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Message Management

X.400 is more sophisticated than SMTP/MIME, but still needs significant improvements. The ability to track a message through messaging systems is central to the establishment of a trusted delivery infrastructure for any complex commercial usage. Maintaining unique identification of a message as it crosses intersystem boundaries represents a significant challenge that no previous standardization activity has addressed.

Human Resources Requirements and Support Costs

Much work is needed in this area for both X.400 and SMTP/MIME technologies. The largest messaging networks can carry several million messages per day. Network administrators do not have time to stop and analyze trouble spots — there is too much traffic coming. They need utilities to shunt aside a problem message and let the traffic flow continue. It also takes very knowledgeable software engineers to accomplish this work, and they are expensive.

Managing these distributed messaging systems from a single, centralized, administrative control system is difficult and costly. One major Fortune 500 corporation estimates that it spends approximately $40 per user, per year to acquire messaging hardware and software vs. $200-$300 per user, per year in operating costs to manage and administer the messaging network.

A study by Creative Networks, Inc. indicated messaging support costs, including end-user support, to be:

  $4,189 annual cost per desktop user.
  $5,426 annual cost per mobile user.

A key cost factor is the amount of end-user support required. Companies lose approximately $684 per user annually to downtime, $764 to lost productivity, and $1,198 to lost revenues due to messaging system problems. Problems with E-mail cut productivity in environments where jobs depend on computer-based information. A typical downtime incident takes 6.3 hours of staff time to resolve.

The need for a resident administrator at each major site can significantly increase the cost of managing large-scale messaging systems. In addition to being on call to deal with system failures or changes in configuration, administrators find themselves subject to normal corporate cost-containment efforts. They are called to manage high levels of ongoing expenses in training as well as in development of complex internal procedures for managing the messaging network across different departments and dissimilar platforms. A major business imperative is to improve the reliability of electronic messaging while reducing the costs of maintaining the messaging infrastructure.

Performance

There is no preferred technology from a performance standpoint. Engineering benchmarks are needed to demonstrate the performance of all components and the overall network. Performance bottlenecks must be identified and corrected by the system administrator, but additional tools are desperately needed. Further analysis and modeling of both X.400 and SMTP-based networks is needed. SMTP-based networks carry large volumes of information, but with very limited functionality. X.400-based networks also carry significant traffic loads and provide very reliable service. X.400 can be engineered to deliver reliable and predictable performance. Both technologies suffer in performance when encryption is added. However, there is overhead involved that requires additional bandwidth.

Commercial Use

X.400 is preferred over SMTP/MIME by large organizations needing guaranteed network services. X.400 has gained international acceptance and is used by most European Postal, Telegraph, and Telephone (PTT) services and telecommunication providers throughout the world. The International Civil Aviation Organization standardized on X.400 because of the greater flexibility and enhanced features that are available.

The most effective means of tying messaging systems together still is the old tried-and-true X.400 backbone. Numerous large commercial and government organizations need a robust and reliable messaging network. Vendors of X.400 components have not experienced significant revenues selling X.400 components because there are still too many unresolved issues; namely, lack of management tools and utilities, plus fully developed directory services. Although SMTP/MIME vendors have made significant sales, SMTP/MIME also has the same problems with lack of management tools and directory services.

In forums such as the Electronic Messaging Association, customers repeatedly state they want the benefits and capabilities offered by X.400 messaging. It is this demand that has led to changes in the current SMTP systems to attempt to offer the same functionality provided by X.400.

CONCLUSION

X.400 is a better protocol than SMTP/MIME for building a sophisticated network. The standards definitions are very complete for functionality and most networking requirements. X.400 has numerous security features and guaranteed message delivery and notification. These are extremely important for large, predictable, commercial messaging networks.

SMTP/MIME functionality is missing some important messaging requirements such as delivery notifications, delivery to alternate recipients, and receipt notifications. In fairness, these elements probably could be added, but further work is needed. SMTP grew up in the UNIX environment to provide simple text messaging. Numerous features have been added over time, but the entire process has been an ad hoc development — not the planned architectural development process that the international standards bodies followed with X.400.

In the long run, X.400 and SMTP/MIME are expected to converge on a single set of standards, or at least sufficient development of bridging technology to enable the seamless coexistence of both technologies. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has a special interest group working on coexistence and convergence profiles that will promote coexistence as a step toward convergence. This further effort strengthens the belief that the few functionality differences between X.400 and SMTP/MIME are not critical in choosing between the two.

From a standards perspective, the most critical missing ingredient in providing a robust, reliable network is the lack of management tools and utilities. This is where development attention needs to be focused, rather than on functional differences between the protocols. It does not matter which technology is chosen, nor how robust the individual components are, if the network cannot be managed. Users must be able to easily manage the overall network to provide the type of messaging environment that everyone is striving for.


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