May 21, 2013
What is it?
For the most part, the majority of ExchangeDefender services are ordered within the OwnWebNow support portal at https://support.ownwebnow.com. However, ExchangeDefender for Service Providers portal (or ExchangeDefender SP for short,) is where you, the partner, will order and manage the ExchangeDefender service for your clients. The ExchangeDefender SP portal is designed for IT Solution Providers that want to offer their own ExchangeDefender service under their own brand–including color templates and logo uploads.
How do I order it?
To order an ExchangeDefender Service Providers portal:
- Log into your OwnWebNow Support Portal (https://support.ownwebnow.com);
- Click on the Service Manager tab;
- Click on ExchangeDefender SP;
- Click the New Account button on the upper right of the screen;
- By clicking the New Account button, this will initiate the setup process;
Step 1. Contacts and Contracts
- This information should be pre-populated with your administrative contact and billing information. If not, please provide this information.
- Pricing: Although it is listed as $2.00 per month for ExchangeDefender SP portals; as an ExchangeDefender partner, you will exempt from this fee.
- If you agree, check the following boxes:
- Terms of Services;
- Acceptable Use Policy; and
- Service Level Agreement.
- Click Next
Step 2. Service Configuration
On this page, you will start branding your ExchangeDefender SP portal.
- First, provide an MSP ID. The Service Provider ID is a signal word that identifies your company, e.g. ABCTech, OwnWebNow, etc.;
- Secondly, choose a product name. The product name is what you wish your ExchangeDefender service to be called, e.g. Awesome Email Scanning Service, ABCTech AntiSPAM Solutions, etc.;
- Fill in all the necessary Admin contact information;
- Click Review to proceed to the final step.
Step 3. Review and Finalize
If all of the information presented on this page is correct, please click Finalize Order. This will finalize this order and provision your portal. After you finalize your ExchangeDefender SP order, you will receive an email containing information about your new SP portal. After you order the ExchangeDefender accounts within your newly created SP portal, you will need to follow our deploy guide, located at: http://exchangedefender.com/media/ExchangeDefender_Deployment_Guide.pdf.
Ordering an ExchangeDefender SP portal is a one-time process. You do not need to order a new portal every time you wish to on-board a new ExchangeDefender client. You will use this newly created portal to add new client wishing to use ExchangeDefender, as well as manage existing client you previously signup for ExchangeDefender services. However, if you wish to use and resell ExchangeDefender Essentials, you will create and use a separate ExchangeDefender Essentials SP portal.
Remember, you will now use this newly created ExchangeDefender Service Provider portal to order and manage the ExchangeDefender service only. All other orderings, including Hosted Exchange, Offsite Backup, etc., will be ordered in the OwnWebNow support portal (https://support.ownwebnow.com). All service tickets concerning issue for any ExchangeDefender service should be opened in the OwnWebNow support portal (https://support.ownwebnow.com) as well.
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May 9, 2013
When we originally came up with the concept of LiveArchive in 2003 we were worried about a world in which on-premise servers would go offline for maintenance and users would be stuck with web access only. With the client base that lacked technical sophistication and limited mobility, the choice to go with Microsoft Exchange was a natural one: no need to retrain, adapt to a new user interface, etc.
Times have changed – a lot: Every user now has a mobile device either personal or one issued by the business. The user base is far more tech savvy – the need for an Exchange OWA interface is just not materially beneficial anymore. Finally, with Microsoft changing their user interface rapidly (and escalating to one per year) given the recent dissatisfaction with Exchange 2013 and Office 2013 – we have been left to address the concerns of our users by ourselves.
So we asked: What is important when your servers go down?
Email is the critical component. Bar none.
But it’s more complex than just email. Business continuity is far more than just being able to continue sending and receiving mail. In 2013 your mailbox is the central filing cabinet for all of your contacts, tasks, meetings, appointments, notes and so on. The digital life is more complex today.
To meet that level of complexity, LiveArchive needs to take a step forward and address these emerging needs for a more fault tolerant – resilient infrastructure.
Namely: The next generation of LiveArchive that we are currently developing is not Microsoft based. We are powering the backend with Linux, iCal, Webmail and our own Shockey Monkey IP. What we will be delivering to you will be a full standby system: Your access to calendars, contacts, email and everything else will be just a swipe away: On your iPhone, Android, any phone with a browser and even a PC.
