Email Aggregation Server Polling Scheduling
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Solution Overview
Problem
As the number of users in email systems 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 approaches to schedule polling operations.
Innovation Solution
The email system employs an email aggregation server that divides polling time intervals into subintervals, schedules first and second type polls, and distributes second type polls among these subintervals, using unique identifiers to manage polling, thereby balancing resource utilization and ensuring timely message retrieval.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If the number of users and mailboxes increases, then the email system can serve more customers, but the polling resources become over-utilized and system performance deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the polling process into two distinct types: first type polling for new message detection and second type polling for full mailbox synchronization. This segmentation allows the system to perform lightweight operations more frequently without triggering heavy operations, thereby managing resource utilization effectively as the number of users grows.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements periodic polling actions with different frequencies and intensities. First type polling occurs more frequently for quick new message detection, while second type polling occurs less frequently for comprehensive synchronization. This periodic action pattern prevents resource overload by distributing polling operations over time rather than executing them all simultaneously.
2Reliability
If polling frequency increases to ensure timely message retrieval, then message delivery reliability improves, but server resource consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies different polling qualities to different polling types based on local needs. First type polling uses minimal resource consumption with focus on new message detection only, while second type polling uses higher resource consumption for complete synchronization. This local quality differentiation ensures reliable message retrieval without uniformly high resource consumption.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent performs partial polling actions (first type polling) more frequently to meet reliability requirements for message detection, while reserving full polling actions (second type polling) for when needed. This partial action approach maintains acceptable message retrieval timeliness while reducing overall server resource consumption compared to continuous full polling.
Data Source
AI summary
An email system may include at least one email server having mailboxes for storing email messages therein, and a plurality of mobile wireless communications devices. The system may further include at least one email aggregation server for 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 divide each of a plurality of repeating polling time intervals into a plurality of subintervals, and schedule each mailbox for at least a first type polling over each subinterval and for a second type polling over each polling time interval. The second type polling may be more comprehensive than the first type polling. The at least one email aggregation server may distribute the second type polling of the mailboxes over each polling time interval.