IP pooling-based email systems reputation assurance

The endeavour to ensure email servers attain and keep a good reputation on the internet is essential for today's system administrators and companies. This is due to the fact that approximately 90% of nowadays email traffic is represented by purely spam and unsolicited messages. Therefore, email filtering techniques have continuously developed during the past decade. In this context, it can be stated that the reputation of the IP address that routes the server's email traffic is essential and constitutes an important variable of any algorithm that quantifies email systems reputation. This remark can be coupled with the fact that IP addresses that are once detected to send spam or that simply do not comply with good sending practices are marked as “untrusted” by email reputation assessment systems on the Internet. Once this has happened, reverting back to a normal state often proves to be a difficult, even impossible challenge. It should also be kept in mind that the IP version 4 address space is virtually depleted and the transition to IP version 6 is still in its early stages. Therefore, it is crucial for any system administration team to use an integrated IP reputation assurance method. This paper introduces the main concepts that are connected to IP reputation and its assurance. Moreover, an integrated email systems reputation assurance method, which is based on IP pooling, is described and its performance and usability are assessed and demonstrated considering a practical setting.