We are currently developing this and seeking any/all feedback you can give us. By all means, please reach out. The experience we aim for is a transparent one: our IT Solution Providers will install the ghost profile on the PC or mobile device giving you secure IMAP/POP3 access to your email along with an app that contains calendars, tasks and other sync items by default. When things blow up just turn the app on and everything continues as it should.
Will you be forced to move from our existing Exchange 2010 LiveArchive? Not at all. However, we will make a seamless migration process so you can quickly move it to a feature rich failover protocol.
This is a core business need: Stuff will break and when it does it makes sense to spend a few cents a month on a contingency plan. If the contingency plan can run the whole enterprise it would be ridiculous not to implement it: So we’re making it easy to budget, easy to implement and easy to use.
Help us build it!
Sincerely,
Vlad Mazek
CEO, ExchangeDefender
877-546-0316 x500
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March 5, 2013
Remember all the doom and gloom predictions about how the cloud was going to put all the IT people out of work? Boy did it! The carnage brought on by cloud services has taken names like Dell and HP to all time lows, and has sparked rumors and reality of privatization. Yet, every partner I talk to is posting their best year ever, and is more excited about their opportunities going forward, even with the lackluster economy.
Success is not by accident. In our fast paced industry, success is a factor of the right tools, the right timing and the right partnerships – please read this newsletter, study it and call us. We want to help. The days of “selling” and thick gear margins are largely gone – clients are smarter, better informed, and more selective, but like all of us they are also busier and they want someone to handle the explosion of vendors they rely on for the modern workplace. Yes the technology is easier to consume but there is more of it and more ways to profit from managing it so the client doesn’t have to.
With that in mind, I would like to invite you to our Roadmap webinar next week. In this webinar we will discuss everything that we are working on and the things we see happening over the next 12-16 months.
Thursday, March 7th 2-3 PM EST
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/704041056
As with all our webinars this one will be recorded and available for download in the Webinar section of our web site.
Growth Continues
As some of you may remember, our hardware upgrade cycle began around Thanksgiving last year, and is scheduled to be complete in March. During that time, we have completely eliminated RAID from our Exchange environments, improved backup and redundancy worldwide, and bulked up our ExchangeDefender infrastructure for the growth we anticipate this year.
It has not been all good news (we had a Dell RAID failure in the middle of a migration affecting nearly 400 mailboxes), and our antispam detection efficiency slipped slightly due to the overtime put in on network management and growth. The good news though has been better than I ever expected. We now feature data center redundancy in all geographies we provide Exchange in, all of our Exchange 2010 systems feature 3-way redundancy through local copies/DAG, we provide clustered failover infrastructure with a lagged copy of all databases, as well we also provide a copy of those databases in a different data center. Our compliance products and LocalCloud have grown exponentially in 2012 allowing us to invest even more in gear and reduce your storage pricing. The scale and reliability that we are now able to offer is frankly unparalleled in the industry.
I know that maintenance, migrations, updates and upgrades are not fun nor easy to explain that it can take longer than a month to complete – those are the challenges of complexity and the massive scale that we work on. However, that scale is precisely why our platform is so reliable and why so many of you can leverage it to win competitively in the marketplace and not worry about servers, RAID controllers, patches and backups.
Specifically, our ExchangeDefender inbound nodes have 60% more capacity today than they did at Thanksgiving. Europe and Australia Exchange clusters now have data center redundancy. Louie, our Exchange cluster, is now on the same spec as our Rockerduck cluster – both with 3 layers of protection, both with data center redundancy. It’s not cheap but it’s cheaper than downtime and losing business – something I hope you remind your clients of when they get price sensitive about the solutions you provide.
New Stuff
Shockey Monkey is getting an upgrade next week, this update includes the new business management section, upgraded support area with private boards, new calendar / scheduling / dispatch center and an upgraded UI that is a few times faster than it was in the past. We are thrilled about this product and hope you consider joining over 100 partners that are currently selling Shockey Monkey to their small businesses clients.
