COMMUNICATION OF ELECTRONIC MESSAGES IN A BROAD AREA NETWORKTECHNICAL FIELDThis invention relates to a method and an apparatus for providing electronic communications.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTIONSending messages can be defined as delayed communication or communication in which the origin of the communication occurs asynchronously from its reception. For example, letters and public notices are a traditional form of message communication. Message communication also includes traditional forms of advertising, whether based on text / images (for example, books and newspapers), based on audio (for example, tapes and CDs) or audio / visually based (for example, movies). ). Other forms of message communication include voice mail, including multi-user systems and answering machines and electronic counterparts for traditional message communications, for example, telegrams, cablegrams, faxes, telex, email, computer-based conferences, asynchronous, (that is, bulletin board) and electronic publications. Because message communication is a communication over time, communication of messages requires storage of the content of the message. The way in which the message is stored can be used to distinguish the types of messages. The "store and send" messages is a type of electronic message communication system. In the communication of store and send messages, a message is transmitted from its sender to its receiver through at least one "message transfer agent" (MTA). The message can be transmitted through as many successive MTAs as are necessary for the message to reach its final destination. Each MTA independently chooses the next MTA to which to send the message, based on information carried along with the message, such as its intended recipient, along with information maintained by the MTA, such as shipping tables. If a message is addressed to more than one recipient, an MTA can multicast the message by sending copies of the message to the separate MTAs for delivery to each intended recipient. When the message reaches an MTA that has direct access to the receiver's mailbox, the message is deposited in the storage of the local area network (LAN) associated with the recipient's mailbox. The LAN storage associated with the recipient's mailbox is formed of message stores to store messages deposited therein. During the message transmission process, each MTA temporarily stores the message, until the message is transferred to another MTA or deposited in the LAN storage associated with the recipient's mailbox. In this way, the MTAs constitute a succession of storage locations and the message is sent from the MTA to the MTA until it finally reaches the recipient's mailbox. With reference to Figure 1, the general structure of the storage and sending of the message is shown as it applies to a LAN message sending and a wide area network (AN) message sending. With respect to the sending of LAN messages, a message may be sent from a sender to a sending station 1 to a receiver at a receiving station 2 via a LAN 3. The message is transmitted from sending station 2 through an MTA 6 on the LAN 3. The MTA 6 has a message store 12, which temporarily stores the message up to the MTA, which acts on the information carried along with the message, sends the message. Because the MTA 6 has direct access to the mailbox 4 of the receiver, the MTA 6 deposits the message in the LAN 3 store associated with the mailbox 4 of the receiver. Then the receiver can access the message in his mailbox 4 from the receiving station 2.
With respect to the sending of WAN messages, a number of LAN systems may be connected together (not shown) or the LAN systems may be connected through an intermediate WAN (shown in Figure 1) to allow the sending of messages on the WAN . As shown in Figure 1, a message may be sent from the sender to station 1 sending to a receiver at a receiving station 11 via MTA 6 on LAN 3, MTA 7, 8 and 9 on a WAN 17 and an MTA 10 on a LAN 5 MTAs 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 have stores 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16 for the messages, respectively, which store the message temporarily until the MTA, which acts on the information carried along with the message, send the message The message is transmitted from station 1 sending to MTA 6 on LAN 3. MTA 6 sends the message to MTA 7 on WAN 17. MTA 7 in turn sends the message to MTA 8 on WAN 17 and MTA 8 in turn sends the message to MTA 9 on the WAN 17. The MTA 9 sends the message to MTA 10 on LAN 5. The MTA 10 has direct access to the mailbox 18 of the receiver and deposits the message in the associated LAN 5 storage with mailbox 18 of the receiver. The receiver can access the message in his mailbox 18 from the receiving station 11. Because the storage and delivery message is a specific application that spans a network, it has limitations. For example, the costs involved are shared among the users of the warehouse and shipping message delivery application. In addition, the scope of the message is limited to the users of that application. Finally, various message formats and conversion from one format to another do not easily adapt them.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTIONThe above problems are solved according to the principles of the invention, providing a method and an apparatus for sending messages on the WAN, using WAN storage and signaling capabilities. The invention generally includes three aspects: origin of the message, storage of the message and reception of the message. The origin of the message includes the deposit of the sender of a message in at least one message store in the WAN, identification of the address of the intended recipients and notification of each of the intended recipients of the availability and address of the message in the WAN The storage of the message refers to the storage characteristics in the WAN. The stored message stores and stored messages have a logical identity in the WAN independent of their physical realization in such a way that uniform access capability is provided throughout the WAN. The reception of the message refers to the processing of the message, it is provided by "virtual mailboxes" that reside in the storage elements in the WAN. The receiver's virtual mailbox does not contain its messages. On the contrary, it serves as an aggregation and storage point for signaling information that notifies the recipient of the availability and direction of their messages in the WAN. The receiver's station uses data signaling to alert the receiver of the existence of its messages and to retrieve messages in the receiver's address.