Components

 

The institutional electronic mail service is composed of several systems and components, from the service providers perspective. These are:

1. the client
2. the local electronic mail administrator
3. the electronic mail service agent, composed of:
   • a mail user agent (MUA)
   • a directory user agent (DUA)
4. the administrative service agent
5. the technical infrastructure, composed of
   • the electronic mail server subsystem (also know as the ``postoffice'' or ``mail store'')
   • the mail transport subsystem,
   • the address translation subsystem,
   • the directory service subsystem.
   • the administrative server subsystem
6. the administrative infrastructure, to provide the following administrative functions:
   • operations
   • administration
   • maintenance
   • provisioning

From the client's perspective, there are only a few components:

1. the service agent, composed of:
   • a mail user agent (MUA)
   • a directory user agent (DUA)
2. the local electronic mail administrator

From the local electronic mail administrator's perspective, the components are:

1. the administrative service agent
2. the client(s)
3. the support contact within the service provider

An brief overview of the components appears in figure . A more detailed view of the technical components appears in figure .