Over the weekend we performed massive updates to our network, infrastructure and even provisioned new products that will be announced in October. We wanted to give you a heads up about the work being done so if you do get complaints from end users you have some knowledge about the work being done.

ExchangeDefender Inbound Network

ExchangeDefender received a huge upgrade to the load balancers, log infrastructure and even the number of inbound servers that process all mail has been increased as we continue to grow. In the new infrastructure each data center operates independantly from one another and gives us the ability to have a full failover for all services without issues with one network causing issues with the other. This was the concern that came from our issues during August where a power failure in Dallas slowed down mail processing in Los Angeles, and I am happy to report that the new infrastructure will not only improve availability when we face issues but also improve performance when everything is working as it should.

Please note: During the rebalancing process and as the new nodes are introduced to the environment the load on the network increases which increases processing times (ie: email delays). While this is counter-intuitive please consider what is happening on the backend: all nodes need to become aware of the new nodes. The configuration load times are increased as the new nodes come online and receive the initial ExchangeDefender image and definitions. During the replication process all configurations are updated across all systems and nodes are pulled online/offline as tests are ran to make sure all nodes perform in the same way. So even though there are more processing systems, initially the load on the existing nodes is increased.

ExchangeDefender Outbound Network

We have added outbound servers in Los Angeles, providing full geographic redundancy for the outbound services as well. These will be online shortly.

ExchangeDefender LiveArchive

ExchangeDefender LiveArchive LA (LA3) is online and processing mail at this time. We will be making it available for access shortly as soon as we are happy with the performance figures on both the primary and backup systems that power ExchangeDefender LiveArchive.

Oveall

We are quite pleased with the performance and the updates that were made during the weekend. While we regret that there are some issues and inconveniences temporarily such as email delays, this will improve our clients ability to communicate as the network becomes more reliable and more redundant. Keep in mind that our clients pay us to keep them and their users secure and that is the primary mission here. If we could make that happen and account for both email and client growth without massive infrastructure upgrades we would love nothing more than to do more with less – but the threats are getting more serious and more numerous and protecting our client base continues to require additional resources.

Thank you for your business and your patience and please assure your clients we are working hard to keep them safe and keep their business continuity in place.