventing simultaneous polling of all mailboxes. By dividing the polling task into manageable segments executed sequentially or in controlled parallel groups, the system maintains fast email retrieval while avoiding resource overload and system instability.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements periodic polling with controlled intervals, where mailboxes are polled in a systematic sequence rather than simultaneously. This periodic approach ensures that email retrieval remains efficient while maintaining system stability by preventing resource exhaustion that would occur with truly simultaneous polling of all mailboxes.
Data Source
AI summary
An electronic mail (email) system may include at least one email server having mailboxes for storing email messages, and a plurality of mobile wireless communications devices. The system may further include at least one email aggregation server for repetitively polling the mailboxes for email messages, and forwarding the email messages to respective mobile wireless communications devices. The at least one email aggregation server may determine time overlapped polling of corresponding mailboxes and time stagger a next polling thereof.