System architectural design for delivering video mail over the World-Wide-Web

This paper examines the feasibility of providing multimedia mail, in particular video mail, on the existing World-Wide-Web platform. In this instance, the Web browser will act as the user agent of the mailing system. With this, users will be able to compose, send and read video mail directly on the Web. This paper examines a number of different system architectures which can be employed for the development of Video Mail. Based on the following key issues: portability of system, flexibility of system, Internet standard support, security and authentication, and message compression and storage, a final architecture was chosen to build Video Mail. The approach taken is that the system will be interfaced to the Web using a standard Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) server and a standard Web browser. This is achieved through the use of Common Gateway Interface (CGI) programs and forms which reside in a standard HTTP server to provide the functionality of video mail, and a separate mail server for the storage and management of messages. This will cause th HTTP server to behave as if it is an electronic mail system. The paper also addresses implementation issues pertaining to the use of CGI programs, mail server development, and video and audio composition and playback.