POLYMERBAZAR: Daily Mail Alert (10/7/2010, Saturday),purchase Opinion & much more
E-Mail Alert System Seminar Report
-
Upload
benjamin-joseph -
Category
Documents
-
view
115 -
download
3
Transcript of E-Mail Alert System Seminar Report
E-mail Alert System Seminar Report ‘03
INTRODUCTION
Today we are witnessing fast changes in telecommunications computer
and telephone ate two technologies that have made significant revolution in
communications, but for technological reasons they were developed separately.
Fast development of communication and computer technology lead to the
merging of the public switched telephone network (PSTN) and the internet to
become global information network of integrated services. Internet services ate
becoming a more important way of information exchange and communication,
turning telephony and mobile telephony toward internet services.
One of the deficiencies of internet services over fixed and mobile
telephony is the availability of service: internet services are available only when
connected. The results of our research carried out before the development of the
e-mail Alert (EMA) System show that internet users receive on average five to
six e-mails every day and 82 percent of these users in the course of their internet
connection check their mail box first. Thus there is a clear demand for the
development of e-mail alerting systems. EMA system is computer telephony
integration (CTI) application that integrates advantages of telephony and the
internet by connecting e-mail and phone services. The EMA system will inform
users of the arrival of new e-mail messages, which is convenient if you don’t
allow e-mail servers access from outside. On the other side are internet or
service providers with a large number of users. To satisfy both groups of
Dept. of EEE MESCE, Kuttippuram1
E-mail Alert System Seminar Report ‘03
requirements, two versions of EMA system are proposed. The enterprise version
is developed in order to allow e-mail server access inside intranet environments,
while the public version is designed for public service providers. The EMA
system is implemented on Win 32 platform using c and c++ programming
languages HTML, ASP, java Script and VB Script are used for the Web interface
to overcome deference in Web browsers.
Dept. of EEE MESCE, Kuttippuram2
E-mail Alert System Seminar Report ‘03
Every day, the citizens of the Internet send each other billions of e-mail
messages. If you are online a lot, you yourself may send a dozen or more e-mails
each day without even thinking about it. Obviously, e-mail has become an
extremely popular communication tool.
An E-mail Message
The first e-mail message was sent in 1971 by an engineer named Ray
Tomlinson. Prior to this, you could only send messages to users on a single
machine. Tomlinson's breakthrough was the ability to send messages to other
machines on the Internet, using the @ sign to designate the receiving machine.
An e-mail message has always been nothing more than a simple text message -- a
piece of text sent to a recipient. In the beginning and even today, e-mail messages
tend to be short pieces of text, although the ability to add attachments now makes
many e-mail messages quite long. Even with attachments, however, e-mail
messages continue to be text messages -- we'll see why when we get to the
section on attachments.
E-mail Clients
You have probably already received several e-mail messages today. To
look at them, you use some sort of e-mail client. Many people use well-known
stand-alone clients like Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora or Pegasus.
Dept. of EEE MESCE, Kuttippuram3
E-mail Alert System Seminar Report ‘03
People who subscribe to free e-mail services like Hotmail or Yahoo use an e-mail
client that appears in a Web page. If you are an AOL customer, you use AOL's e-
mail reader. No matter which type of client you are using, it generally does four
things:
It shows you a list of all of the messages in your mailbox by displaying
the message headers. The header shows you who sent the mail, the
subject of the mail and may also show the time and date of the message
and the message size.
It lets you select a message header and read the body of the e-mail
message.
It lets you create new messages and send them. You type in the e-mail
address of the recipient and the subject for the message, and then type the
body of the message.
Most e-mail clients also let you add attachments to messages you send and
save the attachments from messages you receive.
Sophisticated e-mail clients may have all sorts of bells and whistles, but at
the core, this is all that an e-mail client does.
E-mail Servers
Given that you have an e-mail client on your machine, you are ready to
send and receive e-mail. All that you need is an e-mail server for the client to
connect to. Let's imagine what the simplest possible e-mail server would look
Dept. of EEE MESCE, Kuttippuram4
E-mail Alert System Seminar Report ‘03
like in order to get a basic understanding of the process. There are Web servers,
FTP servers, telnet servers and e-mail servers running on millions of machines on
the Internet right now. These applications run all the time on the server machine
and they listen to specific ports, waiting for people or programs to attach to the
port. The simplest possible e-mail server would work something like this:
It would have a list of e-mail accounts, with one account for each person
who can receive e-mail on the server. My account name might be mbrain,
John Smith's might be jsmith, and so on.
