ExchangeDefender 7 Upgrade
In a few moments we will begin the upgrade of our network to ExchangeDefender 7. The process will be seamless to our users and we don’t expect any issues. We are prepared for the unexpected issues and here are some suggestions:
1. Sign up for the Network Operations Blog updates (http://www.ownwebnow.com/noc)
2. If you don’t like web / RSS feeds, check out our Twitter feed (http://www.twitter.com/XDNOC)
3. Make sure you have distributed the User Guides to your end users so they can navigate the new User Interface. Link to end user collateral is here.
During The Upgrade
Check the NOC first (web / @xdnoc). We will be posting updates there and to the Twitter feed as soon as we identify and document a bug.
If you see an issue that has not been addressed, open a support request at https://support.ownwebnow.com
Call us at +1 (407) 209-3276 if the issue is urgent. Note: This number will be discontinued after the launch on June 1, 2011.
ExchangeDefender 7 User Collateral
ExchangeDefender 7 is officially less than two weeks from going live and you need to prepare your clients for it. While the new user interface is more intuitive than ever before, faster and simpler, people hate and resist change. Take a moment to download the user guides and send them along to your clients. We have ExchangeDefender branded PDFs that are ready to go:
Download ExchangeDefender Branded PDF Guides:
ExchangeDefender Outlook 2007/2010 Agent Guide
ExchangeDefender Email Reports
ExchangeDefender Web File Sharing Guide
If you have some time we recommend that you customize these guides for your client base. Below are PowerPoint 2007/2010 versions of the documents listed above. Make sure you replace “ExchangeDefender” with your product name and “your IT Solution Provider” with your company name.
Download Brandable PowerPoint Guides:
ExchangeDefender Outlook 2007/2010 Agent Guide
ExchangeDefender Email Reports
ExchangeDefender Web File Sharing Guide
Please make sure your clients are aware of the changes and familiarize them with the new look and feel of the site. This is the largest UI change we’ve had in the past 8 years and from prior experience, giving your users a heads up will make all the difference in the world when it comes to product and service satisfaction.
Thank you for all your support and your business, we’re counting down the days till May 30/31 when the new product officially goes live!
Sincerely,
Vlad Mazek, MCSE
CEO, Own Web Now Corp
ExchangeDefender 7, Kaseya & Shockey Monkey, Looks Cloudy
Earlier today we sent a newsletter announcing the launch of ExchangeDefender 7, the integration between Shockey Monkey and Kaseya as well as the educational content that we’re creating for everyone looking to get to the cloud.
Unfortunately, one line caught the eye of many of you:
“Over the past month and a half we have been working with so many of our partners on ExchangeDefender 7 that I’m really sad this will be the final newsletter as Own Web Now Corp.”
Apparently, some of you stopped reading at that point 
Allow me to explain: Over the past 2 years we spent significant resources into promoting and marketing ExchangeDefender. It is the backbone of our communications infrastructure, business continuity as well as our biggest and most popular product. Everyone we talk to knows about ExchangeDefender, nobody knows about Own Web Now Corp.
So we’re rebranding and retiring Own Web Now Corp and going forward will consolidate our brands and sites under ExchangeDefender. This has been announced at a number of blog posts and previous newsletters so I feel silly having to state it here again but for the record, we’re not going out of business.
Sincerely,
Vlad Mazek, MCSE
CEO, Own Web Now Corp
ExchangeDefender 7 Beta Launch
On Wednesday we held our largest webcast ever and the amount of praise we have gotten from you is astonishing – not surprising though, considering that all but 3 features you requested made it into the product. We want to make sure we meet the expectations and make the product as perfect as possible – so we’d like to invite you to test drive it and tell us what needs to be fixed.
We are less than a month away from the launch of ExchangeDefender 7, the largest product and the largest upgrade in the company history. With ExchangeDefender 5 we changed the way you think about communications security and we made it affordable for everyone. With ExchangeDefender 6 we upgraded the entire backend of the network to sustain your growth and the emerging threats and market demands. With ExchangeDefender 7 we are introducing a brand new, unified, user experience.
