Capterra Glossary
Mail Server (Mail Transfer / Transport Agent, MTA, Mail Router, Internet Mailer)
A mail server is a computer server that receives electronic mail (email) from a client computer and delivers it to other client computers or mail servers. There are two types of mail servers: incoming mail servers and outgoing mail servers. Incoming mail servers store mail and send it directly to a user's inbox. Outgoing mail servers utilize the sender’s computer to communicate with Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), which delivers the outgoing email. Mail servers are often referred to by a variety of different names, including a mail transfer, transport agent MTA, mail router, or an internet mailer.
What Small and Midsize Businesses Need to Know About Mail Server (Mail Transfer / Transport Agent, MTA, Mail Router, Internet Mailer)
For small to midsize businesses, having an in-house mail server is often costly and difficult to backup. Since many small businesses often operate on limited budgets, they are most likely to opt for free email services such as Gmail or Yahoo Mail to send and receive email communications.
Related Terms
- Synchronous
- Software as a Service (SaaS)
- Intranet
- Security Orchestration, Automation and Response (SOAR)
- Identity and Access Management (IAM)
- Managed Service Provider (MSP)
- Haptics
- WAN (Wide-Area Network)
- Service-oriented Architecture (SOA)
- Augmented Reality (AR)
- Chief Information Officer (CIO)
- Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
- Platform as a Service (PaaS)
- Service-Level Agreement (SLA)
- Scalability
- Data Center
- Authorization
- Multitenancy