It would have a text file for each account in the list. So the server would
have a text file in its directory named MBRAIN.TXT, another named
JSMITH.TXT, and so on.
If someone wanted to send me a message, the person would compose a
text message ("Marshall, Can we have lunch Monday? John") in an e-mail
client, and indicate that the message should go to mbrain. When the
person presses the Send button, the e-mail client would connect to the e-
mail server and pass to the server the name of the recipient (mbrain), the
name of the sender (jsmith) and the body of the message.
The server would format those pieces of information and append them to
the bottom of the MBRAIN.TXT file. The entry in the file might look like
this:
From: jsmith
To: mbrain
Dept. of EEE MESCE, Kuttippuram5
E-mail Alert System Seminar Report ‘03
Marshall,
Can we have lunch Monday?
John
There are several other pieces of information that the server might save
into the file, like the time and date of receipt and a subject line; but overall, you
can see that this is an extremely simple process.
As other people sent mail to mbrain, the server would simply append
those messages to the bottom of the file in the order that they arrived. The text
file would accumulate a series of five or 10 messages, and eventually I would log
in to read them. When I wanted to look at my e-mail, my e-mail client would
connect to the server machine. In the simplest possible system, it would:
1. Ask the server to send a copy of the MBRAIN.TXT file
2. Ask the server to erase and reset the MBRAIN.TXT file
3. Save the MBRAIN.TXT file on my local machine
4. Parse the file into the separate messages (using the word "From:" as the
separator)
5. Show me all of the message headers in a list
When I double-clicked on a message header, it would find that message in
the text file and show me its body.
Dept. of EEE MESCE, Kuttippuram6
E-mail Alert System Seminar Report ‘03
TELEPHONE SYSTEMS
Nowadays GSM is emerging as the most widely used telephone system.
Global system for mobile communication (GSM) is a globally accepted standard
for digital cellular communication. GSM is the name of a standardization group
established in 1982 to create a common European mobile telephone standard that
would formulate specifications for a pan-European mobile cellular radio system
operating at 900 MHz. It is estimated that many countries outside of Europe will
join the GSM partnership.
Cellular is one of the fastest growing and most demanding
telecommunications applications. Today, it represents a continuously increasing
percentage of all new telephone subscriptions around the world. Currently there
are more than 45 million cellular subscribers worldwide, and nearly 50 percent of
those subscribers are located in the United States. It is forecasted that cellular
systems using a digital technology will become the universal method of
telecommunications. By the year 2005, forecasters predict that there will be more
than 100 million cellular subscribers worldwide. It has even been estimated that
some countries may have more mobile phones than fixed phones by the year
2000 (see Figure 1).
Dept. of EEE MESCE, Kuttippuram7
E-mail Alert System Seminar Report ‘03
Figure 1. Cellular Subscriber Growth Worldwide
The concept of cellular service is the use of low-power transmitters where
frequencies can be reused within a geographic area. The idea of cell-based
mobile radio service was formulated in the United States at Bell Labs in the
early 1970s. However, the Nordic countries were the first to introduce cellular
services for commercial use with the introduction of the Nordic Mobile
Telephone (NMT) in 1981. Cellular systems began in the United States with the
release of the advanced mobile phone service (AMPS) system in 1983. The
AMPS standard was adopted by Asia, Latin America, and Oceanic countries,
creating the largest potential market in the world for cellular. In the early 1980s,
most mobile telephone systems were analog rather than digital, like today's
newer systems. One challenge facing analog systems was the inability to handle
the growing capacity needs in a cost-efficient manner. As a result, digital
technology was welcomed. The advantages of digital systems over analog
systems include ease of signaling, lower levels of interference, integration of
transmission and switching, and increased ability to meet capacity demands.
