Email servers- Email servers are very popular these days as they are related to email. Email servers are able to offer you more features. In this email servers article we are going to go over what are email servers and what to look for in email servers.

Email servers, or mail servers, refers to computers that are dedicated to mail functionality or computer programs that are hosted on a computer and provide the mail service but sit alongside other programs on a server that carries out a variety of functions. Software email servers are also known as the message transfer agent (MTA), which forwards outgoing mail.

The email server is part of a messaging system, which also includes an email client (also known as a mail user agent—MUA or UA), the message store (MS), which retains incoming mail for distribution to addressees. The messaging system often uses SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) or sometimes ESTMP (Extended SMTP) to send mail and POP3 (Post Office Protocol 3) or IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) to receive email.

Mail servers can be classified in a number of ways. In a survey of popularity by SecuritySpace.com, in June, 2009, in which 47.6 percent of the mail servers queried (numbering 1, 861,186) responded with software identification, The mail servers with greater than 1 percent share were Exim, Sendmail, Microsoft Exchange Server, Postfix, MailEnable, MDaemon, and iMail. Exim, Sendail, Microsoft Exchange Server, and Postfix had significantly greater shares than the others, with a joint total of 88.25 percent. Over time, Sendmail has been losing market share, while Exim and Postfix have been gaining, and Microsoft Exchange Server has not shown much change.

Looking at the features of the top performers, Microsoft Exchange Server is proprietary software, while Exim, Postfix, and Sendmail are all Open Source. Exim has a GPL license, Postfix has an IBM public license, and Sendmail has a Sendmail license. Microsoft Exchange Server operates on servers with a Windows OS and supports SMTP, POP3, and IMAP, as well as SSL and webmail. Exim can run on a Windows server using Cygwin, and runs in Linux/Unix and Mac OS X. It supports SMTP and SSL, but not POP3, IMAP, or webmail. Postfix and Sendmail do not run on Windows servers, but do run on Linux/Unix and Mac OS X. They supports SMTP and SSL, but not POP3, IMAP, or webmail.

Email servers are often offered as part of a comprehensive server system package. For example, Intel Server System is hardware that includes an email server along with a web server, file or print server, and storage server. ChiliBox All-in-One Network Server is also hardware and includes an email server, with file-sharing facilities and other software. Email serving is also often provided by an ISP (Internet Service Provider).

If you have decided that you know longer want email serving done by your ISP, then the first critical element is to choose where the email server will be housed—in or out of your office. If you choose to use a webhost for a Linux virtual dedicated server or dedicated server, for example, email services will likely be among the software provided. GoDaddy, for example, on its CPanel offering, includes Sendmail 8.14.1 in its Fedora 7 Software ensemble. If you are installing your mail server in your office, you will need to choose between a hardware server and a software component that will share a server with other applications and functions and this will likely depend heavily on what your existing set-up is and/or whatever other application software and server system software you intend to use.

Because an email server is a standard offering with most webhosting, there can be benefits to simply using the system as set up by an external webhost. But is you require different functionality, capacity, peripheral tools, or security than are easily attained with an external mail server, or you simply prefer to keep your servers in-house, then it may be best to look at both integrated packages of server software as well as independent email server software to see which will better serve your organizations particular needs. Depending on the size and focus of your business, besides the four email servers mentioned, you might want to consider Novell Groupwise and IBM Lotus Domino.

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