ExchangeDefender 7 Beta Launch

On Wednesday we held our largest webcast ever and the amount of praise we have gotten from you is astonishing – not surprising though, considering that all but 3 features you requested made it into the product. We want to make sure we meet the expectations and make the product as perfect as possible – so we’d like to invite you to test drive it and tell us what needs to be fixed.

We are less than a month away from the launch of ExchangeDefender 7, the largest product and the largest upgrade in the company history. With ExchangeDefender 5 we changed the way you think about communications security and we made it affordable for everyone. With ExchangeDefender 6 we upgraded the entire backend of the network to sustain your growth and the emerging threats and market demands. With ExchangeDefender 7 we are introducing a brand new, unified, user experience.

So, are you ready? Here you go, URLs and instructions are in the document:

http://www.ownwebnow.com/blog/media/ExchangeDefender7Beta.pdf

Sincerely,
Vladimir Mazek, MCSE
CEO, Own Web Now Corp
ExchangeDefender Chief Software Architect

ExchangeDefender MSP Alerts

Thanks to so many of you that participated in our ExchangeDefender 7 preview last week. The beta is a week or two away and we are still putting some finishing touches on the features that will ship down the road after the initial core launch of Security, Continuity and Compliance. Today we have an open ended question regarding one of the features and we hope you take a moment to let us know what you think.

If there was a single value proposition we are making in ExchangeDefender 7 it’s the managed aspect. You are no longer subscribing to a tool, you are getting a service that protects the most important tool businesses have on the Internet. Without email, the company may as well take a day off.

We are building in a MSP interface to ExchangeDefender that will monitor all servers protected by us. Every 15 minutes we will poll your email server from all of our data centers and if nothing can connect to it, we will issue an alert.

Question: When should we notify you?

We are aiming to create a configurable alert system on top of the service so it can notify you if 4 consecutive tests have failed (in this scenario, we couldn’t reach your server for an hour) or we can issue an alert every time we cannot connect to your mail server. We don’t know what’s right – if too many alerts are sent, will the alerts be ignored. Likewise, if too few alerts are sent will you be finding out about an issue from your client?

We initially intend to make alerts available via email and SMS and through professional RMM services tools LPI and Kaseya and PSA from Autotask and Shockey Monkey.

If you have a suggestion please login to https://support.ownwebnow.com and click on Resources > Features and create a new Feature request. ExchangeDefender 7 is 100% based on the feedback from the new feature request category filled out by our partners, keep on using it if you want the product to fit you better!

Rolling out Outbound-JR

On Thursday, February 10th, 5 PM EST we will be discontinuing access to outbound-xd servers as noted in the previous blog posts and emails. While many people have already switched their mail flow to outbound-jr.exchangedefender.com, some may still be using our legacy systems that are being decommissioned. Please take a look at all the servers in your organization and make sure you’re routing your email appropriately:

outbound.exchangedefender.com – used for personal non-automated emails that require absolutely highest IP reputation.

outbound-jr.exchangedefender.com – used for server notifications, NDR, out-of-office responses, automated messages, confirmations, devices (fax machines, etc) and non-groupware servers.

ExchangeDefender outbound network will continue to work as-is. The new JR network is designed to fit the emerging need among our client base as email communication matures and the need to tie in all servers, applications and notifications becomes necessary. By being able to “shape” this traffic, we can better assure your email delivery.

Please note, outbound-jr does not impact your ability to use LiveArchive as the replication of all the mail you receive is not done by the outbound servers. It also does not impact your ability to send out attachments, encrypted messages so on and so forth.

We look forward to announcing the new products and services that are being built around the outbound-jr and we hope that you’ll find them extremely valuable (large file sharing, notification services, on-demand mailing lists, marketing mail services, etc).

Introducing ExchangeDefender Essentials

Last week we announced our messaging portfolio for 2011. If you missed it, the recording along with the webinar and podcast is now available.

Did you miss the webinar? Here is the recording:

Webinar Recording (wmv movie 45 Minutes)
Webinar Slide Deck (pdf)
Webinar Podcast (mp3 higher quality audio)

The biggest news of the day was ExchangeDefender Managed Messaging, combining all the services necessary to go to the cloud in one affordable package. The second biggest announcement was regarding CloudBlock. Finally, we wanted to plug a hole in our product portfolio that was dictated by the marketplace.

Why?

ExchangeDefender was designed as an all-inclusive solution: protecting you from SPAM, providing business continuity, archiving mail for easy access via LiveArchive, delivering web file sharing functionality as well as web filtering. We felt that we had to protect the client entirely because if we left a hole in the security portfolio the client could be easily exploited.

Our competition saw all of these “necessities” as ways to earn a quick profit. By offering bare bones product and getting people that shopped on price they could easily mark up add-ons as the clients realized they needed them.

