AddressValidation Flow Diagram
Processes In Flow
| 1 |
User
|
User completes a standard web form. The web
form can contain any or all of the following data for validation: email
address, street address, phone number, and credit card. Once the
data, is collected it is sent to the web server.
|
| 2 |
Web Server
 |
The web server takes the data from the web form
and sends a SOAP request to the Extreme Messaging .Net Server.
|
| 3 |
.Net Server
 |
This server is hosted by Extreme Messaging. It
receives the SOAP request from the web server, and processes the information
using the high-speed validation engine.
|
| 4 |
Validation Engine
 |
The validation engine dispatches the validation
requests to each of the specific validation engines.
|
| 5 |
Credit Card
 |
The credit card validation engine checks the card
number against the card type (e.g., Visa or Mastercard) to ensure the
number is in the correct range for that card type. It
also validates the checksum of the card to ensure the user did not
transpose two numbers or make a typo. It does not make any charges
against the card or "Authorize" it.
|
| 6 |
Street Address
 |
The street address validation engine checks the zip
code provided against the city and state provided. Soon it will also
validate the house number and street against the zip code and provide the
zip+4. Currently, only US addresses are validated.
|
| 7a |
Email Rules
 |
The email validation engine first checks the address
against a set of rules. It validates the top-level domain
(e.g., '.com'); it looks for illegal characters in the address (e.g., spaces);
and it checks domain-specific rules for some of the more popular domains (e.g.,
aol.com).
|
| 7b |
Cached DNS Entries
 |
Extreme Messaging maintains a large database of cached DNS information for both
valid and invalid domains. This cache is populated when a validation
request for a domain comes in for the first time. It is constantly
refreshed to ensure accurate information. If the domain of the address
being validated is found in the cache, then the cached result is quickly
returned.
|
| 7c |
DNS Server
|
If the domain is not found in the cache, and the
original SOAP request was not a "quick check", the domain is checked against
the DNS Servers.
If it was a quick check, or the DNS Servers time out before giving a conclusive
answer, the domain is added to a list of domains to check in the
background. Eventually, a conclusive answer is obtained, and that answer
is added to the database of cached DNS information. |
| 8 |
Phone Number
 |
The phone number validation engine uses a large
collection of country-specific information to validate phone numbers
worldwide. It checks the country code, the area code, and any local rules
concerning the length or range of the subscriber portion of the number.
|
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