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22
Electronic Mail, Znternet and
Electronic Message Services
The ability to connect two computers together and, with relative ease, to send information from
one to the other,
is
bringing
a
revolution in the way in which business and life as
a
whole is
conducted. Today
it
is
possible
to
run your bank account from home, book your holiday, send
electronic messages to your work colleagues or friends, and
look up
to
see
what is on at the
theatre in London or New York City. Alternatively companies may make their orders to and pay
their bills from their suppliers
by
computer program and ‘electronic data interchange’. A number
of technologies have enabled this revolution: videotext, electronic mail, electronic data
interchange
(EDI)
and Internet.
We
review the telecommunication aspects of these technologies
in this chapter.
22.1
VIDEOTEXT
Videotext was the first type of device specially designed to allow telephone network
customers to use a cheap device to access information from a large public database. The
original technology and standards, including special terminals and modem techniques
allowing asymmetric transmission (a high bitrate channel for information download to
the customer with a low speed control channel for his ordering of different
pages
of
information) have now been overtaken by modern personal computer based technology,
but the appearance of the worldwide
Internet
has stimulated recent rapid growth for
the long established videotext service providers (British Telecom’s Prestel, Deutsche
Telekom’s
Bildschirmtext, BtX
or
Datex-J,
and France Telecom’s
Minitel).
The idea
of
videotext is that, using a low cost terminal in the form of a small tele-
vision, a customer can make a phonecall to a public central database, where he could
access all sorts of pages
of
information which he could then have displayed on his
screen. Thus, for example, he might access tomorrow’s weather forecast, current flight
arrival information, information about financial markets, about holiday offers, about
dating services or, via an extended connection to the railway company or his bank,
might even order
a
train ticket or pay his bills.
399
Networks and Telecommunications: Design and Operation, Second Edition.
Martin P. Clark
Copyright © 1991, 1997 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
ISBNs: 0-471-97346-7 (Hardback); 0-470-84158-3 (Electronic)
400
ELECTRONIC MAIL, INTERNET AND ELECTRONIC MESSAGE SERVICES
Videotext in its original form in the United Kingdom (as
Prestel)
was quickly
accepted by the travel industry, which used it widely as a means for holiday companies
to advise travel agents of available itineraries and to book tickets on behalf of clients.
It came at a time of revolutionary computerization of the airline industry in particular,
when simultaneously the airlines were cooperating to establish and operate common
and inter-linked computer ticket and booking systems.
In France, videotext became the standard method for telephone directory enquiries.
The
Minitel
terminals were given away free by France Telecom. They justified doing
this initially by the cost savings brought about by fewer telephone enquiries to human
operators, but nowadays they also make money from the telephone calls which cus-
tomers are making to the other information services which have subsequently sprung
up. Some services, including the
pink pages
of dating services, are world renowned.
In Germany, the Deutsche Telekom’s (formerly Deutsche Bundespost’s)
T-Online
service (the new name for the modern version
of
Bildschirmtext, Btx
or
Datex-J)
had
been a commercial non-runner for years. Suddenly, however, during
1995
demand for
connections started to increase rapidly. The reason was the cheap availability of access
to the
Internet
using standard personal computers. It is the
Internet
which has become
the world’s electronic noticeboard. We discuss it later in this chapter.
22.2
ELECTRONIC MAIL (E-MAIL)
Electronic mail
(e-mail)
is a reliable means of message communication between human
users equipped with computer terminals or personal computers. Large tracts of text, and
diagrams too, can be quickly delivered across great geographical distances, and if
necessary printed to a high quality paper format using local computer printing resources.
To send an
e-mail,
a user simply calls up the electronic mail software on his terminal.
This prompts him for the name of the user that he wishes to send his message to, and
for the names of any individuals to whom the message is to be copied. Having filled in
this information, it prompts him to type the main text of the message. If he wishes, the
sender can add further electronic attachments (say a document previously created using
his
word processor,
his
spreadsheet
program or
presentation
software).