Looks Cloudy, a site we sponsor and contribute to, is accepting nominations for the Channel Choice Awards in an attempt to recognize people that have helped advance our SMB tech industry. If you have a colleague, boss, partner that you would like to nominate please take a moment to get them the recognition they deserve.
We have a brand new billing system. This addition to Shockey Monkey has allowed us to automate the whole ordering, billing and collections system and consolidate entire months worth of billing updates and adjustments into a half day review process.
Finally, the most important development at ExchangeDefender that I need to let you know about: We hear you when it comes to training. Next month we will announce a new training program offered exclusively by us, over the web, live. The cost of travel, hotels, conference fees and most importantly – time away from the office – is leaving many of you and your staff away from the information that you need to succeed. I don’t mean training in a sense of a half-wailed sales presentation with minor educational content but a full schedule that you or your employees can sit down and benefit from immediately. Tune in to the webinar next week to learn more about this, we are very excited to be able to help you grow beyond our services.
Promotions
Feeling Lucky???? We are currently running a St. Patrick’s Day promotion!! For the entire month of March we will be offering Compliance Archiving for 50% off! Please take advantage of this great promotion. The promotion will be valid on any new account that is signed up within the promotional period. The promotional period for this offering will be March 1st – March 31st. So don’t hesitate! Simply use the coupon code that is located on the postcard that you will receive in the mail or email stephanie@ownwebnow.com to receive the code. If you have any questions just let us know!
Events
In the month of March we will be attending 3 events! Join us in our hometown of Orlando, FL for the XChange Solution Providers event! Then we will be headed up to Chicago, IL for the CompTIA Annual Member Meeting. Then we will be headed to Tampa, FL for the ASCII Success Summit! Stop by, visit us, and say hello, we will be giving away lots of prizes and promotions! We hope to see you on the road!
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February 22, 2013
ExchangeDefender SPAM protection is a layered process that includes many components which together determine if a message is SPAM or not. While there are too many layers to list and the combination of what we use changes on an hourly basis, we wanted to share some detail of how our process works so you can understand it and explain it if necessary.
RBL – We use several free, commercial and our proprietary realtime blacklists that contain IP addresses of known spammers. These IP addresses typically belong to dialup, cable and DSL/fiber client addresses that shouldn’t be running a mail server, compromised/infected mail servers, unused IP ranges, compromised workstations and devices. These IP addresses account for a bulk of all SPAM mail and most of them will never even make it inside of the ExchangeDefender network.
Reputation blacklist – We use commercial and our proprietary reputation blacklists that indicate how trustworthy the IP address is – have they sent us a lot of SPAM in the past? Are they suddenly sending us hundreds of thousands of messages if they only accounted for 10 in the past month? Do they have legitimate DNS, reverse DNS.
URL blacklist – We use several commercial and our proprietary URL blacklists that identify web site addresses used in previously confirmed SPAM. If you’ve ever received a SPAM message you know that it had an external image or a link to a web site: we look at all web site links in an email and compare it to a list of known SPAM site targets.
Distributed checksums – We use several commercial and proprietary statistics models (warehouses) to determine the likelyhood of bulk mail. Because the only way spammers can distribute mail efficiently is through massive blasts, nearly all message bodies are identical. Each message has a unique signature (an MD5 checksum) that can be compared with other messages and when identical checksums are found it’s more likely that bulk mail is being sent.
Proprietary header checks – We use proprietary header and message checks to determine if the message is a part of an existing conversation between a third party and our own client. We also check if messages have been spoofed or if they have made their way through several gateways, if the language in the message does not match the language of the machine it was sent from, etc.
SPAM keyword and heuristic checks – We use a wide array of SPAM characteristic checks that take into the account the size of the message, subjects, fonts and images. For example, legitimate email typically doesn’t come without a subject or a subject that contains a lot of special characters, it doesn’t come without a persons name in the From line or other “weird stuff”. The “weird stuff” category is so wide and so contextual that it takes most of the time to process.