Dept. of EEE MESCE, Kuttippuram8
E-mail Alert System Seminar Report ‘03
THE GSM NETWORK
GSM provides recommendations, not requirements. The GSM
specifications define the functions and interface requirements in detail but do not
address the hardware. The reason for this is to limit the designers as little as
possible but still to make it possible for the operators to buy equipment from
different suppliers. The GSM network is divided into three major systems: the
switching system (SS), the base station system (BSS), and the operation and
support system (OSS). The basic GSM network elements are shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2. GSM Network Elements
Dept. of EEE MESCE, Kuttippuram9
E-mail Alert System Seminar Report ‘03
Data Communication Functional Elements
Message center (MXE)—The MXE is a node that provides integrated
voice, fax, and data messaging. Specifically, the MXE handles short
message service, cell broadcast, voice mail, fax mail, email, and
notification.
Mobile service node (MSN)—The MSN is the node that handles the
mobile intelligent network (IN) services.
Gateway mobile services switching center (GMSC)—A gateway is a
node used to interconnect two networks. The gateway is often
implemented in an MSC. The MSC is then referred to as the GMSC.
GSM interworking unit (GIWU)—The GIWU consists of both
hardware and software that provides an interface to various networks for
data communications. Through the GIWU, users can alternate between
speech and data during the same call. The GIWU hardware equipment is
physically located at the MSC/VLR.
Dept. of EEE MESCE, Kuttippuram10
E-mail Alert System Seminar Report ‘03
THE EMAIL ALERT SYSTEM
An e-mail service user has to connect to the Internet to check for new
messages without knowing if there are any. That can be frustrating if some
important message is expected. Also, it is not always possible to connect at any
time at any place. The EMA System periodically scans the user’s mailbox on the
mail server when e-mail arrives it activates an announcement machine to inform
the user by sending him an appropriate voice message. The user of internet-
accessible e-mail account on e-mail server that supports the POP3or IMAP4
protocol.
To satisfy different customer needs, the EMA system has two versions:
Enterprise and public (Fig 1). The Enterprise version has been developed for
companies with local intranets. The Enterprise version supports up to 5000
subscribers and 1000 active users in the checking process and uses analog
telephone lies to the private branch exchange (PBX).The public version can serve
up to 50,000 subscribers with up to 5000 active users using E1 integrated
services digital network (ISDN)links to the PSTN exchange.
The EMA system fulfils five requirements:
Registration: In order to use the ENA System function, the user must be
registered first. Registration will be performed once by either the EMA
Dept. of EEE MESCE, Kuttippuram11
E-mail Alert System Seminar Report ‘03
System administrator using the console, or by the user via a Web interface.
The user’s data will be stored in the system database.
Activation: When registered, the user is allowed to activate the EMA system
function over the Web interface. T he user specified up to three mail servers
with corresponding logins and passwords, a list of up to 10 target e-mail
addresses, which the EMA System has to check, and the function activity
period. There is also a choice to make the function inactive (i.e. overnight)
Notification: After activating the EMA System function, user mailboxes are
periodically scanned against new target e-mails. When target e-mail arrives,
an alert call to the user’s phone is initiated. If the user received the call and
accepts it by typing the acceptance code, the alert call is considered
successful. Otherwise, the function will repeat the alert call after a specified
period of time
Deactivation: The EMA System f unction can be deactivated in several
ways: by selecting the deactivation number on the phone during a notification
call specifying a deactivation time on the Web form when activating the
function to passive state on the Web: automatically if the maximum number
of unsuccessful alert call is reached.
Charging: Charging for the EMA system is available in the public version
only .It consists of three parts: a monthly registration fee, a fee proportional to
duration of use of the function, and the price of calls initiated by the function.
Dept. of EEE MESCE, Kuttippuram12
E-mail Alert System Seminar Report ‘03
IMPLEMENTATION
The EMA system consists of seven modules: a controller, console, voice
machine, mail checker, Web interface, Web handler and database.]
Modules are independent and do not necessarily reside on the same host.
Network transparency and differences in data representation are resolved by
middleware (i.e. any technology that facilitates the process of building distributed
applications.) In this case middleware is the component Object Model (COM) or
Distributed (COM). COM underneath its surface uses the remote procedure call
(RPCO mechanism as a core for distributing tasks over a network. Modules
interact through the middleware, regardless of the language used to construct
each part. The controller, mail checker, voice machine and Web handling
modules have been developed by using the C and C+ + programming languages.