Once the
e-mail
is ready for sending, the sender simply clicks his mouse on the ‘send’
button. At this point, he may be asked to set a priority rating for the message, to decide
whether confirmation of receipt is required, and (optionally) to set an exact time and
date for delivery (if not to be immediate; this feature can be used as a reminder
function, for example by sending time-delayed messages to himself). The delivery into
the electronic mailboxes of the intended recipients is almost immediate.
Should any of the recipients be at their computer terminals at the time of the message
receipt in their mailbox, then they may be advised of its arrival (say by a beeping noise
and a short message or
icon
displayed at the bottom of their computer screen). They
have the option to read the message immediately or later, depending on how they
regard its priority. Those recipients who are not concurrently using their terminals will
be advised of the message next time they log on. As messages are read, confirmation is
returned to the sender (if required). Each recipient has the choice to reply to the
message, forward it, file it, print it out, amend it or delete it.
ELECTRONIC MAIL (E-MAIL)
401
Electronic mail systems are usually constructed in a
clientlserver
configuration. The
client
is the human user and his personal computer, workstation or other computer
terminal. The
client
prepares and reads electronic messages. The client software
prepares the
e-mail
for
submission
to the
server
or
post ojice.
The
post ojice
has a
distribution function for
electronic mail
similar to the function of the postal service for
letter mail (Figure 22.1).
The client software for electronic mail usually runs on a personal computer, and
normally has software interfaces to other PC software such as word processing software,
spreadsheet software and presentation software,
so
enabling easy attachment of such
software to e-mail messages. Thus, for example the Microsoft Office package of software
includes Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Microsoft Mail software. Together
these allow a personal computer user to prepare various types of different text,
spreadsheet and presentation documents and submit them to an electronic mail post
office as e-mail messages.
The post office function which forms the core of electronic mail usually resides on a
server, often nowadays connected to the individual PCs by means of a
LAN
(local area
network), though other types
of
X.25 packet network or dial-up connection are also
possible. The post office is a combination of software and hardware, capable of storing
e-mail messages, sorting them and transmitting them. The post office function works
both on a store-and-forward and store-and-retrieve fashion. At the sending end, the
user submits his message to the post office (post office
A of Figure 22.1). This post
office temporarily stores the entire message while it examines the address of the
intended destination and establishes a communication means to the post office (post
office
B)
serving the destination user. The communication means may take any number
of different
forms
(X.25, telephone connection, internet connection etc.). Once the
lower layer connection is established between origin and destination post office, or
between origin post office and intermediate (transit) post office, the higher layer
protocol (i.e.
OS1
layer
7
protocol for electronic mail (e.g. ITU-T
X.400,
SMTP or
equivalent)) takes over, to ensure the appropriate relay of the entire message to the next
post office. In each post office along the way, the message is stored and forwarded in
this way.
402
ELECTRONIC MAIL, INTERNET AND ELECTRONIC MESSAGE SERVICES
Finally, at the destination post office, the message is stored in the electronic mailbox
of the destination user until that user retrieves it. This is done when he logs into his own
electronic mailbox account to read or send messages.
ITU-T, in its X.400-series of recommendations, specifies a message handling system
(MHS)
for use as an
OS1
layer
7
protocol in support of electronic mail. This is described
in detail in Chapter 23.
MHS defines
P1
and P3-interfaces for relay and submission/
delivery respectively. In reality, however, the P1-interface has proved to be the more
important of these two, since this is the interface which allows electronic mail servers
(post offices) to inter-communicate with one another. Thus the electronic mail systems
of different companies, and maybe supplied by different software manufacturers are
able to transfer e-mails between themselves. This is the X.400-interface talked of by
electronic mail software suppliers. The P3-interface is only needed when a remote
electronic mail user (client) wishes to submit or receive electronic mail messages directly
from a post office operated by
a
public X.400-based electronic mail service provider.