It’s important to note that not all companies are made the same and not all IT departments design their networks in the same way. Some have appliances for web filtering, some rely on third party services for web file sharing, others have appliances for archiving purposes. How the network is designed is largely up to the IT department and the specific company needs where some ExchangeDefender features may feel superfluous. This is something that many of our service providers told us was their biggest advantage by going into a client and a way that ExchangeDefender alone lands managed services contracts:

“We go down the feature list in ExchangeDefender and we ask them if they have that feature in their current solution. Yes or no? How much are they paying for that? We then present our managed services plan and just go through their current costs and repeat: We can knock that off your bill so you won’t have that fee to pay again. As we go through their expenses we make our managed services product much more appealing and it always leads to sales.”

We have seen a great number of partners that don’t want an all-in solution and instead want a barebones product. We feel that CloudBlock will help those looking at the price as the only objective. We also feel that ExchangeDefender Essentials will fit the middle ground, where you want your own product with your own brand and margins but a huge discount for only selling the essentials.

What?

ExchangeDefender Essentials is ExchangeDefender without all the enterprise stuff: No LiveArchive, no Web Filtering, no Web File Sharing, no Encryption, no SplitMX, no FailPOP and no compliance archiving.

ExchangeDefender Essentials provides enterprise-class SPAM and virus filtering, mail queueing when your mail server goes down, outbound SMTP relay and all the core technology within ExchangeDefender to keep your network secure. It can be centrally managed, connected to your PSA and is fully supported by us.

Most importantly, ExchangeDefender Essentials is 50% cheaper than ExchangeDefender. It comes with no minimum, no contract requirements and is available on all new account.

Sincerely,
Vlad Mazek, MCSE
CEO, Own Web Now Corp

ExchangeDefender Feedback Loop Emails

Starting tomorrow, ExchangeDefender will be implementing an FBL – feedback loop. The purpose of a feedback loop is to alert system administrators when their email systems are distributing dangerous content.

Initially the FBL will be implemented with ExchangeDefender Service Providers and will only send an email to the SP contact once a day. The email will contain list of domains and violations made from each domain along with the IP address. For example:

From: ExchangeDefender FBL <fbl@exchangedefender.com>

To: Me

Subject: ExchangeDefender Relay Violation

myspamexample [65.99.255.222] is attempting to relay mail from xyz123@comcast.net which is not an ExchangeDefender protected address.

This attempt has been blocked through our security policy but the source server/network should be examined as this is usually the first sign of a compromised system. Systems can be easily compromised and used to spread malware and spyware. When hackers can no longer use these systems to relay SPAM, they tend to use them to launch DDoS, large scale attacks or attempt further security compromises.

Please investigate and address the security issue. Ignoring these notices and underlying security issues can result in a restriction of your ability to relay outbound mail through ExchangeDefender, land your domain/IP on an RBL blacklist and reduce your IP addresses sender reputation. 

We have been monitoring the explosion of malware and are addressing a record number of security compromises daily. Last quarter we implemented an SMTP monitoring process as a part of ExchangeDefender and we hope that with web filtering, the FBL test gives us more insight into security problems on your network that can help you manage your network more securely.

First emails will go out on December 1st, 2010.

Announcing free Email-to-Autotask gateway powered by ExchangeDefender

Autotask, The World’s #1 Hosted PSA Solution, is also Own Web Now’s preferred PSA platform. We have more clients using Autotask to manage their IT business than anything else out there and we have the richest integration into the product not just in the antispam space but across the cloud. Autotask has promoted us a ton so a year after our huge launch at Autotask 2009 conference we’re glad to provide a bit of a payback and reward all the Autotask and ExchangeDefender clients for working with us.

Announcing the first free, secure, email-to-Autotask ticket gateway.

Here are some highlights:

• Automatically converts inbound and outbound mail to Autotask tickets.
• Supports attachments and HTML messages.
• Designed using secure Autotask Web Services / API
• Allows for default rule and custom rule sets depending on sender email address
• Allows customized Queue, Priority and Account mappings
• Works in the cloud, no server or client installation or configuration required
• Did we mention that it’s free?

So how do you get started? Well, make sure you’re in our portal and using ExchangeDefender. Click here to get started. Login to ExchangeDefender and go to Configuration, Autotask. Just provide your Autotask credentials and we’ll pull down your priority titles, queues and contacts.

Then pick the email address to serve as a default gateway. This address will still get all the inbound messages, a copy of it will automatically create tickets with the default priority, queue and contact information you provide here.

For even more flexibility, you can create custom policies based on who the ticket is coming from. This is fantastic if you have appliances or solutions that don’t have direct Autotask integration but need to be managed anyhow – just point those reports to the appropriate queue. If you have a VIP client that always gets priority treatment, you can accomdate it here as well.

Business-wise, this will save you thousands of dollars compared to whats on the market. It will make you more efficient and it will give you a single place to look for new support requests – EVERYTHING now automagically ends up in Autotask!

Tune in tomorrow for another announcement with our preferred PSA platform and check out Autotask and ExchangeDefender if you aren’t using us already. 😉