Re: [ST] Delayed emails?

[Matthew Heyer <matthewheyer@xxxxxxxxx>]

I happen to disagree with this.  Email generally goes from sending mailserver to receiving mailserver.  It may take different paths across the internet at different times, but that is through the routers (calculating costs of the paths) and not through servers (the one caveat to this would be if someone uses a third-party email solution for spam control or the sort, like postini, or once the message hits an enterprise that may do any number of things in a multiple server environment - front-end and back-end servers, load balancing servers, etc - then it may go through multiple servers, but I don't think we are using something this robust).  Even with different paths taken across the internet to get from the sending mail server to the receiving mail server, this should not generally make for multiple hour delays.  And almost alway results in general delay.  Unless of course at a certain time, there is a failure not known to the sender in which the email goes to the primary
 MX record, never makes it, then the sender "sees" the failure and subsequent emails go to the secondary MX record.  This in a high-volume setting would generally result in a batch of email from a point in time being delayed.
 
As for the Yahoo account, I do a lot of testing into and out of our enterprises email system using this external email account, and have not experienced sporadic email delays ever.
 
So that said, what gives with our lists's mail delivery?  If nobody really knows, then forget about it - but I was wondering if there is some root-cause problem.  And if there is, and it's known, and the administrators know that this is not changing, then so be it - but I would like to be aware just for my own sanity.
 
 
Matt Heyer

----- Original Message ----
From: Matt Knowles <matt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: Matthew Heyer <matthewheyer@xxxxxxxxx>; ST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Saturday, February 18, 2006 2:45:25 PM
Subject: Re: [ST] Delayed emails?


Email doesn't go directly from sender to receiver, it goes through any 
number of servers along the way. Each server stores the message and 
relays it when it gets the chance. If any one of those servers is 
backlogged or goes down for some reason, it may get hung up for awhile. 
Two emails sent seconds apart could take two different paths across the 
Internet, and depending on the paths they take could arrive in a 
different order than what they were sent in.

Matt Knowles - Ferndale, CA - 
http://www.knowlesville.com/matt/motorcycles
  '99 Sprint ST - for going fast and far (2CZUSA)
  '01 KLR650 - for exploring the North Coast backroads
  '97 KLX300 & '01 Lakota - for playing in the dirt
  '79 KZ400 - just because it was the first vehicle I ever owned
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