As,
however, most electronic mail systems and post offices are based on corporately
operated sytems, it is usual for client and post o@ce (server) software to be provided by
the same supplier (e.g. Microsoft mail or Ccmail). In this case, it is not necessary for
the software manufacturer to use the P3-interface, and instead a proprietary interface is
employed.
An alternative to the use of the X.400 interfaces for inter-post-office interfaces is the use
of the Internet. The Internet interface looks likely to become the predominant interface.
E-
mail based on the Internet is already firmly established in North America, and is fast
supplanting X.400 where this already exists (mainly in Europe).
In addition to the X.400 and Internet-based electronic mail systems, a number of
other proprietary systems have emerged. One of the first was introduced by Compu-
serve, one of the world market leaders in on-line services. Compuserve created the
capability for companies and private individuals, from their personal computers, to
access database information and send messages between one another. Its success has
been largely based on being the first company to establish
a
worldwide user group for
electronic communication. Currently it appears to be re-positioning to encompass
Internet technology. Microsoft, on the other hand, has chosen to build a Microsoft
mail capability into its Windows95 operating system software for personal computers.
This client capability can be used either in conjunction with a corporate
post
ofice, or
alternatively, may use the Microsoft Network (MSN), a public post o@ce network
operated worldwide by Microsoft Corporation. The initiative lays down a tough
challenge for other
X.400-
and Internet-based electronic mail service providers.
22.3
ADDRESSING SCHEMES
FOR
ELECTRONIC MAIL
Three main types of addressing scheme are used nowadays for electronic mail. These are
e
proprietary addressing schemes
e
Internet-based electronic mail addresses
e
X.500
addresses (for the X.400 message handling system)
THE ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES
OF
E-MAIL
403
Proprietary addressing schemes are normally employed within a corporation’s electronic
mail environment. The form of these addresses is often determined by the corporation
itself, within the bounds set by the software product on which the system is based.
Internet-based electronic mail addresses (correctly SMTP addresses) usually take a
numerical form, punctuated with dashes
(-),
dots
(.)
and
@
signs (e.g. 12345.67890
@compuserve.com). More commonly nowadays, an
alias
address appears on business-
men’s visiting cards, e.g.
Martin.Clark@serviceprovider.corporation. This form allows
for easy recognition and memory of the address.
X.500
addresses are less common, but form the basis of the ITU and IS0
directory
service
and are used in X.400 electronic mail networks. We describe the
X.500
address-
ing scheme in Chapter 28.
22.4 THE ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES
OF
E-MAIL
E-mail
messages are delivered quickly. Broadcasting of messages is also quickly and
easily achieved. Editing of text and returning or forwarding the amended version can be
achieved with minimal re-typing. Messages can be filed and quickly retrieved later.
Messages can be posted for exactly timed delivery, and can be prioritized according
to the urgency with which they need to be dealt with. Furthermore, users are able to
check their electronic mailboxes even when they are away from their normal offices,
either by using somebody else’s terminal or perhaps by dialling in to the post office
using a portable
laptop
computer from a hotel room.
The
Internet,
in particular, has done a lot to release the full power of electronic mail,
by enabling a large worldwide community
of
computer users to inter-communicate elec-
tronically, thus destroying the previous communication boundaries between companies
and overcoming all the barriers of geography and time zones.
Companies who have successfully introduced electronic mail have observed a
beneficial change in the whole culture of how they do business. Questions and responses
have been much quicker and more direct, messages have been much shorter and less
formal; they have been typed by the managers rather than by their secretaries.
Workgroups composed of members in widespread locations have evolved, and it is
possible to draw together new teams for previously impossible tasks.
22.5
EDI: CORPORATE COMMUNICATION WITH CUSTOMERS
AND SUPPLIERS VIA E-MAIL
Where electronic mail is used as the basis of formal communications between
companies for orders, payments and confirmations, it is termed instead
electronic data
interchange (EDZ).
