Why We Love Amazon’s SES (And You Should, Too!)

Synopsis

In the previous blog post I elaborated on SES (Simple Email Service). Simple Email Service is a fully managed service which allows you to send emails for transactions, marketing, system generated mails, newsletters and much more. It is a service, which can be utilized to send emails. It also provides notifications for bounces, complaints and rejected emails.

Other areas of focus in the blog included:

• Why to use AWS SES?
• Why NOT Amazon SES?
• What are the different ways to send Emails via AWS SES?
• Is AWS SES too Expensive for Me?

Furthermore I will be articulating more about SES.

Heterogeneous Ways to Send Mails from SES

Using SMTP

There are different ways you can use SMTP Credentials for sending emails. It includes:

1. Sending from AWS console

• Login to aws console go to SES Service
• Click on “Email Address” Or “Domain” tab in left Frame
• Select Email or Domain and click on “Send Test Mail”
• Fill in the Details and send Email.

2. Sending from command line: People writing programs Directly through SMTP can also send Emails by configuring SMTP with SES. For more info follow the instructions on AWS Doc

3. Send Emails from Email Client- e.g. Microsoft Outlook 2010: To configure Microsoft Outlook 2010 in your System follow the instructions given.

4. Send Emails from your Application: You can use SES in a way similar to using Gmail or Hotmail Credentials for sending emails from your application in a way that you don’t share your email Address Credentials in the application. Listed below are the steps to configure SES in an application built in YII Framework:

• Download PHPMailer extension for YII Framework from here and configure it in YII.
• Create a class SendMail in Model and Extend PHPMailer Class and Declare Following Variables:

class SendMail extends PHPMailer{

     var $Host = “tls://email-smtp.us-east-1.amazonaws.com”; //Amazon Server based on Region

        var $Username = “xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx”;    //Enter Access Key  from Amazon

           var $Password = “xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx”;  //Enter Secret Key  from Amazon

              var $Port = 465;   //You can use 25, 465 and 587 port to send email

                  var $SMTPAuth = true;

               var $From = “example@example.com”;    //From may be any email you want

          var $FromName = “Any Name”;  

      var $CharSet = “UTF-8”;

 var $Sender = ‘example@example.com’;  //Sender has to be verified email !!!

var  $SMTPDebug  = false;   // set true if you want to debug

var $SMTPKeepAlive = true;

}

• Add a Function sendEmail to accept Parameter for

1. Whom to send
2. What to send
3. What subject

function sendEmail($emailTo,$subject,$body){

                $this->AddAddress($emailTo);

                $this->Subject = ($subject);

                $this->Body=$body;

                return $this->Send();

      }

• Now Import this class and call sendEmail Function and send email.

 include_once(‘SendMail.php’);

   $sendMail=new SendMail();

   $sendMail->sendEmail(“reciver@example.com”,’T est Email’,’Hello world!’);

5. Integrating SES with other SMTP server: You can also configure your SMTP server to use SES and send Valid and Non-Spam Emails. Listed are the following SMTP Servers you can configure on-

• Postfix
• SendMail

The next series of blog on SES(Simple E-Mail Service)  I will be discussing more on using AWS API’s to send E-Mails.

Related Blog Posts:

 Facts you Must know about AWS Cloud’s Simple Mailing Service