With the world moving in fifth gear and everything around converted into a rat race one hardly has any time to spare. Multitasking seems to be the order of the day. The SMTP mail server is the perfect example. The tremendous speed and efficiency with which it works is amazing, and when one actually gets to know the intricate process of mail sending it becomes even more evident. The SMTP mail server software enables it to enhance the speed, that is to say that the quality of the server software and the quality of the performance delivered by the server are directly proportional.

The function of the SMTP mail server is to deliver the mail, from the user's server to the recipient's server rapidly, proficiently and also reliably. This it does in a certain order of action. The initial or primary step that it begins with, is to connect the user's mail server to the recipient's mail server. This the SMTP mail server does by first locating the name of the domain. The domain name is nothing but the information that comes after the "@" symbol. The second step is then followed. This step involves setting up a link between the recipient's and the user's server. The mail then gets delivered. In case it does not get delivered, a message intimating the failure of delivery is send to the receiver. There are many such activities done in the back stage that lead to the result visible to one.

The SMTP mail server performance depends on the software that is the SMTP mail server software.

The conventional SMTP servers have been rendered literally obsolete by the ISP blocks. ISP stands for Internet service provider. However the new breed of mail servers have solved this problem as well. There are many SMTP mail server softwares in the market however only a few are widely accepted due to the superior quality of their service.

The SMTP mail server can also deliver the mails directly to the mailbox of the recipient. They can easily work with all the different kinds of mail clients. These mail clients are namely, Kmail, Pegasus, Mail Bomber, FoxMail, Delta Mail, DevMail, IncrediMail, Eudora, the Bat!, Mutt and Outlook Express. There are more to the list of mail clients that the SMTP mail server can operate with.

The new breed of SMTP mail server that possess high delivering ability have a few features. These features are live updates, authentication, virtual routing and differentiated sending. This features obviously need elaboration for one to understand them better. The first feature relates to keeping the system updated with recommended domain throttling configurations and bounce filter definitions. This updating also include ever-changing domain policies. The second deals with standards that authenticate are SPF and Domain-Keys as well as sender ID. They help in improving the performance. Third deals in categorizing different types of mail in order to reduce the ISP blocking. Finally the last feature concerns optimizing and adjusting speed, timeouts, connections and

routing options of each domain, as per the policies and preferences of the ISP. The SMTP mail server therefore, in short, takes the entire onus of the mail sending process.