EDI
between companies has become an important way of doing
business. Many manufacturers and retailers demand that their suppliers accept orders
for goods electronically. This gives the scope for more frequent ordering (in the case of
supermarkets, for example, daily based on yesterday’s sales) and
so
maintain their shelf
stocks (and value of stocks) at a minimum level. This is
just-in-time
(JZT)
provision.
404
ELECTRONIC MAIL, INTERNET AND ELECTRONIC MESSAGE SERVICES
Not only the buyer benefits, but also the supplier can ensure that products on the
shelves with his name on are fresher and closer to their best. Even more important for
the supplier,
EDI
allows him to bill for the goods more quickly.
The most important of standards defining the format and content of messages for
elec-
tronic data interchange
(EDI)
are those published by the United Nations as
EDIFACT
(electronic data interchange for administration, commerce and transport),
but there also
are a number of regional, national and industry-specific standards (e.g.
Odette
used by
the automobile industry).
EDI
products are available in ready-packaged software solutions for integration into
a company’s existing computer and electronic mail set-up. Specialized service providers
have also appeared in several countries concentrating on the communication needs of
companies within a specific industry segment. In this way, a
community
of
interest
may
be established for communication between customers and suppliers (for example,
within the retailing industry or the car manufacturing industry).
Setting up a network and software for
EDI
is actually quite straightforward. What is
much harder, and what the company therefore needs to be prepared for, is the adjust-
ment
of
its culture and practices
to
an entirely new way of business, one requiring much
quicker reaction to customer demands.
22.6 INTERNET
The
Internet
emerged from a United States government and military initiative to enable
the interconnection of different, mainly UNIX-based computer systems for intercom-
munication.
As
UNIX was proclaimed to be the first ‘portable’ operating system for
computers, enabling software developed on a particular manufacturer’s computer
hardware to be easily
ported
(i.e. transferred for operation) to another manufacturer’s
hardware, it was natural also to develop means for easy transfer of data between
systems. This led to
TCPjlP
(transport control protocollinternet protocol).
TCP/IP was quickly adopted by the academic community in the United States, and
soon afterwards by academics worldwide, because it allowed for rapid sharing
of
scientific information and the electronic mail communication necessary for its rapid
discussion and analysis, both within and between university campuses.
A
worldwide
community of inter-linked computers rapidly emerged. Finally, as businesses recognized
the potential of the Internet as a large interconnected group of
electronic mail users
and
noticeboard readers,
they began to exploit it for communication and marketing
purposes. Though the
Internet
does not have the rigid structure, network management
and security controls of other public telecommunication network services, it has a very
persuasive appeal; there are already plenty of people to communicate with. This has
driven the explosive growth in numbers of registered
Internet
users and
pages
of
information.
In its original form, the
Internet
and the
internet protocol
(IP)
provided a means for
interconnecting computer
servers
(typically
UNIX
computers) together. The internet
addressing scheme allowed individual workstations, personal computers or software
applications running on either the server
or
on any of the workstations to direct and send
information to other applications on other servers or distant
LANs.
Being a unique
TCP/IP PROTOCOL STACK
405
address, the
Internet
address allowed an end user to be identified, no matter how many
transit servers, routers or networks would have to be traversed along the way (Figure
22.2).
The single
network address
of the destination port in the destination network does
not suffice, because the intermediate networks are unable to recognize this address.
A suite
of
new protocols arrived with
Internet.
Among others, these included
SMTP
(simple mail transport protocol), TFTP (trivial $le transfer protocol)
and
FTP ($le
transfer protocol),
which together form the basis of the Internet
electronic mail
service.
As the popularity
of
Internet
has grown,
so
have the number of
servers
and
routers
making up the network. New
Internet
service providers have provided for dial-up
access to the servers from private individuals using their PCs at home, and new
information providers have provided more
Internet pages
of information. The
Netscape
browser,
a computer software allowing users to ‘surf the
Internet
and
World Wide Web
(WWW),
by seeking information from any of the connected
servers
by means
of
a
menu-driven screen software which drives
a
hypertext
search and
browse
capability.
