Offsite Backup Apology
Dear Partners,
I wanted to address an issue with our offsite backups that started last week with the rollout of new storage arrays used for Own Web Now offsite backups. As you already know, we take great pride in providing rock solid solutions that scale worldwide. We put in countless hours in design, testing, analysis and performance tuning on all services and you can expect the OWN services to be rock solid. That in fact is what you and your customers pay for.
Last week one of the new storage arrays we have added to the mix started to cause issues with the server code that actually maps the logical partitions and makes them available for access and replication to our backbone, offsite centers and your clients. Offsite backups are a partner service only, we do not offer it in direct retail. You pay what it costs us to provide the same redundant layer of data protection we expect and maintain for ourselves. I know that if I lose a backup, your customer will be out of business, you and I will be in the court. That is why I insist on the highest grade quality when it comes to protecting data. That is also why we give it away to our partners at cost – I want you to be the hero for that business that just lost everything and made it back thanks to you.
So when that promise is not delivered on, believe me, I am the most disappointed one. For close to our week a small portion of our clients had to put up with unreliable backups, with backup jobs not completing. Even though you are paying at cost and there is no SLA to speak of at all, I want you to be aware of how dedicated we are to our partnership. We will waive all the June monthly fees as a result of the issues some of you faced. Thats right, even if you were not impacted you will be getting a free month. We understand the enormity of what you put in our hands, we want you to know that you have a partner with a global presence by your side, one that stands by their products. This not only applies to offsite backups but everything we do.
So in closing, thank you for your business and the faith you put in Own Web Now Corp. I am sorry that we have disappointed some of you and in sign of good faith we will eat the fees associated with the offsite backups through the month of June. Our offsite backups have been rock solid since we started them, we aim to keep that level of reliability.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Vlad Mazek, MCSE
Note: What actually happened? We use eSATA II chasis rack raid systems for backups. These systems are further replicated off to Chicago via private Gigabit network. We use Samba (SMB/CIFS) software on both the appliance and on the remote network to create replication partners. Due to the incompatibilities between the driver and Samba 3.0.10–1.4E 12.2 software our replication systems created enormous amount of traffic and requests of the NAS systems. As a result, the load on the systems spiked, made those partitions unavailable and as a result made reporting and access difficult for some customers (roughly 300 were affected). I would like to thank our partners at EMC and AhSay for their assistance with troubleshooting of the issue and my staff for putting in very long hours over the Memorial Day weeekend to get to the bottom of it.
Product Demo Webcast
Vlad Mazek, CEO of Own Web Now Corp, is presenting to two small business user groups tonight on a variety of technology and business subjects Own Web Now Corp is involved in. If you’d like to attend the access is free, details below:
Tonight’s presentation is free, live over the web and starts at 7:30 PM EST. It ends at approximately midnight EST. Here is the preliminary schedule.
7:30 – 8:30 EST: Exchange 2007 Overview (Level 100)
8:30 – 9:00 EST: ExchangeDefender, Shockey Monkey (Level 0)
9:30 – Midnight: Virtualized Services (Level 200), Shockey Monkey, ExchangeDefender, and other tools we make (and why) that IT solution providers are using to make more money. These will be product demo’s, not sales pitches.
Is there anything else you’d like to hear? Since we’re pretty much inviting SBSers worldwide, is there something you’d like to see? See you tonight, livemeeting info below:
Meeting URL: Livemeeting Address
Meeting ID: D7QS3H
Meeting Key: bn6′%~P
ExchangeDefender Conference Call: April 19 & 20
Dear Partners, Customers, Friends,
We are holding a conference call next Thursday and Friday to discuss the new services offered by ExchangeDefender. Major areas of discussion will focus the new Live Archive feature (simultaneous Exchange & secure webmail delivery with 7 days trailing archive) and ExchangeDefender Agent (desktop alerts so you don’t have to wait for daily email reports). As this will conclude the rollout of major v3 feature sets I will also briefly describe the upcoming changes of the stuff that’s out there and little incremental features we expect to be delivering during Spring & Summer 2007.
Two conference calls, same content, not mandatory, recorded:
April 19 – Thursday – 7PM EST (23 – 24 GMT)
April 20 – Friday – 9AM EST (13 – 14 GMT)Conference dialin number and access code:
Conference Dial-in Number: (605) 990-0400
Participant Access Code: 684592#
No registration necessary, not confidential information, attendance is not required.
ExchangeDefender for Service Providers (Video)
Earlier last week we completed the beta of ExchangeDefender for Service Providers and many of our partners have been working on customizing their portals and adding new accounts. So far the feedback has been awesome, we’ve gotten a lot of suggestions for the product enhancement that we’ll be announcing soon. I (Vlad Mazek) have unfortunately been under the weather for the past week so I have not had a chance to share with you just what these new Service Provider features bring. Allow me to do so now, here is a demo video in Flash or Windows Media format:
Check out these videos demonstrating ExchangeDefender SP:
These new admin panel interfaces present our first sign of committment to the service provider partnerships we have formed over the years in that we’re allowing you to completely rebrand the service to match your corporate identity. We are actively seeking feedback on additional reporting and auditing requirements so we may add more intelligence to how you manage your customers SMTP security. We cannot repeat this enough: we are out to create the most comprehensive SMTP security solution without the traditional complexity these systems, including ExchangeDefender, have had in the past. Talk to you soon at our next partner conference call!
-Vlad Mazek, MCSE
CEO, Own Web Now Corp, CEO
ExchangeDefender v3 Released – Video Tour & Guide
ExchangeDefender v3 has replaced the old ExchangeDefender v2. This release is a big source of pride for us is that the interface guidance was given by actual ExchangeDefender users who wanted to be more efficient as they go through the mail. We’ve managed to simplify the interface even further to really make security management as seamless as possible.
