Two Years Later…
This week marks the two year anniversary of LiveArchive being put into production for client consumption. Two years later and we’re now processing over 1.5 million messages a day and currently storing over 30TB of data (Only a year of data is retained in mailboxes). Along with the celebrating anniversary we’ve also added two new mailbox servers to the mix for an additional 14TB of data storage capabilities.
We also had issues where delivery delay notifications from LiveArchive Los Angeles EDGE node #4 were delivered to clients when mail was only being queued for a database that was offline for repair. We’d like to inform everyone that we’ve rewritten our Transport Agent and we not expect to another flood of notifications from LiveArchive to be delivered to clients.
Travis Sheldon
VP, Network Operations, ExchangeDefender
(877) 546-0316 x757
travis@ownwebnow.com
Windows 8 Notables (For Email Providers)
I wanted to take a break from the usual, “hey guys if you don’t have mail flow, check your MX records and the mail logs and you’ll resolve the issue in 5 minutes.” And I’m sure you’re tired of reading it, so we’ll take this week off from that.
Yesterday the Windows Team blog posted the different Windows 8 Editions and their feature listings. Also, Looks Cloudy posted their spin. I decided to take a quick look at it and point out some interesting things for us in the email game. The first thing that jumps out at me is the use of ActiveSync built into their Mail “App”. The Windows Store caught my eye, but I’ll stay focused. So now there’ll be ActiveSync on desktops as well as mobile devices, this CAN be good if you’re into device policies.
The other quick item that jumped right out to me as we get a few folks that are a little more hands off with their MSP practice, is the native ISO/VHD mount. Mainly the ISO portion, we’ve gotten a handful well literally 2 guys in the last 5 years complain about or not understand how to use an ISO to install Outlook. Well looks like those 2 guys won’t have an axe to grind and their users will be the better off for it.
I’ll be interested to see how they upsell from the built in Mail and Calendar apps to Outlook in the smaller businesses.
Carlos Lascano
VP Support Services, ExchangeDefender
carlos@ownwebnow.com
(877) 546-0316 x737
New Changes Coming to our Hosted Exchange
Today is a very exciting day for our Hosted Exchange team as we have finally approved the use of Address Book Policies in our provisioning process (Introduced in Exchange 2010 SP2).
Address Book Policies
Address Book Policies allow Exchange Administrators to easily assign and separate address lists for clients so that clients only see objects from their organization without using ACLs or AD splicing. Prior to the approval of ABP we’ve always used ACLs to control address list segregation in our Hosted Exchange offering. In short, when a new “company” is added to Exchange, we take their primary domain and group all users based on original domain. For the most part, this approach worked well. However, there were certain situations that this would not fare well. For instance, if a new company was split into two sub companies and they joined hosted Exchange then each sub company would only be able to see their own users UNLESS all mailboxes were added with the same primary domain in the order.
With Address Book Policies we now have the ability to create an overall policy for the “Company” which links the appropriate address lists and offline address books to each user. This change will allow companies to utilize multiple primary domains and still see all users in the company. By default we will still create companies as “separate” organizations, but partners can now request that domains for a company be linked together.
The change to automation will be introduced to Rockerduck and LOUIE this week and monitored for a week before rolling the change to all 2010 servers.
Travis Sheldon
VP, Network Operations, ExchangeDefender
(877) 546-0316 x757
travis@ownwebnow.com
IP Restrictions and You
Odds are the folks looking at this probably don’t do the bulk of the deployments for their companies. But in the odd chance that they are or have direct access to them, I’m going to touch on a very important aspect of ExchangeDefender deployment: IP restrictions. First we’ll start with a nice bright list of what the ranges are:
· 65.99.255.0/24
· 206.125.40.0/24
Now here’s why you need to first off add them for your client’s mail flow. Remember that in order for us to deliver mail on behalf of the original sender you have accept mail anonymously. This is very easy to do (it’s just the next tab on the receive connector GUI. The downside to allowing anonymous delivery WITHOUT the restrictions is that you’re one step away from being an “Open Relay”. If you’re an open relay, that will surely get your connection blacklisted on RBLs, it may get your access to our network revoked for a period of time based on the severity of the outbreak. So the cons of not setting these correctly are pretty huge:
· Interrupted/Inconsistent inbound mail flow
· Outbound mail flow restrictions
Carlos Lascano
VP Support Services, ExchangeDefender
carlos@ownwebnow.com
(877) 546-0316 x737
ExchangeDefender and Shockey Monkey Quarterly Meeting
With Q1 in the books we are ready to announce everything we have been working on to make your life easier and business more profitable. Several huge announcements will be made during the webinar so please attend live to ask questions or watch it later at your convenience. To register simply click the link below:
Tuesday, April 24th, Noon EST
Topics that are going to be announced:
Announcing: Managed Messaging
Changes to ExchangeDefender Support
Shockey Monkey Web Site Extender
Shockey Monkey RMM Update
ExchangeDefender 2012 Roadmap
Shockey Monkey 2012 Roadmap
Sign up for the Webinar NOW!!!
Support Refresher
Here we are again, another week and another quick reminder of how to test mail flow since it appears that ever week people forget the troubleshooting steps from last week.
Guys these steps are fool proof and give the answer every single time.
http://www.exchangedefender.com/blog/2011/12/where-is-my-mail-flow/
One of the tools recommended in the guide above is the Mail Log for Service Providers. Some of you are aware that we provide you with line by SMTP logs for every email. If your client is claiming their mail is not coming in this is the place to go. You log into https://admin.exchangedefender.com with your SP ID and its right there “Mail Log”. You put the to/from for the test message you sent them and voila. You have your answer, no opening a ticket, no calling anyone, no chatting with anyone. If the message isn’t listed there, check the MX record, if it’s not there then there are only two possibilities:
You typed the info in incorrectly.