The web module is constructed using Java script, ASP, VB Script and HTML.
The controller module communicates with the database through ActiveX Data
Object (ADO) using SQL queries.
The EMA System processes can be divided into three main layers:
presentation, application and data as represented in Microsoft Distribution
Internet applications Architecture (DNA) (Fig.2.). This architecture describes
technologies that provide the complete, integrated; n-tier development model
services developers require building scalable and dependable enterprise level
systems on the platform.
Dept. of EEE MESCE, Kuttippuram13
E-mail Alert System Seminar Report ‘03
The Enterprise version uses Microsoft Access database for data storage
and an analog interface to the PBX. This meets the system’s capacity
requirement for data storage and telephony interface. The Public version’s large
number of users requires a robust database system. For that purpose Microsoft
SQL is used. To support the charging requirement and the large number of users,
an ISDN E1 interface to the telephone exchange had to be used.
Dept. of EEE MESCE, Kuttippuram14
E-mail Alert System Seminar Report ‘03
MODULE INTERCOMMUNICATION
In Fig 3 the module intercommunication is described. Users can register to
become EMA System service users via the When interface or the console. In
order to simplify the module intercommunication in fig .3, the Web server and
Web handler are integrated into one module (Web handler). User data will be
sent to and stored in the database through the Web handler, which will
immediately send e-mail with the user’s personal identification number (PIN) to
the user. When the user gets his \her PIN, he \she can activate the EMA System
service via the Web interface or the console. Request for activation of service
will be sent to the controller, which will pick up user data from the database.
Then the controller will send a request to the mail checker to scan the user
mailbox (or mail boxes). When the mail checker detects next mail, it will send a
message to the controller. From user data the controller will read the user’s
notification phone number and send a request for a user notification to the voice
machine. When the user obtains the message from the voice machine he must
enter his PIN. If the PIN is correctly entered an appropriate voice message is
played. Then the user can decide whether or not to deactivate the service. The
EMA System module description is given below.
Dept. of EEE MESCE, Kuttippuram15
E-mail Alert System Seminar Report ‘03
SYSTEM MODULES
The EMA System consists of seven modules: controller, console and
voice machine, mail checker, Web handler, and Web interface and database.
The controller is the central module in the EMA system. It handles
requests from the Web interface through the database, scans the database for new
users, sends requests to the mail checker to check the user's mailbox and collects
the results from it. If new e-mail is detected, the controller sends the request to
the voice machine to initiate an alert call. The result from the voice machine is
then sent back to the controller. The controller also verifies entire actions ordered
from the administrator's console. As implied, the controller serves as a
middleman in all processing in the EMA System. This serves as a great
framework for managing other processes, security and system robustness.
The console is an administration tool that enables EMA System
administrators to administer the EMA System components. Most actions ordered
from the administrator's consol are also verified and handled by the controller. As
an integral part of the EMA System, the console works as an independent
process. It has methods for local functions and for connections with other
modules via the controller.
It enables EMA System administrators to manage actions related to user
and changing data, activation and deactivation of the EMA System, and
Dept. of EEE MESCE, Kuttippuram16
E-mail Alert System Seminar Report ‘03
controlling the Web handler, mail checker and voice machine modules. The
console allows administrators to perform operations such as.
Starting and stopping the EMA System
Updating the user database: add new user, delete user, view and change
user's data
Charging operation: edit charging user's data' edit statistics of the EMA
System calls for target user, edit charging archive file with all users, print
that charging data, remove old charging data and store them into database.
Viewing and printing log files with all kinds of error and special events
that happened on the EMA System modules.
Viewing system load data.
Parameters: change global application system parameters and
administrator's login and password.
The voice machine connects the EMA System to the telephony network.
The hardware used is integrated to an add-on board with voice processing
capability and an antilog or digital (with ISDNsupport) interface. The multiple
board configurations allow scaling from two to 64analog channels or up to eight
E1ISDN links.
The software part of the voice machine processes requests from the
Dept. of EEE MESCE, Kuttippuram17
E-mail Alert System Seminar Report ‘03
controller and initiates the notifications call on an available channel toward the
service user. The notification call is state machine controlled. The call state
machine controls voice processing, call establishment, call progress and user
keypad input and obtains billing information from the exchange using the
installed board. T he call outcome (successful notification, user busy no answer
etc.) is reported back to the controller. The call state machine design was tested
using Petri nets in the earlier phases of the project to verify the proposed solution
formally, particularly the liveliness property, in order to avoid potential
deadlocks and possible conflict activities.