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGSFigure 1 is a block diagram showing the structure of storing and sending messages. Figure 2 is a block diagram showing the structure of an embodiment of the invention. Figure 3 is a flow diagram illustrating the processing of the messages according to one embodiment of the invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTIONWith reference to Figure 2, the structure of an embodiment of the invention is shown. The sending station 20 is connected to a LAN 21, which is connected to a WAN 24 and the receiving station 23 is connected to a LAN 22, which is connected to the WAN 24. The LAN 21 and the LAN 22 do not require storage messages, because the WAN 24 includes message stores, in such a way that the message stores 25, 26 and 27 for the storage of the messages. The WAN 24 also includes virtual mailboxes, such as the receiver's virtual mailbox 28, to store information regarding the availability and address of the recipient's messages. To place a message in the message stores in the WAN, the sender in a sending station assigns the WAN store by selecting at least one message store from those that reside in the storage elements integrated in the WAN and fills that store of message with the contents of the message. The location of the store of a message can be chosen by the sending station. For example, if all messages for a given receiver are stored in a location, the sending station directly deposits the message in those message stores and, if there are multiple receivers, the sending station deposits the message to the message stores associated with each one of the receivers. Alternatively, if the receivers do not have dedicated locations to store their messages, the message is deposited in the message stores in the WAN, selected by the sender and accessible to all the intended recipients, by means of access multiplexed to the message stores, effectively consolidate the required warehouse. Consolidated storage is especially advantageous, as it provides administrative simplicity, more efficient use of warehouse resources, and, as explained more fully in the following, the open end sets of the receiver to facilitate group communications and electronic publishing. To point out the intended recipients, the receivers are notified of the availability of the message and its address in the WAN. The signaling process begins with the determination of the addresses of the receivers. The sender can know the addresses of the intended recipients or they may need to refer to the interactive directories based on the network. Once the addresses of the receivers are determined, the sender at a sending station instructs the WAN to notify the recipients of the availability and direction of the message by means of WAN signaling mechanisms.
In addition, the sender can store access authorization information for the message with the message in the message store. The access authorization information may be the list of intended recipients, without being limited in the case of publicly available information or specified by identifiable characteristics of a group, for example, security authorization, membership organizations or subscribers to a service. The access authorization information for a message may be different from the people to whom the signal of message availability was sent. For example, a group may be authorized to have access to a message, such as any employee of a company, but only certain members of that group to whom the signal of their availability is sent, such as members of a particular project. . The sender does not need to point to all receivers at the same time. For example, if the sender did not think of an additional receiver a day after sending the message, the re-shipment might only require pointing to the additional recipient and perhaps, notifying the message store to add the additional recipient to the list of authorized persons. for access to the message. In many message sending applications, the receivers are not explicitly listed by the sender, but are determined on the contrary, through processes such as self-selection, third-party reference or guided search. In such cases, the signaling process may be absent. For example, a receiver can select a message by sweeping through accessible message stores, by receiving a reference for it from a friend, co-worker or other message or by searching through messages based on the keys or another identifier provided by the sender. In such situations, the new recipient must be authorized to access the message. The access authorization information may be broad enough to enlist the inclusion of the new receiver or a receiver may be assigned to extend the access authorization to include a new receiver. Message stores have the following characteristics. The message stores are located in the storage elements integrated in the WAN. This functional integration is independent of issues of ownership or physical location. The message stores and the messages stored in them have a logical identity in the WAN, independent of their physical realization at any given moment. This allows greater reliability and efficiency, for example, by distributing the storage of a given message through multiple message stores.
