Merce Broadside is internally designed as a collection of interacting processes. These processes interact as a whole with the outside world through the internal (enterprise) network interfaces for input, the external (Internet-connected) network interfaces for exchange of messages with the outside world, and the administrative console.
The pre-processor processes data submitted to the Merce Broadside system and generates emails which can be processed and dispached. For instance, the pre-processor may accept a collection of PDF files, a CSV file containing a list of email messages and corresponding recipients, and tie the two together before handing over ready-formatted emails to the dispatcher.
The dispatcher enforces all the policies and rules of the Merce Broadside system, logs low-level data per message, performs some security checks, re-write some envelope and header data, and then hands each message for onward transmission to the transmitters.
The transmitters do not modify the outgoing message at all. Their job is to transmit messages over the Internet to the final recipient with the maximum performance and security. The transmitters are the only comonents of a Merce Broadside system which communicate directly with the Internet.
The administrative console provides the management interface to manage users, manage outgoing transmission, perform real-time monitoring, start and stop queues, and view reports.