Now that you are familiar with some of our processes you’re probably getting the idea that SPAM filtering is very similar to the way virus scanning works – we use patterns from known SPAM messages and existing spammers to build a statistical model that tells us if a message is SPAM or not. It also explains why certain messages are delivered instantly while others may take up to a minute or longer to process (delayed header checks, suspicious web site in the email, conversation thread checks, temporary DNS failures or large attachments that require scanning)
We build most of our proprietary infrastructure based on your feedback – we look at the pattern of messages that you release which builds a model that adjusts scores along the way specifically for you – if you release a TON of messages with impotency drugs you are more likely to receive a Viagra message than another user that only releases financial newsletters. This is why your feedback through ExchangeDefender Outlook Addin is so valuable to us. When you hit “Report SPAM” that message is dispatched to us and reviewed by a live human being that generates a scan rule to eliminate that specific message in the future.
ExchangeDefender SPAM engine uses third party scanning engines with realtime data feeds and our own proprietary engine is updated hourly.
That may seem excessive but keep in mind that spammers adapt their message content for each batch – adding a different subject, different web site, different spacing and subjects every few thousand messages. In order for us to keep up the need for both the realtime update and constant reengineering of the SPAM engine itself is cruical to eliminating as much of the annoyance as possible.
How come SPAM messages slip through?
There is no such thing as a “slip through” when it comes to SPAM, all mail that is not sent by a sender on an RBL that passes our virus scanning is considered legitimate until proven otherwise. Tens of thousands of checks later (within a split second) calculate a score that identifies if message is SPAM (90% confidence) or SureSPAM (99.9%). There is no person on the gateway reading each message, the score is assigned by the computer based on the statistical model – so even if you looked at the message and could clearly tell it’s SPAM, the artificial intelligence is not quite there yet.
How come legitimate messages end up in SPAM quarantines?
Bad scanning methodology. For example, say you’re receiving a lot of “lotto” SPAM. Someone at ExchangeDefender may adjust your model to get really aggressive when it encounters the word “lotto” in the subject or headers. It works flawlessly, until you are sent a message by your business partner and the message is also copied to Lisa Lotto. This is clearly an oversimplification but it happens.
How come updates happen every hour and why does it take so long sometimes to make changes?
Most of the implied delay is due to the size and the scope of the ExchangeDefender network – to protect millions of people we have a very large network and very sophisticated layered infrastructure. Smaller updates are done very frequently (within an hour) but are staggered (happening at the different minute of the hour) because during engine reloads individual nodes cannot process inbound mail. If we restarted the engine on every node at the exact same time we’d basically shut the network down for a few seconds every hour.
Some large-scale changes (when we add a plugin or change our model analysis or whitelists or blacklists or new detection procedures) can take on the order of weeks or months. Typically we don’t deploy new software across the whole network – it is done in stages to eliminate anomalies in the deployment. Working with large scale distributed systems is different than managing individual servers, clusters or even networks: Changes to a globally distributed network with linked load balancers (while great for redundancy and service availability) is a challenge that requires careful monitoring and rollout procedures to minimize destabilization across the whole network.
We get hack attempts and DDoS attacks thousands of times an hour – the systems have an automated process for dealing with that activity – so when we roll out new software that makes the network overload quickly (and make it think it’s under attack) we have a big mess on our hands. This is why the rollouts are staggered and have a procedure that is at times excruciatingly long (especially if you’re sitting in the NOC watching the queues and your blood pressure goes up with every uptick in the percent utilization)
How come whitelists don’t always work and I have to whitelist the whole domain?
This is an inconsistent behavior that is reported from time to time and it has to do with the senders email address and client software. ExchangeDefender looks at the From line (the same one you see in Outlook) and whitelists only the senders actual address. This works 99.9999% of the time.
Some senders use impersonalization or sending on behalf of a different email address or use specific taglines in the From address that end up being randomly generated for each email. While Outlook may see message from Vlad Mazek <vlad@ownwebnow.com> the message itself may have come From: vlad+2381ekr259@ownwebnow.com with a fingerprint used to track read receipts.
Long story short, if you have a person that is using these systems or CRM to alter the message for tracking/sales/marketing purposes, you can’t trust their From line for a whitelist, you will have to whitelist their whole domain. Good news is, this is typical for smaller domains and you’ll never be whitelisting all of @aol.com or @gmail.com
How come there are delivery delays?
Our support team can help you with that.
Half the time the issue is related to the DNS and the other half is due to the temporary network or Exchange issues on the client side. Almost all of the tests we have done for our clients fall into these two categories and almost all of the things you can do to minimize delays are outlined in our deployment guide.