So, are you ready? Here you go, URLs and instructions are in the document:
http://www.ownwebnow.com/blog/media/ExchangeDefender7Beta.pdf
Sincerely,
Vladimir Mazek, MCSE
CEO, Own Web Now Corp
ExchangeDefender Chief Software Architect
ExchangeDefender 7 Beta Launch Webinar
This Wednesday we will be holding a webinar to introduce you to the ExchangeDefender 7 beta launch. The one hour show will be recorded but you really should attend the live event as we’ll be answering questions after the show:
Please click below to register:
Wednesday, April 6th, 1PM – 2PM EST
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/120736520
The first part of the event should be attended by the business decision makers, sales and marketing personnel. We will be discussing the new business model behind ExchangeDefender 7 and the key changes that will make the new product a lot more profitable for your existing sales. We are making a lot of changes based on feedback and market demands.
The second part of the event should be attended by the technical employees that will be a part of the product deployment.
Important: The only way to gain access to the beta sites is to attend the live webinar or watch the recording. Future sales of ExchangeDefender will only be supported through companies that go through the free product training and going through the beta process will allow you to skip some of the required training.
ExchangeDefender MSP Alerts
Thanks to so many of you that participated in our ExchangeDefender 7 preview last week. The beta is a week or two away and we are still putting some finishing touches on the features that will ship down the road after the initial core launch of Security, Continuity and Compliance. Today we have an open ended question regarding one of the features and we hope you take a moment to let us know what you think.
If there was a single value proposition we are making in ExchangeDefender 7 it’s the managed aspect. You are no longer subscribing to a tool, you are getting a service that protects the most important tool businesses have on the Internet. Without email, the company may as well take a day off.
We are building in a MSP interface to ExchangeDefender that will monitor all servers protected by us. Every 15 minutes we will poll your email server from all of our data centers and if nothing can connect to it, we will issue an alert.
Question: When should we notify you?
We are aiming to create a configurable alert system on top of the service so it can notify you if 4 consecutive tests have failed (in this scenario, we couldn’t reach your server for an hour) or we can issue an alert every time we cannot connect to your mail server. We don’t know what’s right – if too many alerts are sent, will the alerts be ignored. Likewise, if too few alerts are sent will you be finding out about an issue from your client?
We initially intend to make alerts available via email and SMS and through professional RMM services tools LPI and Kaseya and PSA from Autotask and Shockey Monkey.
If you have a suggestion please login to https://support.ownwebnow.com and click on Resources > Features and create a new Feature request. ExchangeDefender 7 is 100% based on the feedback from the new feature request category filled out by our partners, keep on using it if you want the product to fit you better!
ExchangeDefender 7 & Managed Messaging
Later this week I will be sending invitations for an exclusive webinar covering ExchangeDefender 7. We will be doing a preview on March 17th, beta the week after that and full ExchangeDefender 7 release roughly 2-4 weeks after that depending on how broken things are. The beta window is very open and we will not ship it until it is perfect.
I, however, wanted to offer you a direct update on how things are going at Own Web Now because we are getting a ton of praise but also some concerns about the changes we are making and how the marketplace in general is developing. In particular, I wanted to address the areas of our service that are not perfect and what we are doing to address them:
1) Phone Support – The good news is that we have a lot of new staff to help you around the clock. We also have more personnel dedicated to the portal operations and one frustration many of you have experienced is our VoIP service. There have been reports of bad call quality, extensions not working, phones ringing dead in Australia and so on. We’ve made adjustments to all of these areas and I hope you’ll start to see significant improvement here.
2) NOC Alerts – We have been asked over and over again to provide an email feed in addition to the NOC blog postings. I want to make it clear that we will never do that. However, we will soon start delivering service alerts via SMS, online service monitor as well as to your RMM and PSA software. We simply have to have a failsafe way of contacting you and email is just not the way to deliver service alerts. This will probably be the biggest improvement that will come from the Managed Messaging part of our product that will be available across our products.
