Increased security across Exchange 2007 network

Effective July 1st, 2009 we will no longer accept anonymous or plain text SMTP connections on our ExchangeDefender network. If you are using the SMTP protocol to connect to the Hosted Exchange please switch them to MAPI or RPC over HTTPS. If you have limitations requiring you to continue using SMTP, please note that you will only be able to connect to the servers using SMTP over SSL.

Again: No port 25 connectivity will be alllowed starting July 1st. This change affects Exchange 2007 network only, we will issue separate alerts for Exchange 2003 network, Zimbra network and our Virtual Hosting SMTP mail later next quarter.

This change is a part of our effort to improve the security of the network and eliminate direct connections by SPAM bots. Please stay tuned to this blog, one of the major areas of focus next quarter is improvement of overall security and controls on the ever-growing OWN network.

Blackberry Discounts

We are running a new promotion on Blackberry services, courtesy of RIM. You can choose from two options:

$99 setup, $10 /month.

or

$49 setup, $15/month.

This is in addition to the fees related to Exchange hosting. As usual, volume discounts apply, if you have over 100 seats we can reduce the pricing significantly.

This is a limited time promotion courtesy of RIM for new BES accounts only.

OWN Partner Call with Matt Makowicz

Joining us to wrap up the Microsoft WPC is Matt Makowicz from Ambition Consulting and Endevor, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and an ExchangeDefender marketing powerhouse! Matt talks about the overall impressions with the event and how different it was this year in particular:

• Business maturity
• Change in partner profile at WPC
• Passions of Vista stop short
• Partner training and ambitionmission.com

Click here to download the podcast, runtime 30 minutes.

OWN Partner Call with Vijay Riyait and Dean Calvert

Joining us today live from Microsoft WPC in Houston are two partners from the opposite sides of the globe and opposite business models in the IT business. They are both great proponents of OwnWebNow and our services so we got them on to discuss the Microsoft’s new direction and how it impacts their business.

Dean Calvert is the president of Calvert Technologies, Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and Small Business Specialist from Adelaide, Australia. Dean’s firm specializes in network design, management and technical consulting. Dean was recently a Microsoft PAL and has been recognized for many years as an expert Microsoft MVP in Small Business Server product.

Vijay Riyait is the managing director of iQubed, Microsoft Small Business Specialist from Leicester and a leader in the SMB community, working with Microsoft as a PAL representing SBSC interests of the community to Microsoft. Beyond that, Vijay’s company focuses on on SharePoint and Information Worker technologies, their development and use in SMB.

Wednesday was the final keynote day at Microsoft WPC 2008 and we caught up to Vijay and Mark for a first impression of where they believe they can use their significant expertise to impact their clients business and grow their own as well. Discussion included:

• Use of SharePoint in social networking cases
• Australian SMB owner habits and hosted services penetration
• Discussion over the changing business models with the services in mind
• SBS and EBS importance and expectations
• Partner Program changes and the impact on you.

Click here to download the podcast, runtime 30 minutes.

OWN Partner Call with Scott Colson

Scott Colson, Microsoft CRM MVP and Vice President of Autonomix (Gold Certified Partner from Seattle) has been a long time friend and partner of Own Web Now. Autonomix specializes in Microsoft CRM deployments and given the recent launch of Microsoft CRM Online and Microsoft S+S announcements from WPC, he was the best candidate to discuss the further Microsoft penetration into the area of services and where this leaves us Microsoft partners. Scott joined us live from the Microsoft WPC keynote with Ballmer in the background to talk about:

• Microsoft Software + Services
• Status of Microsoft CRM Online and direction so far
• Personal take on what Software + Service means for us
• The opportunity for partners to use Microsoft in this space
• SBS and EBS annoumcements

.. and we also discussed Scott’s key area of expertise: Delivering Microsoft Dynamics solutions, in particular CRM. Besides being the person to call for ExchangeDefender in the Seattle area, Scott and OWN share a client that has leveraged the online CRM solution for their business. Scott talks about the partnership process and the value delivery in services beyond infrastructure and why they are so critical to the businesses we all serve. An excellent interview to consider not just from the S+S news perspective but also possible business ventures you can pursue with CRM (and with Scott of course!) For more information, take a look at his web site: http://www.autonomix.com

Click here to download the podcast, runtime 30 minutes.

