Now that the major launch of ExchangeDefender 5 has been completed and we have our processes together I wanted to resume the helpful NOC posts we did in 2009 that gave you a bit of a heads up about maintenance and network changes that were being made. Here is our agenda for March:
ExchangeDefender upgrade to Exchange 2010
ExchangeDefender LiveArchive has been tremendously popular and we’ve planned some enhancements to the product that will just blow you away. Coming in March, ExchangeDefender LiveArchive will be upgraded to Exchange 2010. Unfortunately due to the volume of mail, a migration will just not be possible (think restoring or mail moving a year worth of your email multiplied by every ExchangeDefender customer – not easy). To alleviate the pain of getting a fresh mailbox, we will continue to run the two ExchangeDefender systems in parallel – old LiveArchive with Exchange 2007 won’t go offline for 30 days after the new one is up and running. Now let me address a concern:
But Vlad, you guaranteed 1 year of archiving free, that’s what we’ve sold to our client and they absolutely need 1 year to be there for their compliance.
This seems to be a common misconception because people focus on numbers and not the language and general spirit of the solution. To be clear, LiveArchive is a business continuity solution that keeps up to a year worth of both inbound and outbound mail in an always on, always available Exchange OWA environment so you can access it at any time and continue working where you left off when your connection was interrupted.
LiveArchive does not guarantee 1 year of archived mail nor is it advertised as an archiving solution – if your clients require that, we do offer a mail archiving solution called ComplianceArchive which is designed for compliance, HIPAA/SOX regulatory archiving and guarantees access to mail for as many years as you wish to archive it for. If you’ve sold your client LiveArchive contact them and tell them that due to migration constraints the new LiveArchive (with new features, see below) will start as a clean mailbox and that they should save any old items they absolutely must have. If they absolutely must have them all, offer to upgrade them to a ComplianceArchive solution.
LiveArchive was designed as a business continuity solution, so that clients that got inconvenienced by server performance, outage, downtime or maintenance could continue working without having to manage a disaster scenario or start from a blank mailbox – typically a day or two worth of email is sufficient to refer back and we offer up to a year because we understand that sometimes people need more and it’s not incredibly expensive for us to provide it.
Now, the beauty of ExchangeDefender 2010 is all in it’s Outlook Web App – no more Web Access - The new solution is compatible with all browsers which means full mobility and a ton more functionality. We’re also building in rule sets so that outbound mail goes to send items and adding a layer of quality assurance that will address the issues we faced with 2007.
Rollout of Exchange 2010 Hosting & New Control Panels
We will begin offering Exchange 2010 hosting this month as well, with a new quota and a new set of control panels. With the new controls you will be able to manage mail enabled contacts, public folders and distribution groups, so pretty much the same type of control as if you had your own Exchange cluster!
As with all new software, the price is going up but we will keep it at the same level for our ExchangeDefender Service providers. We’ll also be the only company to offer it under your own brand while not competing with you for the business – not directly with our brand and not indirectly through the major distributors. With ExchangeDefender we believe we can deliver the reporting and business intelligence, something that is unparalleled in our industry not to mention integrated with Autotask and ConnectWise.
Other Fun
We’re rolling out new power switches and reboot switches which will make us a lot more green and improve power. There will be several announced reboots / server moves as we move systems around to improve power utilization and cooling. We’ve grown tremendously since ExchangeDefender 5 launched in December 2009 and our products are a hit in the marketplace. ExchangeDefender will be getting a new major data center (delivery point) and we’ll advise of the maintenance as we get closer to the announcement.
We also have some really great EU news but look for that in the newsletter coming around the 2nd or 3rd week of March 
Sincerely.
Vlad Mazek, MCSE
CEO, Own Web Now Corp