The mail checker is designed as an unlimited queuing system with a
limited number of connections to mail servers. Currently, it supports up to 20
simultaneous connections to the Internet/intranet, which can be extended to suit
particular operator's needs. The preferred communication Protocol is POP3
because of its larger over the Internet and greater flexibility regarding the mail
checking process.
The Web handler is the interface to the EMA System database (fig.4)
Active Server Pages (ASP) has a server-side script interpreter that enables
running Visual operator's needs The preferred communication protocol is POP3
because of its larger spreading over the Internet and greater flexibility regarding
the mail checking process.
The Web handler is the interface to the EMA System database (Fig.4)
Dept. of EEE MESCE, Kuttippuram18
E-mail Alert System Seminar Report ‘03
Active Server Pages (ASP) has a server-side script interpreter that enables
running Visual Basic scripts on the Web server. This script can make calls to the
Web handler and send t he results out through the Web server to Web browsers.
An ASP script calls the web handier, which communicates with the database
through ADO. The ASP Scrip can then send the data from the database through
the Web server to the web client. Each request from a single web client is entirely
separate from all other requests.
Web application development is based on Microsoft Visual Inter Dev,
ASP and COM working principles, Java Scrip, VB Script and HTML
fundamentals are used.
The Web interface is the interface towards the user of the EMA System.
From the Web interface the user can register, update parameters, change his/her
PIN, be informed about his/her PIN in case he/she forgets it, and send trouble
reports to the EMA System administrator. Updating parameters include:
Activation/deactivation date and time
Pass ice Period (i.e. overnight)
Notification phone number
Up to three user mailboxes to be checked by toe EMA System
Selection criteria on incoming mails (the user can define particular target
mail addresses in which he/she is interested) and additional criteria for
Dept. of EEE MESCE, Kuttippuram19
E-mail Alert System Seminar Report ‘03
deactivation.
The database stores user data obtained during registration or retrieved
using the Web interface. For the Public version of the EMA System, an
additional table is used to store charging data. The database is accessed through
ADO [ruin the controller or Web interfaces (Fig.4). It enables programming
neutrality (different database access using the same code) and ease of use.
Dept. of EEE MESCE, Kuttippuram20
E-mail Alert System Seminar Report ‘03
CONCURRENCY IN THE EMA SYSTEM
As mentioned earlier, the EMA System is developed as a distributed and
concurrent application. Concurrence in the EMA System occurs between
processes and threads. The EMA System also supports simultaneous database
access and hardware parallel ability in the voice machine. (Fig.5)
Multi process concurrence is solved by the operating system .For instance’
the controller, the core process in the EMA System, concurrently handles all
other processes, receives requests from the Web server, initiates database actions,
sends a request to the mail checker to check the user‘s mailbox, and sands the
request to initiate an alert call to the voice machine (fig.3) All actions ordered
from the administrator’s console are also verified and handled by the controller.
The simultaneous database access concurrency problem in the Enterprise
version of the EMA system, is solved by using ADO. It ensures data consistency
when multiple data consistency when multiple data accesses are initiated from
the controller process, Web handler or console client by locking the appropriate
MS Access database record (fig.4). The Microsoft SQL server used in the EMA
System Pubic version ensures transaction consistency by its design.
Multithread concurrence within processes is solved using Win32
synchronization objects and COM. An example is the controller process with
Dept. of EEE MESCE, Kuttippuram21
E-mail Alert System Seminar Report ‘03
four concurrent threads: Central Thread, Job Distribution Thread and Job
Distribution Thread and job completion Threads. Startup is directed by the
console module through COM middleware or through the service administrator.
Similarly, concurrent threads are in the mail checker process. Where these
threads concurrently check emails (fig5)
A problem occurs when two concurrent threads have to be use the same
data. Therefore, Synchronization mechanisms must be used. This means that the
thread locks the data when working on it and no other thread is able to access that
data.