3) Client Software Support – Typically, this has not been an issue but we have gotten some louder requests for help with Outlook troubleshooting, DNS troubleshooting and connection troubleshooting. This part of the service is not something that Own Web Now is responsible for, workstation side of the management is our service providers responsibility. Since we make all our revenues with our partners, I have always encouraged my support staff to go above and beyond when the partners encounter an issue in the field but there is a limit to that as well.
4) Client Training – This is an area that we will dedicate a lot of our resources to going forward. We (all of us) simply must do a better job helping the clients understand all the failovers and redundancies that are built into the system and how to use them. Anyone that honestly expects a Microsoft environment to be foolproof and have a 100% reliability, respectfully, must not have been around Microsoft software for more than a month. Every month we deal with a slew of security and performance patches released by Microsoft along with a ton of other vendor partners that are continuously releasing security and bug fixes. Keeping this entire infrastructure at an optimal level is a job (for a lot of folks) that work around the clock testing, deploying, managing and addressing problems. Outsourcing the email infrastructure does not mean those problems are eliminated, it just means someone else (Own Web Now) is dealing with them around the clock. We all have a vested interest in helping our clients understand the many failsafes and alternatives in the system and I can honestly tell you that we’ve spent and incredible amount of money to make sure that email is always available.
I appreciate the feedback, good or bad, at all times and encourage you to keep it coming.
We’ve been working extremely hard on ExchangeDefender 7 and the Managed Messaging and all the support infrastructure behind it (Exchange 2010, Shockey Monkey… yes, even SharePoint). I hope you like what you see in 10 days, all but 3 feature requests have made it into ExchangeDefender 7 UI and the feature board is blank!!!
Sincerely,
Vlad Mazek, MCSE
CEO, Own Web Now Corp
Rolling out Outbound-JR
On Thursday, February 10th, 5 PM EST we will be discontinuing access to outbound-xd servers as noted in the previous blog posts and emails. While many people have already switched their mail flow to outbound-jr.exchangedefender.com, some may still be using our legacy systems that are being decommissioned. Please take a look at all the servers in your organization and make sure you’re routing your email appropriately:
outbound.exchangedefender.com – used for personal non-automated emails that require absolutely highest IP reputation.
outbound-jr.exchangedefender.com – used for server notifications, NDR, out-of-office responses, automated messages, confirmations, devices (fax machines, etc) and non-groupware servers.
ExchangeDefender outbound network will continue to work as-is. The new JR network is designed to fit the emerging need among our client base as email communication matures and the need to tie in all servers, applications and notifications becomes necessary. By being able to “shape” this traffic, we can better assure your email delivery.
Please note, outbound-jr does not impact your ability to use LiveArchive as the replication of all the mail you receive is not done by the outbound servers. It also does not impact your ability to send out attachments, encrypted messages so on and so forth.
We look forward to announcing the new products and services that are being built around the outbound-jr and we hope that you’ll find them extremely valuable (large file sharing, notification services, on-demand mailing lists, marketing mail services, etc).
ExchangeDefender Outbound JR
We are very excited to introduce another product to the ExchangeDefender outbound network:
Outbound JR is a new highly-redundant high-speed outbound SMTP network designed to quickly deliver automated messages and system notifications.
The way email is sent and processed has changed over the years as we have become more dependent on it. It is used for conversations, receipts, marketing, monitoring, file sharing and more. The more that people rely on a communication system the more attractive it becomes for spammers and hackers – and SPAM filters that serve to protect those networks.
In the recent years we have seen many email providers adopt an “IP Reputation List” process of filtering SPAM. Protocols such as DCC, Pyzor, Razor and other checksum houses monitor the volume of real mail coming from systems and adjust their SPAM scores according to the likelihood that the message is SPAM. If we only receive SPAM from one IP address we are more likely to believe that the next message will be SPAM as well, so additional scrutiny is placed by organizations that by design don’t trust one another over SMTP.
Technical jargon aside, it has become impossible to assure quick delivery of real mail when it’s accompanied by all the legitimate junk: marketing, newsletter subscriptions, out of office responses, read mail receipts, delivery notifications, etc. Organizations that insist on sending automated notifications at the same time as they carry on regular conversations impact their reputation and can often cause false positives to happen.