Don’t believe me? Check out this video: ExchangeDefender v3 Video Tour (5 minutes)
Once you’re done watching the video, get the guide/manual. You won’t need it, ExchangeDefender v3 is way too easy to use but some people like to hold paper and we understand.
Thanks to all that made this release possible, in particular three folks outside OWN that worked very hard to bring you this thing: Rich Walkup, Judy Schmidt and Pablo Averbuj. It is absolutely amazing when your own customers take the time to improve the product because they like what it does and want it to work better: and to that end thanks to all the customers for all the feedback, guidance and testing. Thank you for helping us get to this point.
What’s next? Well, MSP stuff this week, agents hit next week, Live Archive feature (which is absolutely revolutionize how you think about SMB messaging continuity) and more all coming online over the course of the next month or so. The goal behind ExchangeDefender v3 is ambitious – we aim to be the most feature-packed easy-to-use, over-hyphenated mail security service out there!
ExchangeDefender for MSPs Conf Call
First of all thank you all for testing ExchangeDefender v3. We have received a ton of feedback which we look forward to integrating into the product very rapidly. After all, that is why we took such a long time to redesign the service – to make it more responsive to both security and business needs.
Tomorrow (Thursday, March 22, 2007) the new ExchangeDefender v3 interface will become the default interface for all ExchangeDefender users, administrators and managers. Attached is a PDF guide that you are welcome to distribute to your users and system administrators. If you would like to brand it you are more than welcome to download the Microsoft Word 2007 document from here and apply your own themes and branding:
PDF: http://www.ownwebnow.com/downloads/ExchangeDefender-v3-Guide.pdf
Word: http://www.ownwebnow.com/downloads/ExchangeDefenderGuide.docx
Additionally, we have two conference calls this week targeted specifically at our resellers, MSPs and system administrators. Even though ExchangeDefender is easily the most widely used SMTP security software for managed service providers, the v2 version of it was not very MSP friendly. As a result ExchangeDefender v3 was designed from the ground up with MSP plugs and APIs. I would like to invite you to the two conference calls I will be holding this week to both invite you to our MSP beta control panels (official launch March 30th) and discuss just where we are heading with MSPs in the coming year. These calls are happening tomorrow and Friday, to register please go here:
Registration URL:
http://www.ownwebnow.com/launch.asp
Event 1: Thursday, Mar 22 — 23:00 – 24:00 GMT (4PM – 5PM PST, 7PM – 8PM EST)
Event 2: Friday, Mar 23 — 14:00 – 15:00 GMT (9AM – 10AM EST)
I hope to see you there. Both events are optional and represent our efforts to work closer with our partners and provide the information and support you have asked for. V3 is just the first step.
ExchangeDefender v3 Goes Live at http://v3.exchangedefender.com
Better late than never; I know I told you to expect this last week but it took us several days to think up a clever URL:
ExchangeDefender v3:
The site functions and looks very much like the current v2. There are more features, certain features actually work and the entire framework integrates into the overhaul that ExchangeDefender went through in the November – January timeframe. Please pardon the caps:
THIS SITE USES LIVE DATA.
The purpose of the site is to give you an idea of the new look, new features, new direction we are taking with the product. I hope you can take a moment to take a look at the site, tell us what you like, what you don’t like, and what you want more of. We have rewritten much of the stuff from scratch to provide for realtime updates across our global network and that will allow us to provide applications that both users, administrators and managed service providers are asking for.
The official and only place to ask questions and provide v3 feedback are the Own Web Now forums; To register for the forums please go to: http://www.ownwebnow.com/forums and click on register. Email support@ownwebnow.com the username you selected during the registration and they will approve you.
The code is live, working and functional. We expect this to replace the current control panels by the middle of next week. Expect emails from me with documentation, kb site, videos, and so on over the next week or so.
Conference Day
Remember that today is the big ExchangeDefender v3 Conference Day. We’ll have four phone conference sessions for partners and customers to ask questions and provide feedback on what you’d like to see ExchangeDefender. We’ll be sharing our roadmap for the next year and the new direction that ExchangeDefender will be going in.
Event 2: 14:00 – 15:00 GMT (9AM – 10AM EST)
Event 3: 17:00 – 18:00 GMT (Noon – 1PM EST)
Event 4: 23:00 – 24:00 GMT (4PM – 5PM PST, 7PM – 8PM EST)
Event 1: 6:00 – 7:00 GMT (1AM – 2AM EST), Wednesday, March 7th
You should have received an invitation along with the conference phone numbers and access codes. If you have not received an invitation please contact us directly for access.
Update on the v3 announcement by tomorrow after we discuss it with our partners and customers.
ExchangeDefender v3 UI Update
ExchangeDefender v3 UI Update got rolled earlier this week and we’re still working out some of the issues with the layout and the way information is presented. Overall the system is stable and we’re working on the documentation side of things at the moment. I believe we’re just a few days away from a public availability so please stay tuned.
Emergency Maintenance Window on Load Balancers
Earlier this morning we identified an issue with our load balancing network and moved to quickly update the firmware and restart the services. This emergency maintenance window has caused delays between 5 and 15 minutes accross our entire network between 10:00 – 10:30 AM EST (13:00 – 13:30 GMT).
This window was not planned and did not affect everyone at the same time. As we applied the load balancer firmware update and cycled the mail currently being processed on that network was temporarily disconnected from the Internet. As soon as the load balancer restarted the normal operation resumed.
While it is unlikely that anyone would have noticed this outage we felt it was important to let you know every time our service is affected.