OWN Partner Call with Mark Crall

Mark Crall, MCP, PAL from Charlotte Tech Care Team joins us live from Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference to discuss the news and events from the first two days and PAL meetings affecting the SBSC:

• Launch date SBS and EBS announced
• Upcoming changes to the SBSC requirements
• Free SBS 2008 exam vouchers
• Changes to the Microsoft partner program for SMB
• Software + Services
• Tech business in Charlotte

Mark runs Charlotte Tech Care Team (OWN ExchangeDefender, Exchange 2007 partner) in Charlotte, NC and has a very popular blog covering the SBSC & MSP buzz. If you need tech work in Charlotte, SMB support services, ongoing managed IT care, any of our OWN products, VoIP/ResponsePoint product support you can reach Mark at (704) 248-8328.

Click here to download the podcast, runtime 30 minutes.

OWN says G’day to Australia

One day after our UK launch we are taking another giant step in our mission to level the world of hosted business services. Today we proudly announce the launch of our Australian line of business, with Exchange 2007, SharePoint v3, Virtual Hosting with the same features, higher storage limits and most importantly, the same price as in United States and Europe.

We would like to again thank our partners in Australia for making this possible with the help of Equinix, SuperMicro and Microsoft. Our partners from Australia and New Zealand have made ExchangeDefender and ShockeyMonkey into a huge regional success and we are doing our part to help our partners from down under add more services to their portfolios. We believe that making these services affordable will open up a lot of opportunities for our partners to provide additional services on top of Exchange and SharePoint that would otherwise not be possible for customers that are not interested or in a position to design servers and reliable network infrastructure required to support their business.

All services will be branded and centrally managed through the upcoming OWN Service Manager portals that will extend the partners brand over services and solutions delivered from our two data centers in Sydney. Portion of profits will be used to help support the local ITPRO communities across Australia.

We would also like to extend special thanks to several individuals that made these moves possible: Dean Calvert of Calvert Technologies, Wayne Small of Correct Solutions, Robbie Upcroft of Microsoft Corp, Jared Hirst of Equinix as well as thousands of partners across Australia and New Zealand that have done business with us throughout the years and demanded these solutions in their country to help serve the emerging market in need of technology business management beyond network infrastructure design and upkeep.

Thank you!

Sincerely,

Vlad Mazek, MCSE
CEO, Own Web Now Corp

OWN Launches European Branch

We are very proud to announce the launch of the European division of Own Web Now Corp. After years of global success with ExchangeDefender and a large growth in our other lines of business in UK, Ireland, Germany, Greece, France, Italy and Spain the demand for an European line of business, and a native European network, made the following moves possible.

Effective July 1st, Own Web Now Corp is proud to start offering all our hosting services in Europe, starting with the following:

Exchange 2007 with 10 Gb Mailboxes by default, OwnWebNow Offsite Backups, SharePoint 3.0, Virtual hosting services for Web (Linux or Windows), SQL, FTP and email.

All services will be priced at identical levels to their United States counterparts but due to the further commoditization of server infrastructure solutions we are able to offer more storage better performance with services spread across the continent: United Kingdom, Netherlands, and Germany.

To comply with the new EU privacy laws, and avoid United States Patriot Act concerns, the European infrastructure is managed and located completely within the EU geographic limits.

With this move we are also establishing funding for IT community support in Europe. Stay tuned for details, further global expansion, new product announcements, centralized management and branding announcements and more over the next few days.

Feature enhancements in upcoming Offsite Backup upgrade

I wanted to share with you some details of the upcoming upgrade to our Offsite Backup service over the next 60 days. If you work closely with us you are perhaps already well aware of the information below but we thought it would be nice to have it in a blog post.

First, starting the first week of July, our European Offsite Backup offering goes online based in United Kingdom with a replication server infrastructure in Netherlands. In United States we already do triple replication between Dallas, Los Angeles and Chicago. The two offsite backup systems will be physically and logically separate, no data stored in European Union will be replicated to United States or vice versa. However, nothing stands to prohibit you from purchasing space on either network and to the surprise of many of our EU clients, the price will indeed be the same as in United States.

