Email issues - work...solutions?

The Black Oil

Hey,

We're having email issues again where I work. Between contacting the ISP, web hosts, web tech support, other tech support, server oddness, possible IP problems...we've been driven mad trying to get things back up and running. No luck yet. We're a non-profit, small office team. Most of us use a webmail login - one or two use Outlook 2007, iirc.

Main priority now is to get this fixed, priority after that would be come up with a better solution that is more stable in the long term. I've been thinking of something like Google Apps and that we can just purchase the space or whatever it is and have a smoother experience. Has anyone used this for their work? I think you can basically set it up that you can access your work mail through Gmail whilst still maintaining @companyname.ie as your address. Is that right?

I'd nearly go off and set it up myself, but I think it'll take a bit of convincing when it comes to my colleagues, though we're all fairly frustrated with things at the moment.

Aside from the cost, on a technical level, what would we have to do to preserve our current messages if transferring over...I probably have about 25 subfolders, etc and many mails going back years before my time, and even before the person I replaced.

Thanks.

Merl1n

you can have your dns redirected to gmail and have @companyname.ie
You pay a monthly fee to googlw for this on a per user basis

If you have a server you could put in exchange and host your own mail and if the company is a charity you may ve able to get that for free from microsoft

pop mail can be a pain to manage

Tazium

Who is hosting your mail at the moment, and what are the issues being experienced?

There are many options from self hosting with your own server, or a fully hosted solution from another provider. I like the google options and they are free for education, not sure about NFP. I've used a US company for three different setups and it's simple, easy to manage and really inexpensive in comparison to Irish offerings. accuwebhosting.com is what I've used. There are many many providers though, so ask around and gather some details such as what you expect in terms of number of addresses, sizes of mailboxes and so on. Also, there are a lot of friendly techs on boards so you'll get guidance as you go.

hearny

Google Apps would be probably the easiest to use as Gmail interface is as User Friendly as they come.

As stated pricing is per user so it may be too expensive if you have a lot of users.

See http://www.google.com/enterprise/apps/business/pricing.html for more info.

25GB per user is plenty for all but the heaviest users.

Regarding keeping your existing mails its easy enough to do but will take a bit of time, best thing would be to download all the mails for each user on an outlook account. Then setup the account using Googles Outlook Sync app, which will ask you if you want to import your mail from Outlook.

As stated above though some more info may help,
The following info may be useful:

• what are the problems
• what type of hosting do you have
• how much space do you currently use
• who is your hosting provider etc.
• How many users do you have

The Black Oil

Thanks for all that.

Website host - Blacknight.
Computer server - Server 2003 SE. Email system currently set up on it - Kerio 7.4.

Most of us use the Kerio login. Two or three people are on Outlook. I'm not 100% sure on the number of users, probably a minimum of 8 core people...I don't know if committee are on @ourdomain.ie mails as I don't have dealings with them myself.

Regarding Google/Gmail, what are the data protection implications here? Can Google see your emails, in theory? I would have very serious concerns if so as we deal with a lot of sensitive information internally and from the outside world. If going with Google would we be then open to US data protection legislation, or just that of the Irish jurisdiction? Where are the emails stored, and who would have potential access to them or ownership, Google? I'm not being paranoid here. We deal with a lot of vulnerable people and need to ensure confidentiality is maintained.