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Best Way to Handle Email for a Small Domain?
CorkBobbingInTheSeaOfLife asks: "Our company just had its bi-annual email crisis/outage, so my boss wants to try something new -- to give me the 'opportunity' to figure out and implement a better way to host our small domain's email. We've changed hosts a few times, but whether we spend a little money or a lot none have been as reliable as we've liked -- companies fold, get blacklisted by AOL, and so forth. Is there a way to be smart about this, without hiring a dedicated email server pro? Do reliable email hosts actually exist? Should we run 'email appliance' software (such as ClarkConnect or E-Smith) on our own server? I'd appreciate any tips here - hell hath no fury like people without email, and I am very afraid..."
My recommendation would be to run a QmailToaster from http://www.qmailtoaster.com/. I've run this for three years, it's very simple and easy to use. There are scripts that will install the entire setup from beginning to end.
Then you can get a company like postini or dyndns.org or something to act as a backup mail server in case yours is down.
I'd recommend joining the QmailToaster mailing list first, to get a feel of the community.
Can I get an eye poke?
Dog House Forum
If you're less 50 users, might just want to consider bringing the email in-house. Find a server that can stay up, install BSD and Postfix on it, and you're good to go. If you want windows, go with Windows 2003 server and a copy of Imail.
Don't want the job of handling email? Handyhosting has been relatively trouble free for 3 years now. I've also had good experiences with Linkline at my former job.
...in bed
It would rock if you could simply point your MX records at smtp.google.com and let them do the rest. We get a great webmail, Google gets loyal customers.
As outlined in earlier posts, you have quite a few options when it comes to email service.
You can have it hosted. This is probably the easiest option. It sounds like you've had some bad experiences with this, and may be wary of it. You will have the best luck going with larger, more established hosts that embrace modern technology and have a strong, well documented, and well enforced AUP (that bans all kinds of spamming).
The second option has also been mentioned. Run a small Unix-based email service out of your office. This is probably the cheapest option, and depending on whom you compare it to, day-to-day management and troubleshooting can be quicker than a hosted service.
The third option is going to be an unpopular one with the Slashdot crowd (and in some cases, understandably so). Check out Microsoft Exchange (try the one bundled with Small Business Server). There are other groupware applications out there, and some (like Novell/SUSE's OpenExchange) are worth consideration...but nothing is Exchange. If you're already a Microsoft shop, you should definitely consider it as it integrates well with the MSFT software that you already have. Of course, it's budget dependant (and is an expensive platform to use). In your case with a small shop and limited experience, I would have a third party come in and set it up for you, and sign up for a service contract.
For an end user (especially management types), Exchange has every feature under the sun. It would help if you identified your goals (specifically budget and featureset desired) and then decide on what product is best for you. However, I would advise you to leave no option off the table, even if you have personal issues with the software. Also, all of these options are available as hosted solutions. However, it's important to weigh out both the benefits and drawbacks to hosting. Benefits are relatively obvious, and some drawbacks are that you lose control over your service, and certain quick tasks (like a password change) can take hours or even a full day for them to get around to.
-Turkey
DIY
Hosted
I ran my own mail server for my various domains, and have set up mail servers for companies. currently I'm using Fusemail for my personal and consulting email, and I'm starting to think that I would recommend it for most small companies.
The reason behind this is, I don't have the time to do the administration myself. I have other work priorities, and messing around with a server all the time is not one of them. The other benefits are, network synchronization of calendar, IMAP, server side sorting, and eventually Outlook pluggability (good for PDA users).
You can do this stuff yourself, but it takes time and is not always reliable. The down side of picking an external provider is, when your internet goes down, email is down, even internally. That can hurt a company and your credibility.
With that said, I would look potentially at email service providers (not web hosting providers) for an external solution, and probably exchange for an internal solution with groupware, and other unix solutions for internal email without groupware.
What you need to decide is how much responsibility you want for being the point person on email. If you're already afraid of the result, better to hire a domain expert, and one that's been in business. Get a good SLA (service level agreement), and assure that your internet connection is either redundant or up most of the time.
-- Bird in the Bush: The Renewable Energy Blog http://www.birdinthebush.org
Look into what Apple has to offer. Mac OS X Server looks very nice. It will run on anything from an old iMac to a Xserve G5. It features spam filtering, web mail, anti-virus, and encrypted connections.
I haven't used Apple's server products since the days of Mac OS 9. I'm just a fan of their products.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
I would NEVER use a backup MX server. They typically don't filter spam, so spammers send all their spam to your backup MX record, even when the primary is up. Then your filtering software sees that the message is coming via the backup MX server, and doesn't need to (and can't) do any IP-based filtering.
Maybe if you found a backup MX host that did proper filtering. But then why not have them host your email?
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
exchange is only useful if you need the shared calendaring/scheduling/etc that it provides.
otherwise, a linux box running courier-imap, your choice of webmail interface, and exim/postfix/etc is going to be a LOT cheaper
and the free solution does not have the artificial 16gb limit on storage (soon to be 75)
outlook works wonderfully with courier-imap.
just make sure you have a REALLY nice battery backup on all parts of the wan connection and the email server so when the lights go out, the mail keeps flowing...and a backup MX record too