Hierarchical Queue Structure for Email Delivery Bottleneck Resolution
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Solution Overview
Problem
Email delivery systems face issues with message queue congestion and resource consumption due to frequent delivery failures, such as full recipient mailboxes or unavailable destination servers, leading to storage and processing inefficiencies.
Innovation Solution
A communications system with a controller that manages email messages across multiple queues, moving failed messages to a secondary queue with a lower sending rate and re-routing them when the destination server becomes available, and utilizing a hierarchical queue structure with successively increasing storage intervals and decreasing sending rates to optimize resource usage.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Speed
If the email delivery server repeatedly attempts to send failed messages at a high sending rate, then delivery speed is improved, but system resource consumption and queue congestion increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the email message queue into multiple priority levels (high, medium, low priority queues) based on message importance and delivery urgency. This segmentation allows the system to differentiate resource allocation, sending high-priority messages at higher rates while reducing the sending rate for lower-priority messages, thereby improving overall delivery speed for critical messages while conserving system resources.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent dynamically changes the sending rate parameter based on queue conditions, message priority, and system resource availability. The controller adjusts the sending rate for different queues and individual messages, increasing rates for high-priority messages and decreasing rates for low-priority messages or when system resources are constrained, thus optimizing the balance between delivery speed and resource consumption.
2Productivity
If the email delivery server maintains a large queue to handle high message volume, then productivity is improved, but storage space and processing overhead increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the email queue into multiple priority-based sub-queues (high, medium, low priority) instead of using a single large queue. This segmentation allows the system to manage and process messages more efficiently, focusing resources on high-priority messages while maintaining appropriate storage allocation for each priority level, thereby improving productivity without requiring excessive total storage space.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements mechanisms to discard or archive low-priority messages that have been in the queue for extended periods or during system overload conditions. This allows the system to maintain high productivity for critical messages by freeing up storage space and processing resources, while still preserving the ability to handle high message volumes when resources are available.
3Reliability
If the system implements a secondary queue for failed messages, then reliability is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent integrates the secondary queue functionality directly into the priority queue structure, where low-priority queues effectively serve as secondary queues for failed or deferred messages. This unified segmentation approach maintains delivery reliability by ensuring that messages are not lost but rather requeued at lower priorities for later retry, while avoiding the need for separate complex queue management systems.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent merges the secondary queue functionality with the priority-based queue structure, combining what would traditionally be separate queue systems into a unified multi-priority queue管理机制. This merging simplifies device complexity by using a single queue management framework that handles both primary and secondary queue functions, while still maintaining high delivery reliability through automated retry mechanisms at different priority levels.
Data Source
AI summary
A communications system may include at least one destination server for hosting email message boxes, and communications devices for generating email messages each associated with a respective message box. A delivery server may have a plurality of queues and a controller. The controller may store the email messages in a first queue, and attempt to send the stored email messages to the destination server at a first sending rate. The controller may also move email messages stored in the first queue to a second queue based upon a delivery failure. Email messages may be sent from the second queue at a second sending rate less than the first sending rate. The controller may also move email messages from the second queue to the first queue having a common characteristic with a successfully delivered email message.