In the event that the issue is our fault due to network congestion, filter failure, virus scanner malfunction, DDoS, routing issue, misconfiguration, etc – the issue is noted at http://www.exchangedefender.com/noc – please subscribe to the feed or @xdnoc or post your cell phone in our portal – we text, tweet, blog and (everything except email, for obvious reasons) notify you of any ongoing network issue that might impact service.
So much for tech..
Technology is only a piece of the whole puzzle.
This is going to sound cliché but I absolutely mean it 100%: At ExchangeDefender killing SPAM is our passion. Every piece of junk that passes through our network is unwelcome and we have people here around the clock working on eliminating it from making it’s way to your inbox. It’s a human process and it’s a technology process and the very practical implementation of artificial intelligence that learns and adapts in realtime to fight with SPAM. But just like training a dog takes time, training a computer is a challenge that requires consistency and strict implementation of the process, rules, management and monitoring. With millions and millions of messages passing through our gateways, even a slight insignificant modification can impact SPAM statistics models. It’s not something that’s “broken” that could be “fixed”, it’s just a process of continuous training that we take very seriously and enjoy very much.
Thank you for your business.
Sincerly,
Vlad Mazek, MCSE
CEO, Own Web Now Corp
vlad@ownwebnow.com
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November 12, 2012
 Thank you to everyone that stopped by our ExchangeDefender booth at ConnectWise IT Nation 2012!! As usual, ConnectWise put on a great event at a beautiful venue with tons of valuable content and social interactions in an atmosphere conducive to learn and further build upon business relationships. We had a lot of great conversations with some of our existing partners and also meet some potential new partners.
At our booth this year we decided to have a Spin-to-Win wheel and it was a huge success!! We gave away a ton of our services for FREE exclusively to those who gave the wheel a spin and landed on those offerings. In addition to the offers, we also had some big prize winners! See our ExchangeDefender Facebook page for more pictures!
We had a great event, and we look forward to ConnectWise IT Nation 2013!
Stephanie Hasenour
VP Marketing, ExchangeDefender
stephanie@ownwebnow.com
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November 5, 2012
Last week I had a great pleasure of introducing our partners to the ExchangeDefender Unicorn, a remote desktop monitoring solution built and designed by 30 of our partners with one simple goal: free. We wanted to arm our ExchangeDefender partners with a monitoring & management solution that would allow essential service monitoring and reporting, remote desktop access for help and support as well as reporting and seamless alert integration into the free Shockey Monkey business management infrastructure… for free.
You may notice that there is a big emphasis on the word free: We wanted to take the entire consideration for the economics completely out of the equation when it came to the monitoring of your clients infrastructure.
If you ever touched clients PC or server, you should be the first one to know when there is an opportunity to provide further value to the client.
Likewise, with the continued deterioration of the value MSP monitoring services, we wanted our partners to have a chance at playing on the same level as everyone else.
First thing I want to stress is that this is not an RMM, it is not designed to be one and it likely will not replace one if you’re leveraging some advanced automation features. It’s not about automating IT maintenance – our opinion is that the vendors that provide the software and hardware will build in those features and services out of the box for you.
It’s all about you – getting a layer of presence in the IT infrastructure of your clients be it on premise, legacy or cloud. Furthermore, it’s about building an engine of growth.
What does the Unicorn do?
For a full demo I hope you can take 30 or so minutes and watch the webinar we held last week.
ExchangeDefender Business Monitoring allows you to create complex alert templates to catch events from the system log and create tickets, send text messages or emails based on the severity of the issue. By building out templates you can monitor for different things and receive alerts in a way that makes sense.
All events that you want to monitor for are tracked through Shockey Monkey, by company and by user – so tickets can be automatically assigned to the proper resource and tied to the right customer for billing and reporting purposes.
Finally, if the issue requires direct interaction with the system you can quickly connect to the users desktop no matter where they are and either look over their shoulder or actually control the keyboard and the mouse.
It’s all about the advantage
ExchangeDefender Business Monitoring is currently in beta and it’s available for free to the folks that resell ExchangeDefender and our cloud services. The amount of free seats you’re entitled to is based on the amount of business you do with us and we hope that these additions encourage you to work with us more as we move to the cloud faster.
