Amazon SES need to have a smtp server running for receive emails?

Question

I've read the Amazon's documentations about SES hundred times and the only thing I really didn't understand yet is if I need to have an smtp server like Aws Work Email or other to receiving email on SES and execute a lambda function, cause I don't have any service of this kind running except SES.

When I try to save the email in a S3 bucket it stores only a file with the name: "AMAZON_SES_SETUP_NOTIFICATION" and the contents:

Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2016 21:19:29 +0000 To: [email protected] From: Amazon Web Services Subject: Amazon SES Setup Notification

Hello,

You received this message because you attempted to set up Amazon SES to deliver emails to this S3 bucket.

Please note that the rule that you configured to deliver emails to this S3 bucket is only valid if the entire setup process is successful. For more information about setting up email-receiving rules, see the Amazon SES Developer Guide at http://docs.aws.amazon.com/ses/latest/DeveloperGuide/Welcome.html .

Thank you for using Amazon SES!

The Amazon SES Team

So I would to know if is need tha I had som smtp server to get it working, and if no what can I missing to SES generate that message, sory for my english it is not my main language.

Answer 1

SES is primarily for outgoing emails, and they have recently added the ability to receive emails and save the contents to an S3 bucket - none of that requires a separate server to be running.

And while having SES receive emails and save them to an S3 bucket is possibly incredibly useful - depending on your use case - its not really a replacement for a traditional email server.

If you need traditional email services, and would like to host them on AWS, Workmail is the best option.