We did not receive the message.
Please keep your eye on Social Media as we have a ton of new stuff coming down the pipe and that’s the best way to keep in touch.
Carlos Lascano
VP Support Services, ExchangeDefender
carlos@ownwebnow.com
(877) 546-0316 x737
LOUIE DAG and Public Folder Upgrades
Over the weekend of March 30th-31st we will be performing upgrades to the LOUIE DAG (Mailboxes) and Public Folder databases. The changes that will begin during this maintenance cycle will improve the native automatic redundancy for LOUIE mailboxes and bring an overall greater experience for users. Due to the number of users and the size of data on LOUIE, the only way to complete the migration with the overall least amount of service interruption is to dismount the public folder database on Friday evening, and leaving it dismounted until Saturday afternoon.
Taking the public folder database offline will prevent ALL access to public folder data housed on LOUIEMBOX1, including mail enabled public folders between Friday evening until Saturday afternoon.
All public folders are replicated between multiple databases, however, unlike DAG protection, Public Folder databases work off a referral based system for locating copies and is highly unreliable for automated continuity.
Any users/partners who are concerned about the availability of their public folder data can open a support ticket and request that our team ensures their public folder data has an active, local replica.
We do not anticipate any interruption in the service of actual mail delivery or mailbox access on LOUIE.
Travis Sheldon
VP, Network Operations, ExchangeDefender
(877) 546-0316 x757
travis@ownwebnow.com
Repeat Issues
I’d like to recommend that this blog should be a required read for your support staff as soon as possible and have them subscribe to this blog. I know generally the folks that have the time to read this blog are probably not the same folks that handle the support, my posts focus solely on making things easier for your staff. I’m going to broach the topic of mail flow questions again, because regardless of how much faster it would be if folks familiarize themselves with the troubleshooting process, we still get the same question from the same people. So here we go again, let’s get into a couple of repeat issues:
If a domain is not getting mail please follow this guide:
http://www.exchangedefender.com/blog/2011/12/where-is-my-mail-flow/
Another popular question that keeps coming up is regarding the XDSYNC password sync feature. Remember guys, the password syncs DOWN from the Cloud (ExchangeDefender) to the AD tree(s). If you make to the last sentence Hank does explain the flow.
http://www.exchangedefender.com/blog/2012/01/xdsync-v2a-technical-overview/
Carlos Lascano
VP Support Services, ExchangeDefender
carlos@ownwebnow.com
(877) 546-0316 x737
How Does ExchangeDefender Compare?
How does ExchangeDefender compare to others in the industry? Check it out for yourself here!
ExchangeDefender is an Internet-based message hygiene and business continuity network that can secure and save your business by providing AntiSPAM and Antivirus protection, Web File Sharing, Web Filtering, LiveArchive, Encryption, Archiving and Compliance, Reporting, and so much more. ExchangeDefender is a complete mail solution, and nothing reinforces that statement more than LiveArchive. For the ultimate peace of mind, LiveArchive provides always-on, real-time, secure web access to your email when your mail server is down, disconnected or undergoing maintenance – all without sacrificing your corporate identity. The best part of about LiveArchive is that it is included in the price of ExchangeDefender. So, you receive the protection and reliability of LiveArchive without the additional cost.
ExchangeDefender is completely partner-centric and works hand in hand with our partners to not only provide hosted solutions but to maintain a successful partnership. Together with the world-class support and product offerings and features for the cost, ExchangeDefender is a head above the rest!
All of our products and services come all-inclusive and backed by our 24x7x365 Technical Support. All of these features and support come without any software to install or maintain. Keep your mail server running as it is and deploy ExchangeDefender in less than 5 minutes at the fraction of the cost of other antivirus licensing alone.
ExchangeDefender has so many wonderful benefits and features, if you are interested in knowing more or have any questions, please let us know! How do we measure up for you? – Let us know!
Stephanie Hasenour
VP Marketing, ExchangeDefender
stephanie@ownwebnow.com
Rockerduck CAS Addition and Exchange 2010 SP2 RU1
This week I bring exciting news for users on ROCKERDUCK and to all of our Exchange 2010 clients.
Over the past week ROCKERDUCK has experienced a growth of 15% of our user base in a week. Fifteen percent may not seem like much, but roughly equates to about 230 new mailboxes in less than a week. Although ROCKERDUCK was designed and scaled to handle the number of mailboxes, we’ve noticed larger RPC response times for users. Upon investigation, it was determined that the slower response time was due to the increased processing load on the CAS servers for PST uploads and a larger amount of Mac Outlook users.
To resolve the issue, we’ve added an additional CAS server to ROCKERDUCK, RDCAS4. Currently RDCAS4 is undergoing a stress test to ensure it has been properly configured and can handle the load that it is expected to carry.
RDCAS4 is expected to be placed into production by 3/22/12.
Finally, we’ve approved the installation of Exchange 2010 SP2 RU1 across our Exchange 2010 USA clusters. Primarily, Exchange 2010 SP2 RU1 includes bug fixes for iOS users and reoccurring calendar events. We anticipate installation of Exchange 2010 SP2 RU1 in the following order:
3/26/12 Monday: LOUIE
3/27/12 Monday: ROCKERDUCK
Travis Sheldon
VP, Network Operations, ExchangeDefender
(877) 546-0316 x757
travis@ownwebnow.com