Let’s face it, this is not an RMM replacement. While many will certainly use it in such a way, we are more excited about the future of this product and the opportunity our partners have with us and Shockey Monkey.
Imagine a platform where a business owner can consolidate management of all their clients, vendors, billing, customer service and sales. Plenty of such platforms exist out there. But roll in a free IT management platform with a one-click connection to a service provider that can help manage it all – We have just that with Shockey Monkey and Unicorn. Now.. imagine tying in the cloud services with email, security reports, files, remote desktop access/view/support, punch clock tied with Outlook login tied with users daily browsing history connected with the email and ability to get insight into every activity of their business right down to what everyone is doing..
I hope you can picture it… because here we call that 2013. And yes, you can enjoy the beta of it today.
We hope you join us.
Sincerely,
Vlad Mazek
CEO
ExchangeDefender
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October 29, 2012
Recently I have been receiving calls from new and existing partners in regards to the process of setting up their ExchangeDefender Admin portals, specifically ExchangeDefender Essentials. It has been a long time since most of you have had to create your Service Provider portal, but with the addition of ExchangeDefender Essentials there has been an influx in the creation of Service Provider portals. So consider this a refresher course!
 As many of you know, ExchangeDefender is a very robust product; therefore we provide an entirely separate portal to manage anything ExchangeDefender related. When you sign up to become a partner with ExchangeDefender you are immediately sent credentials to our support portal. The support portal is where you order all of your services, including the initiation of your Service Provider portal.
There are two separate admin portals for ExchangeDefender, one for the full version and one for the Essentials version. If you have not already created each portal, I encourage you to go ahead and create the remaining one or both; the process is simple and takes just a few minutes.
To create the Essentials portal
· Login to your Support Portal
· Click on the Service Manager Tab
· At the very bottom of the page there is an option for ExchangeDefender Essentials, click subscribe.
· Then click the plus sign.
· Next, the Second page of the order form will ask you for a MSP ID; this will be your username, so we suggest using your company name. You will also be asked for a product name, you may choose anything you’d like, some examples include ownwebnow filtering service, ownwebnow email security service, and ownwebnow cloud security solution.
· The next screen will finalize your order and the credentials for https://admin.exchangedefender.com will be sent to you.
· If you haven’t already created a portal for the full version of ExchangeDefender, go back to the support portal, click on the service manager, and on the right hand side there is a box with a list of services, click on New ExchangeDefender SP. You will be asked for the same information, but your MSP IP will have to be a variation of your previous MSP ID. So if you used your company name, you will need to add something additional to it, if you are incorporated I suggest using ownwebnowinc, or ownwebnowcorp, whatever works best for you.
If you have not created your admin portals and you’re looking to sign up for Hosted Exchange, there is no need to create an admin portal, the portal will automatically provision for you once you have ordered your Hosted Exchange accounts.
I hope this clears up any ambiguity, if you have any questions, please feel free to contact me directly at: Anastasia@ownwebnow.com or by phone , 877-546-0316 x739.
Anastasia Wiggins
Partner Communications Manager, ExchangeDefender
(877) 546-0316 x739
Anastasia@ownwebnow.com
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October 17, 2012
Recently, ExchangeDefender launched a product that many of our partners have been eagerly waiting for: LocalCloud. Many of you may be thinking that we at ExchangeDefender are arriving a little late to the Cloud file sharing game; but you would all be incorrect! Most will try to compare us to the larger, more recognized players in the Cloud file sharing niche; and again, you would be missing the point of LocalCloud.
“So, Michael, what is your point concerning LocalCloud?”
My point is simply this: People are still scared of the Cloud. More accurately, they are concerned about certain attributes of the Cloud: Data location, data security, and most importantly; data availability.
“Where is my data?”
“Is my data secured?”
“My Internet is down! I can’t access my data!!!”
Enter LocalCloud. In business, you need to know that your data is secure, you need to know where it is stored, how it is protected and you need the people you can count on to help you with backups, regulatory compliance, data leakage, and access concerns.