Oh, and we’ll also give you quota and account management functionality so you don’t have to work through the tickets and can have centralized service management functionality straight out of our portal 🙂

So without further ado, feature set from AhSay 5.5:

• AhsayOBS
  • Backup
    1. N/A – No updates have been made in this category
  • Restore
    1. N/A – No updates have been made in this category
  • Customization
    1. [Pre May-07] Include link to download OBM / ACB based on user type in the welcome email. (ref: SQN-381142)
    2. [Pre May-07] Client requests to have the encrypted password included in the welcome email or make this it available as an optional feature. (ref: TRK-830097)
  • GUI / Reporting / Logging
    1. [Pre Dec-06] Ability to set catalina log files to another directory (it is the catalina.out file in particular. Let the user know how to set the location of this file)
    2. [Pre May-07] Show the expiration date of all trial user accounts on the [List Users] and [User Profile] pages (ref: JMN-416336) 
    3. [Pre Dec-06] Show total number of files and uncompressed file size for each backup set (ref: FMZ-208525)
    4. [Pre May-07] File search and filter function (ref: BFC-291647, QBH-761540, VRT-928212, DOU-264678, 383)
  • API
    1. N/A – No updates have been made in this category
  • Administration / Maintenance / Deployment (e.g user account maintenance, billing, monitoring, system jobs, installer)
    1. (Key Feature) Load balancing support for AhsayOBS
    2. (Key Feature) Add LDAP (or Windows Active Directory) support to AhsayOBS
       1. [Pre Dec-06] Allow backup quota to be shared by group of users (ref: SYA-626989)
       2. [Pre May-07] Allow the default backup set setting for different users or for user groups customizable by administrators (ref: 291)
       3. [Pre Dec-06] Global filter settings – allow client setting to be overridden by server setting at system level, at user level and at backup set level
       4. [Pre May-07] Allow administrator to change the in-file default settings from incremental to differential delta (ref: TST-934738)
  • Replication
    1. [Pre Dec-06] Multi-user homes for RPS, e.g. allow replicating from user home to user home
  • General
    1. N/A – No updates have been made in this category
• AhsayOBM / AhsayACB
  • Integration with other applications (e.g. AS/400, Postgres)
    1. (Key Feature) Continuous data protection – start backup whenever a file is being modified (ref: KLY-561803)
       1. [Pre May-07] Start backup whenever the computer is not in use (no network traffic) (ref: KLY-561803)
       2. [Jun-07] Monitor changes on computer but backup only when CPU utilization is below a configurable percent (e.g. 20%) (ref: WPC-416541)
    2. [Pre Dec-06] Integrate with Microsoft Exchange recovery storage group feature
    3. [Pre May-07] Enable/Disable truncate logs after backing up Microsoft Exchange Information Store (ref: 216)
  • Backup (core backup logics and scheduler) 
    1. [Pre May-07] Add options for user to choose to backup using 256-bit Encryption (ref: XWM-772999)
    2. [Pre May-07] Alert users when listing backup sets with “Run scheduled backup on this computer” not checked (ref: FBT-783473)
    3. [Pre May-07] If a user set “\\” or “\\SERVER” as backup source or filter’s top directory, backup job failed with an unclear error message. Better error messages should be presented to users to explain the problems. (ref: YSH-282296)
