Mail hosting based on Exchange Server 2010 - for free ?!
We want to announce a new Infobox project.
After a while, Infobox begins to transfer all customer mailboxes (over 100,000) to a new mail platform.
How, why and why we will tell in our announcement.
')
Email is an essential attribute of hosting services for all hosting companies in the world. So we have mailboxes of many thousands of clients.
As a rule, hosters use for the provision of postal services free software. For example, we use a bundle of products from various manufacturers, in particular Postfix, Courier, Round Cube, Squirrel, as the mail system. Postfix is ​​responsible for receiving / sending / sending mail via smtp and places incoming messages in mailboxes, courier provides work through pop3 and IMAP, and the last two are web-based clients for accessing mail.
Unfortunately, our customers, as well as customers of other hosting companies periodically complain about the problems associated with the operation of e-mail. Among the problems are delays in the delivery of letters, inefficient work of anti-spam and antivirus, slow work when there are several thousand messages in one folder, not always correct work of web email clients with Russian, attachments, contacts, large letters and some others. I note that now we have two web-clients, and each has its own shortcomings, the ideal solution was not found.
At the same time, customers often compare the work of mail hosters and mail of free services (Yandex, Mail, GMail, etc.) and ask why paid mail works worse than free mail. I want to make a reservation right away that I consider “free” mail “shareware”, and “paid” mail from hosts “conditionally paid”. Why? It is no secret that free services earn on advertising, while these revenues are such that they allow them to deploy and pay for very expensive and accordingly stable infrastructure. Do hosters actually mail included in the cost of hosting the site and pay for it is very conditional. This is a kind of additional service, which is possibly included in the price of the tariff, but rather conditionally. It is difficult to talk about any cost of 1 box when positioning an unlimited number of boxes, which is usually offered by the hoster. Of course, these are the “problems” of the hoster tell you. But in any case, it is you, the clients, who are accustomed to pay in the name of 150-300 rubles for virtual hosting and no better mail will cause them to pay 500 rubles. And just do not need to say that the western hosters mail on a virtual hosting works without interruption. ))
And when the hoster offers a really stable mail service, but for a fee, for example, Exchange Hosting , users say that 370 rubles per box is too expensive. And it turns out a vicious circle. There is no payment for mail, and there is no advertising either, as there are no free services either - there is no expensive infrastructure, and there is no it (infrastructure) - there is no high quality. Although, I can not say that our infrastructure is weak, because we have about a hundred mail servers, of which more than 30 mail storages.
As a result, problems with mail are perhaps the most important reason for changing a hoster. The client rushes between hosters in search of the best mail. And in fact makes it unsuccessfully.
It is time to ask the sacramental question "What to do?".
It is necessary to change something, and cardinally. What do we want first?
Increase the speed of the mail system, for example, in the following ways:
Use a mail server that does not store each individual letter in a separate file, because reading the headers of 100 letters is 100-200 hard disk search operations.
The mail server should be able to cache user data in memory so that with frequent connections there would be no constant reading of basic information, for example, a list of letters. Caching at the file system level, in this case, is not efficient, because reading and writing new letters constantly overwrites the cache.
We also want to give our customers a truly reliable, non-bugger, multifunctional web interface for working with mail.
The solution that solved in one fell swoop most of the problems was found - this is MS Exchange Server 2010. For us, this solution was on the surface, because in two years we managed to make sure that this product was working smoothly, to appreciate the chic web interface and other goodies. By the way, Infobox has been using Exchange Server for three years as a corporate mail system.
We want all our customers to use business class email, so we decided to transfer all mail to this platform.
But the main question on whose shoulders will lay the costs of paying licenses for commercial software, especially on such a scale. We understood that our customers do not want to pay for hosting the site + mail more than they paid before. Therefore, it was decided to take on these costs.
Due to what? According to our calculations, the number of servers servicing mail clients will decrease, which will allow us to reduce the cost of hosting and maintaining these servers. Because we use our own data center, reducing the number of servers will free up space and further reduce the cost of space and electricity.
Despite the fact that this, of course, does not pay for all the new costs, we are ready for additional investments, because We are confident that a higher quality postal service will increase the loyalty of existing customers and attract new ones.
Of course, it will not be a complete analogue of the existing service for business customers for 370 rubles. This will be a solution that has a somewhat limited functionality compared to paid boxes. The MAPI protocol functions will be disabled, i.e. There will not be the following features - ActiveSync, BlackBerry, free desktop Outlook, shared folders, shared contacts and some other collaboration features. But all the same, users will get absolutely the same functionality as they used to be at the hosting mail - the ability to work under the IMAP, POP3, SMTP protocols and access to the multifunctional web interface OWA (Outlook Web App). At the same time, mail will be placed on a very stable Exchange Server platform and will not cost any additional money for the client.
Another advantage for our clients is the possibility of a transparent transition within our hosting to full-featured mailboxes with support for ActiveSync, free Outlook, voice access to the mailbox and other features that are located on the same platform.
From a technical point of view, this is a unique and very interesting project for Russia and even international practice, since There are not so many providers in the world who have placed more than 100,000 boxes on the Exchange Server as part of a single hosting platform. And there are practically no precedents for the work of such a number of boxes on the new Exchange Server 2010.
At present, we are testing a software and hardware complex for mail transfer and approximately in July we will start transferring client mail. This process is scheduled to be completed by the end of the year.
We will keep you informed about the preparations for the transfer and its process ...