With ExchangeDefender LocalCloud software, the behavior of the desktop does not change – files are still available locally and can be accessed as fast as any other file on the desktop. Sync, reporting and backups are done on the backend without client interaction and without purchasing expensive backup and encryption products.
What we have accomplished with LocalCloud is taking the features of the Cloud and combining them with the accessibility of the local network. When you do this, businesses grow and flourish.
For more information about ExchangeDefender LocalCloud and how to get started offering this service to your clients, visit: http://exchangedefender.com/local_cloud.php or pick up the phone and give me a call!
Michael D. Alligood
Partner Sales & Support, ExchangeDefender & Shockey Monkey
michael@ownwebnow.com
(877) 546-0316 x707
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October 3, 2012
When we originally launched LocalCloud (we called it “CloudShare” back then) it was meant to be a simple addon to the ExchangeDefender portfolio that was already stretching far beyond email. The amount of feedback and outright demand for the product caused perhaps the biggest shift in development resources we’ve ever had – to take this addon file sharing feature and turn it into a full blown client/server storage application fit for workgroups.
It is with great pleasure that I invite you to see what we’ve built:
Wednesday, October 10th
Noon, EST
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/685535777
The webinar will be recorded and posted here shortly following the event.
We built LocalCloud differently from all the file sync products on the market today because we know that small businesses work differently from consumers that those solutions are built for: small businesses demand speed, security, audit logs, file control and plenty of assurances that their data will stay safe. We’ve gone a step beyond that:
In LocalCloud 2.0 we now have shared folders, access to which can be granted and removed directly from the ExchangeDefender user interface that the users are already familiar with and deal with daily for SPAM reports and business continuity. Same application – same management.
Due to a ton of demand we’ve also built in a process to lock files. For example, let’s say you’re editing an important document that you don’t want another user on the network to modify. You can check the file out, preventing anyone else write access until you’ve completed your work.
Lot’s of other surprises, business model implementations and feedback from our partner community will also be shared.
P.S. We might even say a thing or two about the Unicorn, but you have to tune in for that one. 
Sincerely,
Vlad Mazek
CEO, Own Web Now Corp
vlad@ownwebnow.com
(877) 546-0316 x500
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August 7, 2012
Today I had a great pleasure to talk to a bunch of our partners on a live webinar about our new ExchangeDefender CloudShare product. With over 2,000 partners that have rolled it out, questions and feature ideas have been more than we ever anticipated and we really look forward to building it out. I think we’ve really come out with something that far too many business IT solution providers are looking for and I hope it makes as many of you as much profits as possible. Without further delay, feel free to download the webinar below and enjoy at your convenience.
ExchangeDefender CloudShare Q&A Webinar
Download Video (47 minutes, 60Mb)
GoToMeeting Codec
Now I understand that many of you do not have the time to listen to it all so I will try to hit the highlights in this blog.
Introduction
In short, thank you. The success of ExchangeDefender is far beyond what we ever anticipated and to have this level of adoption and this level of connection between our users our partners and our teams is absolutely amazing. As a developer, you never quite know how your idea is going to resonate with the marketplace – and when it plays out this well you just count your lucky stars and continue to work hard.
ExchangeDefender CloudShare is a part of ExchangeDefender. The only way you can get it (and yes, it’s free for the moment and will be grandfathered for everyone that rolls it out) is with ExchangeDefender. We may eventually open it up to anyone but as far as 2012 goes, you can only go through an ExchangeDefender partner and get it with your solution powered by one of our partners. I know that may not be too appealing to everyone but we owe this company and these products to our partners who stuck with us through the thick and thin. I know that some of you reading this had to make a business decision to go with one of our competitors – and I understand and respect that as a business man – yet without our loyal partners we never would have been able to build this. We are a living proof of what happens when you take care of business, when you take care of your partners and continue to build a solution around everyone’s interest not just your own. So we owe it to our partners, loyalty is a pretty big thing among decent people and I cannot thank you enough.
What I can do is keep on guiding my teams and building the kids of solutions that will stand unmatched in the marketplace. Thank you for supporting me, for supporting ExchangeDefender, for promoting us to your clients, recommending to your peers and for helping us become more than an antispam provider. Lot’s of people would love to be able to say that and I am thankful that due to you choosing ExchangeDefender we can continue to build this company together.
