Having covered giving your server and internet connection some resilience, next we come to the thing that runs our lives, email. If your company's email is provided by your ISP or by a hosting provider (1&1, Fasthost etc.) then you don’t need to worry about this; hopefully, your email provider worries about this instead!
However, for those of you who use Microsoft Small Business Server or any server which receives and stores your email ‘in house’, that server going down is one of your biggest nightmares.
To see how you can easily, and with little expense work around this problem lets break down how an email server crash effects you.
The Problem
- Access to existing messages. It’s quite possible you can’t see the email you’ve already sent and received, which makes it difficult to know what you need to do today, who you’re waiting to hear back from etc.
- Ability to send messages. With the mail server down you can’t send any messages out, which makes communication difficult and slow at best.
- Ability to receive new messages. People are sending you emails, and you don’t know what they are. They might be marked ‘urgent’ and need attention within an hour. What’s worse, the sender won’t necessarily know you haven't received it for some time (until a ‘bounce message’ tells them the email hasn’t got there).
The Solution
- Access to existing messages : Offline mode. You may already have this feature, it’s free with Microsoft Outlook 2003 and 2007, but it’s very effective in giving you access to your existing messages. Basically, when Outlook retrieves a new message from the server it ‘caches’ a copy of it locally on the disk, so if the server goes down, you still have access to the message and any attachments. Using this system allows you to access emails when your server is down, but still uses a centralised mail storage the rest of the time (local storage of email which some people use runs a very high risk of losing critical data when your PC/Laptop fails).
- Ability to send messages : Free email accounts. If you can’t send emails via your own mail server, but you can use an alternative server temporarily to stay in contact. The best option is probably the free email addresses that come with most business broadband accounts (BT, O2, Pipex and Demon all include at least 10 email addresses free with your broadband). You can setup a backup email addresses for each user in advance (e.g. john-rbit@btconnect.com, mary-rbit@btconnect.com) and configure Outlook on each users PC to use this account in addition to their existing mail account. In the event of a mail server outage you can instantly send email from these addresses and remain in contact.
- Ability to receive new messages : Alternative delivery options. You can use a service to temporarily 'hold' emails sent to you while your server is down, but the downside to that is the sender gets no bounce message, so they assume you've got the email when you haven't. The best option is to setup an alternative delivery location for your email using an ‘MX record’, and then have all your PC’s setup so Outlook can receive email from that alternative mailbox. This is a bit harder to setup and involves technical knowledge, but if you’d like to set this option up talk to whoever handles your DNS or provides you with technical support, or contact me on richard[at]rgbartlett.co.uk and I’d be happy to help set you up! It should cost no more than £10-20, depending on who the registrar for your domains is.
That’s all there is to it. No need for expensive servers set up in big data centres, no need for more servers, no need for days of consultancy and stress. With a little thought and preparation, you can put things in place so when your mail server goes down, your business doesn’t.
Richard Bartlett offers expert and independent IT Consultancy Services to review your IT, help buy the right systems, install them, train your users to use them, and ensure you have appropriate IT Support. For more information on services including installation and configuration services which can give your systems resilience see http://www.rgbartlett.co.uk/services/
Comments