  • Restore
    1. [Pre May-07] Allow OBM to run decrypt.bat without contacting OBS as a standalone EXE executable (ref: DPV-515226)
  • Auto upgrade agent
    1. N/A – No updates have been made in this category
  • Customization
    1. N/A – No updates have been made in this category
  • GUI / Reporting / Logging
    1. (Key Feature) Re-design of AhsayOBM / AhsayACB GUI
    2. [Pre May-07] Add the functionality of “Backup and Sleep (Hibernate)” and “Backup and standby” (ref: MMP-653617)
    3. [Pre May-07] Remove “Run all backup sets” from system tray in ACB (ref: CCV-309638)
    4. [Pre May-07] In the restore window, it should give a label to the other radio button (not the original location but the one which allows to choose restoring to another location) (ref: 935)
    5. [Pre May-07] Variable retry interval – it will only wait for 5 seconds for the first retry and all subsequence retries interval will a double of previous retry interval until an interval of 300 seconds is reached (ref: ERY-169217)
    6. [Pre Dec-06] Add the option to skip all files with invalid encrypting key during the decryption process.
    7. [Pre May-07] Ensure that the “UnsupportedLookAndFeelException” will not display when running “RunBackupSet.sh” with a backup set that could not be found on server (ref: LRU-783282)
  • Administration / Maintenance / Deployment (e.g. monitoring, installer)
    1. registry before installation of AhsayOBM to fix the bug of system tray icon not showing during startup when there are duplicates entries to the same executable
    2. [Jan-08] Bug fix – The point-in-time view from AhsayOBM drop down list under the [Restore] tab is not correct and is not consistent with the view of AhsayOBS on the web interface when using advanced retention policy
  • General
    1. [Pre May-07] With the current restore.bat or restore.sh, Java will pop-up a prompt to reconfirm whether to overwrite previous files when restoring to an existing folder. This doesn’t make sense as people may not have a GUI when using command-line, besides, it doesn’t work when they use a OS level scheduler to trigger the script. Provide a switch to the script file so that no reconfirmation will be prompted. We may want to consider putting in a synchronization logic to the restore function as well. (ref: TYW-997121) 
    2. [Pre May-07] (bug) OBM doesn’t timeout in 6 hours (ref: VOZ-927176)
    3. [Pre May-07] Users first logon to OBM using the encrypted password, it should prompt the users to change their password. (ref: TRK-830097)
• AhsayOBX (AhsayOBS, AhsayOBM & AhsayACB)
  • Administration / Maintenance / Deployment (e.g. monitoring, installer) 
    1. (Key Feature) Ability to initiate backup from OBS (ref: QDP-817039)
  • Backup
    1. [Pre Dec-06] Allow backup schedule to run every X minutes (ref: 234)
  • Restore
    1. [Pre May-07] File search and filter function in OBS and OBM (ref: BFC-291647, QBH-761540, VRT-928212, DOU-264678, 383)
  • GUI / Reporting / Logging
    1. [Pre May-07] Change “Show jobs after….” to “Show job as of ….” (ref: HSO-458501) 
    2. [Pre May-07] In the restore window, it should use “AS OF” instead of “After” a certain jobs (ref: 935)
• Network Attached Storage (NAS) integration
  
