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James: The Java Apache Mail Enterprise Server
by Barry Burd and Michael P. Redlich
James is an open source, 100 percent pure Java e-mail server developed by the Apache Software Foundation. James has all the qualities of an industrial-strength e-mail server—plus a few additional qualities that make James unique.
James complements the JavaMail 1.3 API in a chain of command that works something like this:
- A user interacts with an interface that's created using JavaMail. This interface is called the mail user agent (MUA). Think of the MUA as an e-mail client, like Eudora or Outlook Express.
- The MUA talks to a mail transfer agent (MTA). As an MTA, the James server supports the SMTP and POP3 e-mail protocols, sending e-mail messages to their appointed destinations. James also includes support for IMAP, NNTP, LDAP, and other protocols.
This article explains why you should consider using James for your e-mail server needs, shows you how to get started with James, and describes one of James's main features: the Mailet API.
Why James?
James is a complete, portable, and standalone enterprise e-mail server solution. Take a peek at what makes James stand out in the crowd:
Portability
James is portable because it's a 100 percent pure Java. With James you can create custom e-mail applications on Windows, on UNIX, on cell phones, on weed whackers—on anything.
Complete and Standalone
James is complete because it doesn't require additional support from other servers or applications. This makes James standalone because it can handle both mail transport and storage as a single server application. Other e-mail servers may rely on required third-party applications for getting the functionality you need. James contains functionality from other Apache projects, but everything is packaged as one application.
Abstraction
James follows a loosely coupled plug-in design. For some products, phrases like "loosely coupled" and "separation of this from that" are just hype. But James separates things intelligently. With James, each protocol plugs into the messaging framework. For example, James supports SMTP. But you can unplug SMTP, plug Jabber in place of SMTP, and have a nice, portable instant messaging application.
In fact, James uses abstraction from top to bottom. Resources such as JDBC (for spooling or user accounts stored in databases) are abstracted just as protocols are. James takes advantage of the defined interfaces for each of these resources to maintain modularity and good design.
Multi-threaded
James is fully multi-threaded for performance and scalability. James is based on Apache Avalon, an open source server framework that provides a common method for developing and implementing server components. The Avalon Framework (AF) supports Inversion of Control (IoC). Best of all, you don't need to write code to use Avalon Framework components. All you do is use a container such as Avalon Phoenix or Excalibur Fortress. The container does the work for you.
(Oops! Apache has closed its Avalon project! But don't worry. All is well with James. The James project committee assures everyone that James will press on without Avalon. Whew!)
Mailet Support
James's Mailet API allows you to customize e-mail processing for your enterprise's needs. James has a number of pre-defined mailet classes. For example, the AddFooter class appends specified text to the bottom of message body.
The James documentation gives you the complete list of pre-defined mailets. But, of course, you can write your own mailets. All you have to do is to extend the GenericMailet and GenericMatcher classes.
Reliability and Scalability
James was first released in 1999. Since then, a number of organizations have implemented James in production environments. The James Wiki page lists many of these organizations. One organization designed and implemented a scalability test on James with a result of 2600 e-mail messages per minute. Now that's impressive!
Price
Best of all, James is free, and that is certainly good news for organizations and companies with small IT budgets. James isn't an expensive e-mail server such as Microsoft Exchange or Lotus Domino, but James rivals other e-mail server solutions in robustness and scalability.
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