It will be interesting! Good luck to all!
After a while, Infobox begins to transfer all customer mailboxes (over 100,000) to a new mail platform.
How, why and why we will tell in our announcement.
')
Email is an essential attribute of hosting services for all hosting companies in the world. So we have mailboxes of many thousands of clients.
As a rule, hosters use for the provision of postal services free software. For example, we use a bundle of products from various manufacturers, in particular Postfix, Courier, Round Cube, Squirrel, as the mail system. Postfix is ​​responsible for receiving / sending / sending mail via smtp and places incoming messages in mailboxes, courier provides work through pop3 and IMAP, and the last two are web-based clients for accessing mail.
Unfortunately, our customers, as well as customers of other hosting companies periodically complain about the problems associated with the operation of e-mail. Among the problems are delays in the delivery of letters, inefficient work of anti-spam and antivirus, slow work when there are several thousand messages in one folder, not always correct work of web email clients with Russian, attachments, contacts, large letters and some others. I note that now we have two web-clients, and each has its own shortcomings, the ideal solution was not found.
At the same time, customers often compare the work of mail hosters and mail of free services (Yandex, Mail, GMail, etc.) and ask why paid mail works worse than free mail. I want to make a reservation right away that I consider “free” mail “shareware”, and “paid” mail from hosts “conditionally paid”. Why? It is no secret that free services earn on advertising, while these revenues are such that they allow them to deploy and pay for very expensive and accordingly stable infrastructure. Do hosters actually mail included in the cost of hosting the site and pay for it is very conditional. This is a kind of additional service, which is possibly included in the price of the tariff, but rather conditionally. It is difficult to talk about any cost of 1 box when positioning an unlimited number of boxes, which is usually offered by the hoster. Of course, these are the “problems” of the hoster tell you. But in any case, it is you, the clients, who are accustomed to pay in the name of 150-300 rubles for virtual hosting and no better mail will cause them to pay 500 rubles. And just do not need to say that the western hosters mail on a virtual hosting works without interruption. ))
And when the hoster offers a really stable mail service, but for a fee, for example, Exchange Hosting , users say that 370 rubles per box is too expensive. And it turns out a vicious circle. There is no payment for mail, and there is no advertising either, as there are no free services either - there is no expensive infrastructure, and there is no it (infrastructure) - there is no high quality. Although, I can not say that our infrastructure is weak, because we have about a hundred mail servers, of which more than 30 mail storages.
As a result, problems with mail are perhaps the most important reason for changing a hoster. The client rushes between hosters in search of the best mail. And in fact makes it unsuccessfully.
It is time to ask the sacramental question "What to do?".
It is necessary to change something, and cardinally. What do we want first?
Increase the speed of the mail system, for example, in the following ways:
Use a mail server that does not store each individual letter in a separate file, because reading the headers of 100 letters is 100-200 hard disk search operations.
The mail server should be able to cache user data in memory so that with frequent connections there would be no constant reading of basic information, for example, a list of letters. Caching at the file system level, in this case, is not efficient, because reading and writing new letters constantly overwrites the cache.
We also want to give our customers a truly reliable, non-bugger, multifunctional web interface for working with mail.
The solution that solved in one fell swoop most of the problems was found - this is MS Exchange Server 2010. For us, this solution was on the surface, because in two years we managed to make sure that this product was working smoothly, to appreciate the chic web interface and other goodies. By the way, Infobox has been using Exchange Server for three years as a corporate mail system.
We want all our customers to use business class email, so we decided to transfer all mail to this platform.
But the main question on whose shoulders will lay the costs of paying licenses for commercial software, especially on such a scale. We understood that our customers do not want to pay for hosting the site + mail more than they paid before. Therefore, it was decided to take on these costs.
Due to what? According to our calculations, the number of servers servicing mail clients will decrease, which will allow us to reduce the cost of hosting and maintaining these servers. Because we use our own data center, reducing the number of servers will free up space and further reduce the cost of space and electricity.
Despite the fact that this, of course, does not pay for all the new costs, we are ready for additional investments, because We are confident that a higher quality postal service will increase the loyalty of existing customers and attract new ones.
Of course, it will not be a complete analogue of the existing service for business customers for 370 rubles. This will be a solution that has a somewhat limited functionality compared to paid boxes. The MAPI protocol functions will be disabled, i.e. There will not be the following features - ActiveSync, BlackBerry, free desktop Outlook, shared folders, shared contacts and some other collaboration features. But all the same, users will get absolutely the same functionality as they used to be at the hosting mail - the ability to work under the IMAP, POP3, SMTP protocols and access to the multifunctional web interface OWA (Outlook Web App). At the same time, mail will be placed on a very stable Exchange Server platform and will not cost any additional money for the client.
Another advantage for our clients is the possibility of a transparent transition within our hosting to full-featured mailboxes with support for ActiveSync, free Outlook, voice access to the mailbox and other features that are located on the same platform.
From a technical point of view, this is a unique and very interesting project for Russia and even international practice, since There are not so many providers in the world who have placed more than 100,000 boxes on the Exchange Server as part of a single hosting platform. And there are practically no precedents for the work of such a number of boxes on the new Exchange Server 2010.
At present, we are testing a software and hardware complex for mail transfer and approximately in July we will start transferring client mail. This process is scheduled to be completed by the end of the year.
We will keep you informed about the preparations for the transfer and its process ...
It will be interesting! Good luck to all!
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/94344/
All Articles