The EMA System has hardware parallel ability on its Dialogic board
controlled voice machine module. This hardware serves as an interface to the
telephone exchange. It consists of separate channels and has the ability to
perform tasks in parallel.
Dept. of EEE MESCE, Kuttippuram22
E-mail Alert System Seminar Report ‘03
BENEFITS OF THE EMA SYSTEM
Specific benefits of EMA, which can be easily incorporated as identified
by us are follows:
Potential for quick improvement in productivity and long -term savings by
simplifying communications and saving time
No longer need separate programs to get e-mail ,voice mail, and faxes.
Access voice mail, e-mail, and fax (headers and cover sheet) via a phone
and forward e-mail or fax to a local printer and \or fax machine in a hotel.
Forward e-mail messages with voice mail or fax attachments.
Embed voice mail in e-mailed, such as in forms, to add clarity or needed
instructions.
Add text comments to voice mil to summarize or take notes.
Save choice mail in files or in a contact manager program with other
related information
Record calls, such as to a help desk and attach them to trouble tickers for
e-mailing g both to an expert.
Add a voice mal "cover sheet" for a fax or e-mail distribution list.
Dept. of EEE MESCE, Kuttippuram23
E-mail Alert System Seminar Report ‘03
Use the internet more for incoming and outgoing voice mail' fax and save
local trunk costs
Fiter, prioritize, archive and forward all messages just like e-mail
Dept. of EEE MESCE, Kuttippuram24
E-mail Alert System Seminar Report ‘03
CONCLUSION
The EMA system is a typical example of service for the future telecom
world where today’s separate networks, the PSTN and data network, will
coverage It successfully integrates telephony and internet e-mail service. The
EMA system server user can be informed about the arrival of new e-mail over the
phone without connecting to the internet. To satisfy different customer needs, the
EMA system is offered in two versions: public and Enter prise. The
implementation problems solved were integration of computer and telephony,
synchronization requirements.
The implementation of new services is planned for the future, such as
reading e-mail over the phone, possibly replaying received e-mail , connection to
different pager systems and sending short Message service (SMS) messages to a
GSM telephone.
Dept. of EEE MESCE, Kuttippuram25
E-mail Alert System Seminar Report ‘03
REFERENCES
IEEE communication magazine feb 2002
PC Quest - Dec 2000
http://fold oc .doc.ic.ac.uk//
Dept. of EEE MESCE, Kuttippuram26
E-mail Alert System Seminar Report ‘03
ABSTRACT
The integration of Internet services and telephony services is a new area
for the development of telecommunications services. One example is an e-mail
alerting service that uses the telephony network for e-mail notification. The EMA
system is a computer telephony integration (CTI) application that checks a user’s
mailbox on the mail server and informs him/her over the phone when new e-mail
arrives, elimination the need for permanent Internet connection. The EMA
system has a we-based interface, enabling the user to configure service
parameters. The EMA system is developed as a distributed and concurrent
application. It consists of seven modules: the console, web interface, web
handler, controller, voice machine, database and mail checker using
communications solutions based on COM technology. The structure of the EMA
system, its implementation and advantages for users are described in detail in this
seminar.
Dept. of EEE MESCE, Kuttippuram27
E-mail Alert System Seminar Report ‘03
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
TELEPHONE SYSTEMS
THE GSM NETWORK
THE EMAIL ALERT SYSTEM
IMPLEMENTATION
MODULE INTERCOMMUNICATION
SYSTEM MODULES
CONCURRENCY IN THE EMA SYSTEM
BENEFITS OF THE EMA SYSTEM
CONCLUSION
REFERENCES
Dept. of EEE MESCE, Kuttippuram28
E-mail Alert System Seminar Report ‘03
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I express my sincere gratitude to Dr. P.M.S Nambissan, Prof. &
Head, Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, MES College of
Engineering, Kuttippuram, for his cooperation and encouragement.
I would also like to thank my seminar guide Mrs. Sheeba Paulose.
(Lecturer, Department of EEE), Asst. Prof. Gylson Thomas. (Staff in-charge,
Department of EEE) for their invaluable advice and wholehearted cooperation
without which this seminar would not have seen the light of day.
Gracious gratitude to all the faculty of the department of EEE &
friends for their valuable advice and encouragement.
Dept. of EEE MESCE, Kuttippuram29