ISPs

Whitepapers with a special relevance to Internet Service Providers (ISPs) together with those of a more general relevance to ISPs.

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Whitepapers for ISPs

Apple's iPhone & Making Mobile Email work well using IMAP
Apple's iPhone has an excellent email client that is an important part of the platform. The iPhone's sophisticated use of IMAP (in contrast to other widely available IMAP clients) is one reason that the email client works so well. This white paper looks at how iPhone uses IMAP to meet mobile messaging requirements, and looks at other IMAP capabilities that could be used to support mobile messaging.
(17th March 2009)

Measuring the False Negative Rate for Isode's M-Switch Anti-Spam
A key feature of any anti-spam solution is how effective it is at removing spam. A perfect anti-spam system would have a zero false positive rate and a zero false negative rate. In practice, this is not usually achieved, and systems will invariably trade off the two measurements. This paper describes how false negatives can be measured and looks at false negative rates for Isode's M-Switch Anti-Spam.
(7th May 2008)

IMAP IDLE: The best approach for 'push' email
The concept of "push email" has been widely marketed as a desirable feature of mobile email services, to enable users to get immediate notification of and access to new messages. This paper looks at various approaches to meeting user requirements, and concludes that the Internet Standard IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) IDLE command is the best way to achieve this service.
(26th June 2006)

Accessing POP servers from mobile devices.
POP (Post Office Protocol) is the most widely used and available Internet Standard protocol for email retrieval. This paper looks at email support for mobile devices , shows the benefits of using IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) over POP and then considers choices for service providers. Use of an IMAP/POP Gateway is considered in detail.
(2nd March 2006)

IETF and OMA architectures for Mobile Email.
The IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) and OMA (Open Mobile Alliance) both have architectures to support mobile email. This white paper looks at the differences between these architectures, and considers technical and commercial implications of the differences. Particular consideration is given to the role of service providers.
(14th Dec 2005)

Benchmarking M-Box - Isode's IMAP/POP Message Store
Isode's new IMAP/POP server, M-Box, was written with very high performance and scalability targets in mind. In order to judge our success in meeting these targets the product has and continues to be tested against a wide basket of commercial and open source alternatives. This whitepaper gives performance numbers for M-Box using the Mstone industry standard benchmark and provides reference comparison with a number of widely used IMAP servers.
(16th Aug 2005)

Open Standards: The best approach for mobile messaging
As demand for efficient mobile messaging continues to grow, that demand is being largely met by messaging systems that rely on proprietary protocols to connect the mobile user's email device over a wireless link, the proprietary Blackberry devices being just one example. Isode believes that an Open Standard approach is better, combining device and service independence to give increased flexibility and lower costs. In this whitepaper we outline how an efficient mobile messaging architecture can be built on existing and emerging standards.
(22nd May 2005)

Isode's IMAP Strategy
IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) is a widely implemented protocol for email clients to access messages on a server, and allows messages to be stored and filed on a message server. Isode will be adding an IMAP Server to its product set to complement our POP Server. This white paper sets out why this is an important part of Isode's messaging strategy, and shows how this will fit as a part of Isode's overall Internet Messaging Solution.
(28th Feb 2005)

Why do ISPs need LDAP?
This white paper looks at why an Internet Service Provider (ISP) or Mobile Provider would want to use LDAP and the benefits to an ISP of holding customer account information in an LDAP Directory.
(3rd Dec 2004)

X.400 Technology for Internet Service Providers
Isode markets its X.400 and Internet messaging solutions as different products. However, Isode's core M-Switch product is the same for both X.400 and Internet deployments, with some modules specific to Internet and X.400 deployments. This white paper looks at features which are present in Isode's products primarily to address X.400 markets, but can add significant value to ISP messaging deployments.
(21st Sept 2004)

Benchmarking SpamAssassin against M-Switch Anti-Spam
Spamassassin is a popular open source product used for dealing with spam. This white paper sets out results of Isode's comparative benchmarking of SpamAssassin and Isode's M-Switch Anti-Spam product.
(31st April 2004)

Comparative Performance: Isode M-Vault vs. OpenLDAP
This white paper describes LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) performance benchmark tests of Isode's M-Vault directory server, and gives comparison benchmarks with OpenLDAP. Tests were performed using the independent DirectoryMark tests, on a small Linux server, with database sizes from 100,000 to 1,000,000 entries.
(16th Oct 2003)

General

SNMP and Isode Servers
This white paper looks at the role of SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) in managing systems using Isode messaging and directory servers. It explains why SNMP support is provided, the sub-agent architecture used by Isode products, and approaches to deploying SNMP monitoring.
(25th May 2007)

Operational Monitoring and Control of Systems using Isode Servers
Isode server products are deployed in a wide variety of situations, and usually there is a high service reliance placed on them. Isode’s approach to server design and management is that the products are building blocks, with maximum use of open standard protocols for interconnection. Management is almost entirely client/server. This combination of building block + client/server means that the approach to operational management needs to be considered as part of the overall system design. This paper explains the approach Isode has taken and the options provided, that can be used to build an operational system.
(1st March 2006)

Boundary Messaging
This white paper describes boundary messaging, which is a key approach to using message switching to provide value added services to an enterprise or ISP.
(26th March 2003)