However, the reason for the rapid growth of the
Internet
also provides
a
major
challenge for the next stage of its development. The factor enabling rapid growth was
the possibility to add further servers and routers to the network at almost any point
in the network without considering a master plan. The number of Connected devices
could therefore rapidly increase, as the routers (Chapter
19)
are always able to find the
desired destination somehow. The problem is the lack of control (and even lack of
knowledge) of the path taken. The traffic
flo&
in the network as a whole are therefore
largely unmanaged and unmanageable. The only solution to slow response or
congestion can be to add more capacity. Whether this capacity is added at the most
appropriate point is a matter of chance.
Messages within the
Internet
may go undelivered without trace for any number
of
reasons, and there is
no
record
of
whether electronic copies
of
information have been
retained by any of the intermediate parties. Much attention is currently being focussed
by the computer industry on solving the security and network management difficulties
of the
Internet,
to stimulate a further surge in demand.
22.7
TCP/IP PROTOCOL STACK
Figure 22.3 illustrates the various protocols going to make up the
TCPIIP stack.
At the
heart are the
Internet protocol (IP),
which is equivalent to an OS1 layer
3
network
406
ELECTRONIC MAIL, INTERNET AND ELECTRONIC MESSAGE SERVICES
OS1 layer
7
(Network (Remote (Trivial
file
(Simple
(Simple
(File
windows
NFS RPC TFTP SNMP
SMTP FTP
TELNET
x-
6
transfer mail
UDP
TCP
4
ent
protocol
5
file server)
procedure
transfer
network
3
ARP ICMP RARP
Gateway protocols
IP
BGP EGP
2
SNAP SLIP (PPP)
protocol)
call) protocol)
managem
transfer
protocol)
LLC (e.g. Ethernet
LAN)
Serial line Frame Relay etc.
1
physical network
I
ARP
=
BGP
=
EGP
=
ICMP
=
IP
=
LLC
=
PPP
=
RARP
=
SLIP
=
TCP
=
UDP
=
Address resolution protocol
Border gateway protocol
Edge gateway protocol
Internet control message protocol
lnternet protocol
Logical link control (for
LANs)
Point-to-point protocol
Reverse address resolution protocol
Serial line internet protocol
Transmission control protocol
User datagram protocol
Figure
22.3
TCP/IP
protocol stack and associated applications
protocol, and the
transport control protocol
(TCP) an approximate equivalent of
OS1
layer
4.
Also very important for some common multivendor computer-networked
applications is the
UDP
(user datagram protocol).
The
Internet protocol
is a network layer-like protocol, typically running across an
ethernet LAN or between LANs via a
router
network (say comprising inter-router con-
nections running on frame relay). The benefit, however, of
IP
over
OS1
layer
3
protocols
is that
Internet addresses
are widely used in, and are unique across, all computer
networks worldwide. This gives the potential for a software application or a user
connected anywhere in the world to the
Internet
to access any other computer or
software application.
The
transport control protocol
(TCP)
is usually used in conjunction with IP and
ICMP
(internet control message protocol)
to guarantee
reliable
transmission. On an
end-to-end basis, TCP ensures correct sequencing of arriving frames
of
data, and
requests retransmissions when necessary. ICMP is an addition to the basic
IP allowing
network problems to be reported back to a communicating device. Thus ICMP is able
to report the inability to deliver a message and the cause, or the need for
fragmentation.
An
alternative to TCP
is
UDP
(user datagram protocol),
a simpler protocol which does
not perform retransmissions. Instead this job is left to the
application
if necessary.
The
address resolution protocol
(ARP)
is used in association with the IP to translate
IP addresses into physical hardware addresses. Thus, for example, ARP is capable of
determining the appropriate ethernet LAN address (LLC). This address corresponds to
COMMON APPLICATIONS USING TCP/IP
407
a given IP address. RARP performs the reverse function. When, for example, a diskless
computer workstation boots, it obtains its hardware address from the network interface
card to which it is attached. It does not, however, know its IP address, this is
resolved
by RARP.