Currently Available
CloudShare 1.0. CloudShare 2.0 is coming this Fall and will be rolled out gradually.
What is it? Client-side application with cloud-based file storage, continuously sync’d back and forth. In this pretty common digital locker concept the user can map a folder to a drive letter and every file dragged to the drive, saved on the drive, etc is uploaded to our cloud servers and then replicated to another data center for backups.
Everything is encrypted in transit and in storage. Storage is object based, it is not a raw file system with traditional folder/file structure that our employees can simply browse to. The level of access control auditing we have in place and our process assure that your files are for your eyes only.
What is next?
CloudShare for the Mac as well as iOS/Android is in development stages and we expect to have it out this fall/winter.
Among the most popular features coming in CloudShare 2.0:
- Shared folders, so multiple employees can work on files
- Version control
- File-locking and open-file alerts for user groups
- Web based logging and access tracking
- iOS/Android as well as Mac OS X native clients
- ExchangeDefender LocalCloud
What is the ExchangeDefender LocalCloud
With all of your email, social footprint, Exchange, SharePoint and now CloudShare in the cloud, how do you assure your business continuity if we were to go out of business?
ExchangeDefender LocalCloud is a physical appliance or virtual machine that you can host on your own network or in your clients office. Each appliance/vm will mirror all the data in the cloud and create a local cache of all the cloud data. We will build user interfaces and API to interact with this information and create your own backup procedures.
This is exactly the opposite of how every on-premise network is built. Typically on premise networks consist of extremely expensive overpowered servers with multiple redundant drives or storage controllers. Add on expensive backup software with a BDR appliance. On top of it you have an expensive cloud backup solution. By the time you make it to the cloud you have replicated every piece of data at least six times and those costs pile up fast to make on premise networks unappealing. Cloud makes a much more scalable and more cost effective solution a reality – so long as you accept no control over that data whatsoever: CloudShare allows you not to have to make that compromise. You can have your cloud and keep your data on your network, through a much more economical common sense approach. Let the cloud provider worry about compliance, audits, backups, maintenance, server purchase and warranties – but keep your own safety net.
LocalCloud is simply the best of both worlds. Just far more affordable.
How do I order it?
You have to first enable ExchangeDefender CloudShare at https://admin.exchangedefender.com
Once you enable it all your users will have their free 1GB allocation ready. You cannot pool it.
If you need more storage you can order it at any time. Go through the standard order process at ExchangeDefender by going to https://support.ownwebnow.com and select Service Manager > CloudShare. These features are also built into your own Shockey Monkey portal. Select the domain and the user you wish to give more storage to and then select the amount of data they should be able to upload. Done.
What about EU/UK and ICO’s Safe Harbor regulations?
In a nutshell, Safe Harbor is not something that affects CloudShare. I described this at length during the webinar and the behavior and functionality of ExchangeDefender CloudShare do not in any way access your files or documents in a way that would cause concern. Since we do not process the information to present advertising content nor do we make your data available in any way, you are not transfering data contents to a third party, you are simply storing it in a way that complies with Transborder Data Flows requirements (see ICO.gov.uk for details).
I’m still not convinced.. are you sure nobody is going to look at my files?
In CloudShare 2.0 we will enforce IP restrictions so you will have an additional layer of protection.
Everything is encrypted so there is not a lot of chance of someone sniffing your data in transit.
Storage on our network is not on a Windows 2003 server with your conventional folders and files laying around in a structured way. Objects are stored in databases and in chunks – there is no way for direct access to be able to reassemble the file or know what they are looking at.
As for our employees.. trust me, they are so beaten and overworked that the only site they likely want to see is monster.com. And we even block that on the company firewalls so no worries. There is no hope.
Conclusion
Thank you. Thank you so very much. We are happy to have so many enthusiastic partners with so many great ideas, suggestions and eagerness to deploy our latest solution. You make ExchangeDefender possible and you make us innovate at a faster rate than I ever expected. We look forward to this journey together and please tell your friends and peers about us because our partner program will be shut down in it’s current form at the end of the year so if you want to work with us now is the time to get aboard.
Sincerely,
Vlad Mazek
CEO, Own Web Now Corp
vlad@ownwebnow.com
(877) 546-0316 x500
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