  • [Nov-07] Integrate OBS into Thecus NAS products:
    1. Building a client utility which install AhsayOBS into NAS products
    2. Enhance user experiences by streamlining the installation process with easier installation instructions

AhsayOBS v6.0 (beta: 1-Oct-2008, stable: 1-Dec-2008)

This release will contain bug fixes and enhancements listed below. 

• AhsayOBS
  • Backup
    1. (Key Feature) New backup file system architecture that can span multiple partitions and run faster. For example, multiple user homes for the same user, allowing a user to span multiple user homes (ref: HUM-981718, 548)
       1. [Pre May-07] Permission updates should not increase the storage massively (ref: AIC-665482)
  • Restore
    1. N/A – No updates have been made in this category
  • Customization
    1. [Pre May-07] Add the option to change where OBM stores the log files (ref:  HOU-743486, 382)
  • GUI / Reporting / Logging
    1. (Key Feature) Re-design GUI using AJAX
    2. [Pre Dec-06] Auditing of all administrative activities 
    3. [Pre Dec-06] Add remaining quota to usage report 
    4. [Pre Dec-06] Once detects the client has exceeded storage quota subscribed, can show an option for the user to request how much more storage is needed, and allow user to buy additional storage and proceed with backup
    5. [Pre Dec-06] Raise quota automatically and send confirmation emails to user and admin
    6. [Pre May-07] Generation the following reports on OBS side (ref: 790):
       1. Report on when users were first registered so I can keep track of renewals (I know the usage report gives this info but it is static and without manual intervention, I can’t manipulate it)
       2. Any point in time report between dates on when and which users restored files
       3. Missed user backups
       4. Backups with errors (essential from a customer services point of view)
    7. [Pre May-07] File search and filter function as in AhsayOBS (ref: BFC-291647, QBH-761540, VRT-928212, DOU-264678, 383)
  • API 
    1. [Pre May-07] Enhance ListBackupJobs API with more details (e.g. username, job name, start time, end time, upload size and job status) (ref: EEU-184625, 547) (This has been delayed because a simple testing showed that this could lead to significant slow down in response time of this API because it would take too long to get the backup job status of all backup jobs)
  • Administration / Maintenance / Deployment (e.g user account maintenance, billing, monitoring, system jobs, installer)
    1. [Pre Dec-06] A routine job that merges delta files with full backup files on AhsayOBS
    2. [Pre Dec-06] Allow retention policy to keep a certain number of versions of the same file 
    3. [Pre Dec-06] Allow user type to be defined by partners, e.g. paid, trial, others
    4. (Key Feature) Integration with Windows Active Directory and OpenLDAP
       1. [Pre Dec-06] Backup report setting per user group or per user instead of per system right now (NTT request)
       2. [Pre Dec-06] Enable different administrator accounts for different group. These group admin accounts will have privileges to manage accounts under their own groups (ref: XSB-581351, RER-199696, RWI-435051, TKD-379677)
       3. [Pre May-07] Delegate user account management to other support staff without giving them full administrative privileges (ref: 347)
       4. [Pre May-07] Add “Company” Field in User Profile (ref: XSB-581351, RER199696, RWI-435051)
       5. [Pre May-07] Add “phone number” field for user account (ref: RUX-816258)
       6. [Pre May-07] Provide a “Company Name” field for each user account. This field should only be visible and modifiable by the administrator. Administrators should also be able to sort and filter accounts by company name. (ref: 650)
       7. [09-05-2008] Add functionality to backup/restore full OBS configurations, not including userdata (ref: UQT-815782)
  • Replication
    1. (Key Feature) Many-to-one and one-to-many server data replication
    2. [Pre Dec-06] Replicating selective users (or backup sets) from OBS to RPS (ref: FBT-783473)
  • General
    1. [Pre Dec-06] Add support of time zone GMT+9.5 (Adelaide) 
• AhsayOBM / AhsayACB
• Integration with other applications (e.g. AS/400, Postgres)
  1. (Key Feature) Bare metal backup / restore
  2. (Key Feature) Backup Framework (allow OBM to be integrated with other applications)
     1. [Pre Dec-06] Allow AhsayOBM to be easily extended to support Sharepoint, Sybase’s iAnywhere, Progress database, Quicken, Quickbooks (*.qbw files), Peachtree, MAS90 module for Peachtree
     2. [Pre Dec-06] Install OBM in silent mode – Embedded “User Account” / API to create user account
     3. [Pre Dec-06] Automatically create a “standard” backup set for target application
     4. [Pre Dec-06] Expose OBM features as external API
     5. [Pre Dec-06] Allow OBM to be hidden from end users, file restore can be invoked through API
     6. [Pre May-07] IMAP mailbox backup – Scalix support. (NB: Scalix is a Linux based Exchange server replacement ) (ref: RFZ-476395)
     7. [Pre Dec-06] Add filter to exclude files from a certain date
     8. [Pre Dec-06] Extract individual email from Outlook (PST) file
     9. [Pre Dec-06] Upload checksum incorrect backup file again during backup
     10. [Pre Dec-06] Add multi-thread delta file calculation & upload for performance
• Backup (core backup logics and scheduler)
  1. N/A – No updates have been made in this category
• Restore
  1. N/A – No updates have been made in this category
• Auto upgrade agent
  1. N/A – No updates have been made in this category
• Customization
  1. N/A – No updates have been made in this category
• GUI / Reporting / Logging
  1. [Pre May-07] (bug) OBM backup source of a mapped directory disappears after the mapped drive is unmapped. The backup set will still backup that directory but cannot find the path in the backup source. Web interface will still show the mapped path. (ref: WVK-850816, ORO-725960)
  2. [Pre May-07] Add the option to “Skip logging failed backup of all open files as error” when running backup in OBM / ACB (ref: GXH-275737)
  3. [Pre Dec-06] Add wizard to detect if SQL or Exchange is installed and configure it automatically
• Administration / Maintenance / Deployment (e.g. monitoring, installer)
  1. N/A – No updates have been made in this category
• General
1. N/A – No updates have been made in this category