The Solution
ExchangeDefender is now offering Outbound JR as an additional gateway for automated mail. This way you can send your notification and system management mail through a different gateway and help improve the IP reputation. By enabling our partners to help clients tie in their systems to the proper way of email delivery, we hope we can improve everyone’s email experience.
What can I not use it for?
You may not use this system for anything that violates our AUP. Outbound JR is not a system that can be used for unsolicited email, junk mail, viruses or any other violation of our Acceptable Use Policy or Terms of Service.
What can I use it for?
You can use Outbound JR if you need to send:
- Out of office responses
- Delivery receipts, read receipts, postmaster notifications
- High volume email services for network monitoring (Kaseya, LPI, etc) or support ticket notifications (Shockey Monkey, ConnectWise)
- High volume receipts, mailing lists, distribution groups, web site notifications, event invitations, etc.
Great, what else do I need to know?
First, the implementation. Just change your outbound SMTP relay to outbound-jr.exchangedefender.com
You will notice that this is a redundant network and it is designed for speed. You will still be able to send encrypted email through it and use all the functionality of ExchangeDefender with the exception of LiveArchive archiving of outbound mail. Your inbound mail will still be archived free of charge with LiveArchive, but your outbound mail will not.
This is the compromise we had to make in order to make the system lightning fast.
What now?
Evaluate your usage patterns and start moving your clients to outbound-jr.
We will start contacting our partners that will have to move to this system if they are sending a lot of automated messages or marketing mail to this new system.
We believe this new addition to our portfolio will help our clients with the choice of being able to route system notifications, marketing messages as well as human-to-human email more efficiently.
Thank you for using ExchangeDefender!
Oh, by the way – it’s free. Enjoy!
Sincerely,
Vlad Mazek, MCSE
CEO, Own Web Now Corp
Preparing for Disasters
The entire United States is snowed in, with the exception of Florida which is experiencing drought and wildfires. On the other side of the world, east coast of Australia is expecting major floods. No matter where you live, the weather is trying to get in a way of work.
Just because the weather is not cooperating does not mean you are down. All it takes is a lot of planning a few tips and tricks and some process. Join us for an hour of success stories and secrets our partners have shared with us about how their services have helped their clients continue working.
Thursday, January 13th, 1 PM EST
Is this just a major pitch for ExchangeDefender? Not really – naturally we spend most of our time talking to our partners about ExchangeDefender and how it helps them manage and plan for unforeseen events such as the ones caused by the weather. Reality is that regardless of the disaster, some common sense practices can put you at a major advantage and most of those practices are developed when you go through an outage.
We want to share some of the ideas, tips and tricks – along with some forms and promotional collateral – that has made us and our partners successful.
But since you asked about ExchangeDefender…
We have two really popular pieces in ExchangeDefender that our partners win deals with over and over again.
LiveArchive is an Exchange 2010 replica server that sits in our data center and replicates all inbound and outbound mail in a spare Exchange 2010 mailbox that your clients can access at any time. When their servers go down or Outlook crashes, they can just login at https://livearchive.exchangedefender.com and continue working. Best part – no maintenance! The LiveArchive is always on, no configuration or management needed. More info.
FailPOP is new for 2011 and built on a massive POP3/IMAP/SSL infrastructure. It’s created when you add ExchangeDefender users and they are provisioned at the time the account is created. When disaster strikes all you have to do is power on your profile and it becomes your new mail server – all free and built into ExchangeDefender. I know you may wonder: But isn’t LiveArchive better? It depends. LiveArchive has up to a year of your users mail already on and is powered by Microsoft OWA 2010. But FailPOP can be used for extended outages and accessed quickly and easily from mobile devices as well as desktop software without using webmail. More info.
The biggest part of our partners success is not ExchangeDefender – it’s planning the implementation and educating clients on how to take advantage of it. Tomorrow, we hope to share some of the tips and tricks with you.
Please sign up for the webinar and we’ll email you the collateral: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/641992257
The recording will be posted here shortly after the webcast but since you’re snowed in – we’ll do our best to entertain you and keep you warm!