The
gateway protocols (BGP, border gateway protocol
and
EGP, exterior gateway
protocol)
are used to connect together different sub-networks of the Internet. They
provide for inter-network routing information and communication exchange.
SNAP
(sub network access protocol)
is an extended version of the LAN
logical link
control
(Chapter
19)
which enables the
internet protocol
(IP)
to be carried over LANs.
SLIP (serial line internet protocol)
or its successor,
PPP
(point-to-point protocol)
are
equivalent to
OS1
layer
2
protocols. They enable transport of IP packets across a simple
serial communications line (such as a telephone connection or leaseline). The protocol
does not include an address field. The main function is simply to ensure the delineation
of packets.
Other well known
routing protocols
of the TCP/IP suite (e.g. RIP, OSPF) are
discussed in Chapter
28.
22.8
COMMON
APPLICATIONS
USING
TCP/IP
A number of the most common applications used in association with TCP/IP are also
shown in Figure
22.3.
These are
X-windows
TELNET
FTP (file transfer protocol)
SMTP (simple mail transfer protocol)
SNMP (simple network management protocol)
TFTP (trivial file transfer protocol)
RPC (remote procedure call)
NFS
(network file server)
We discuss each of these briefly in turn.
X-
windows
This is a windows-based computer operating system intended to allow computer
workstation users anywhere within a network of computers supplied by
multiple
vendors
to access software applications running on remote hardware platforms.
TELNET
This is a simple TCP/IP-related application that enables a remote log-on from one com-
puter to an application running on another; if you like, a simple version of X-windows.
Thus a user of of personal computer using
Windows95
software has the option to
408 ELECTRONIC MAIL, INTERNET AND ELECTRONIC MESSAGE SERVICES
commence
a
TELNET
log-on, enabling him to conduct a
session
on a remote
UNIX
computer server. It is the simplest form of TCP/IP connection. As such, it is worth
mentioning at this point the widely used
PING
(Packet Internet Groper) technique for
confirming the availability of a IP connection.
A
PING
is an IP-message that contains
the address of its source and the destination. On receipt by the destination terminal a
confirmatory
PING
is returned. The procedure confirms not only that the network
connection is available but also that the destination device is ‘alive’.
FTP (file transfer protocol)
This is a simple but efficient protocol to transfer data files from one computer to
another. Although nowadays it is also possible to include data files (e.g. Microsoft word
data or Microsoft Powerpoint presentation) as an attachment to an e-mail message, this
can be a very slow and cumbersome means of transferring large files. Drawing files from
a remote computer can be effected much more quickly using a remote log-on and then
the FTP.
SMTP (simple mail transfer protocol)
SMTP has become the basis
of
the now world-renowned
Internet electronic mail
system
(with the addresses that run
president@whitehouse.gov).
It provides for transfer of
mail messages between mail servers running on the
Internet.
SNMP (simple network management protocol)
SNMP has become the
de facto
standard method of transporting network management
information around computer and router networks. We discuss it in a little more depth
in Chapter
27.
TFTP (trivialJile transfer protocol)
This is intended to be a simple protocol, and it is particularly well suited for the
downloading of software to and initiation of a remote device.
RPC (remote procedure call)
This provides for a software routine or other application to be called and executed on a
remote computer or server.
NFS (networkJile server)
This application makes files on remote servers and other computers appear to reside on
the local user’s workstation. It enables him to read and process the data as
if
it were
residing in his own machine.
22.9
THE INTERNET PROTOCOL
(IP)
Figure 22.4 illustrates the fields comprised in an IP frame (or
datagram).
The
version
indicates the format of the IP
header,
specifically which version of the protocol is in use.
(For example, the 1993 version was version 4). The
internet header length (ZHL)
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