Message stores are uniformly accessible throughout the WAN. This means that they offer the same functionality independent of their physical location or of which person has access to the message. Since different receivers have access to a given message store from arbitrary locations, the functionality available to each receiver in the message store varies only with the characteristics of the receiving station, used for the recipient to access the message store and your connection to the WAN (for example, bandwidth). Access to message stores can be multiplexed, allowing concurrent access by multiple senders and receivers. In this way, the senders and receivers are probably blocked when they send or receive messages, as may be the case with storage elements that have more connectivity limited to the WAN. The message stores control access to the messages they contain according to the access authorization information, provided by the sender. Message reception is provided by means of "virtual mailboxes". A virtual mailbox resides in the storage elements in the WAN, but does not store the content of the recipient's messages. Conversely, a virtual mailbox serves as an aggregation and storage point for signaling information that notifies a recipient of the availability and address of a message on the WAN. The receiver station makes use of this information signaling to alert the receiver of the existence and availability of the message and to retrieve the message under the receiver's direction. Because the messages of a receiver can reside in multiple message stores displayed throughout the network, the essence of the signaling of the information contained in the virtual mailbox is the reference to the messages available to the receiver. Due to the ability of uniform access to the message stores, the receiver station can make use of these references, to retrieve messages from the receiver. By using the information stored in the virtual mailbox, the recipient can access his messages residing in the multiple message stores on the WAN as if all his messages were stored in a single mailbox. The messages mentioned in the virtual mailbox can include any type of information, by any means. For example, a virtual mailbox could maintain references for a text message on a server LAN, an audio message on another server on the LAN, another audio message in an email attached to a PBX, or an audio / video message on another server of LAN.
With reference to Figure 3, there is shown a flow diagram illustrating the process of sending the message according to an embodiment of the invention. To send a message, the sender instructs its sending station 20 to initiate the sending of the WAN message (step 100). The LAN 21 connects the sending station 20 to the WAN 24 (step 101). The sending station 20 allocates the storage of the WAN 24 by selecting the message stores, for example, the message stores 25, 26 and 27, from the message stores available in the WAN 24 (step 102). The sending station deposits the message in the selected message stores in the WAN and the message is stored in the selected message stores (step 104). The sender identifies the intended recipients of the message (step 106). If the sender wishes to provide access to additional persons of a specified class, the sender may provide authorization information to access the message, so that additional persons who fall within the specified class of authorized persons may have access to the message ( stage 108, 110). In response to the deposit of the message and identification of the receivers destined by the sender, the sender station 20 is disconnected from the WAN 24 and the WAN sends the signal to the receiver destined for the availability and message address in the message stores in the WAN by placing a reference for the message in the virtual mailbox 28 of the receiver (step 112). To receive the message, the receiver instructs the receiving station 23 to access its virtual mailbox 28 (step 116). The LAN 22 connects the receiving station 23 to theWAN 24 (stage 117). The virtual mailbox 28 contains a reference that notifies the recipient of the availability and address of the message (step 118). The receiver instructs the receiving station 23 for access to the message (step 120). Using the address of the message stored in the virtual mailbox, the receiving station has access and provides the receiver with interactive access to the message stored in the message stores in the WAN (step 121). After access to the message is complete, the receiving station is disconnected from the WAN 24 (step 122). If the sender has made the message accessible to additional persons of a specified class, the WAN also makes the message available to persons who satisfy the access authorization information (steps 123, 124). Once such person identifies the address of the message, for example, through the medium mentioned in the above(step 125) using the address information, you can instruct your user station to access the message(step 126).
When such a person tries to access the message, the message store 26 verifies that the person satisfies the access authorization information (step 128). If the access authorization information is satisfied, interactive access to the message is provided (step 130). If the access authorization information is not satisfied, access to the message is denied (step 132). Then, the receiver station is disconnected from the WAN 24 (step 133). After the message has been accessed by the recipient and / or additional persons of the specified class, the message remains stored in the message stores on the WAN for access by additional intended recipients and other persons who satisfy the authorization information of access (step 134). It should be understood that the above description is only a preferred embodiment of the invention. Numerous other provisions may be contemplated by one skilled in the art, without departing from the invention. In this way, the invention is limited only as defined in the appended claims. It is noted that in relation to this date, the best method known to the applicant to carry out the aforementioned invention, is that which is clear from the present description of the invention.
Having described the invention as above, property is claimed as contained in the following: