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Should I still use my ISP's email?

I had a home office with a SBS 2003 Server and a handful of clients. I also have a website hosted by a typical web host. Since I had a residential broadband connection with a dynamic IP (and port 25 blocked..) I had my outbound email relayed from Exchange to my host's email server. My incoming was setup using the POP connector and pulling the email every 15 minutes.

Now I have moved into a commercial property. I now have business class internet service with a static IP address. When I first sent an email, it was rejected with a 550 error saying that the relay had to be authenticated. I removed the smart host and mail is sending fine now.

That got me to thinking.. could I (well.. I guess I know I could, maybe should I?) forgo the host's email server and only use my server? I have a couple of business reasons that I'd like to have my email immediately and not wait for the POP connector to retrieve it. But I'm also concerned about down time. I've had almost none, but I've seen Murphy hanging around quite a bit lately.

If dropping the host's server is a good idea, what are the rough steps I need to do in order to implement that? Do I have them change the DNS records? Do I need to do anything to the server?

Thanks in advance for your help!

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Don S.

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oldmuttonhead

ASKER

Thanks for the reply, Dons.. here's my answers to those questions:

1. Yes
2. I had to turn off my host's spam blockers a long time ago because they were causing major problems. They have a "dedicated spam blocking server" as they put it and it would cause delays in getting my mail (hours and, on rare occasions, days) and was terrible about false positives. I had to check my spam folder online quite often. My internal spam setup is working fine.
3. It doesn't cost anything.
4. I already have OWA setup and use it as well as my Windows Mobile device for email, calendar, and contacts.

SOLUTION

tigermatt

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oldmuttonhead

ASKER

tigermatt:

Thanks for your advice. You are correct that the ISP is pretty much acting as a temporary store for the email.

I do have a question about one comment you made, just so I am clear:

>The only thing you would have to do to ensure all mail is sent is to still send outbound mail through the ISP's SMTP server.

This is only if I had a dynamic IP, correct? Since I have a static IP, this is unnecessary? The reason I routed my email this way before was so my email wasn't rejected by email servers that automatically assume mail from a dynamic IP is spam. Now that I have a static IP, and assuming the DNS records will be changed to reflect that address, that is no longer a problem, correct?

Stinkin' spammers.. it's all their fault!

tigermatt

> This is only if I had a dynamic IP, correct?

That's correct. Sorry I didn't make it clearer. If you try to send mail via DNS while on a Dynamic IP, you will get the issues which you have already found of your email being rejected.

If you're on a static IP, you just have to make sure that your Reverse DNS PTR records are correctly configured with the ISP, as well as your SMTP banner on the server. Everything needs to match up - your MX record and your external static IP on the PTR and SMTP banner. This guide is excellent for detailing what you need to do: http://www.amset.info/exchange/dnsconfig.asp.

-tigermatt

Don S.

Even with a static address, you can still get blocked by the AOL's and RR's of the world. Often times they will implement entire IP address range blocks on certain ISPs and your static address can be insdie that range. Usually, you can get your ISP to work with those taht are blocking and get them to exempt your address fromt he block.

tigermatt

The point I was trying to make is that a static IP address is a lot less likely to be blocked than a dynamic one.

On networks with static IPs, I still use smart hosts to send mail out through the ISP, because if there is an issue, the ISP's large mail system is less likely to be affected than a company's system which only hosts a few hundred users.

-tigermatt

oldmuttonhead

ASKER

Thanks for your info, guys. I sent a support request to my host to ask them to change my MX records. It looks like from that article that tigermatt sent that I can keep their mail servers as a backup in case mine are down. That was the only thing I was worried about so I'm going to try it!

Thanks again!

oldmuttonhead

ASKER

Thanks again!

tigermatt

You certainly can keep their mail servers as a backup MX record, but the problem here is that you must manually deal with any emails which arrive at the ISP. If you don't mind doing this, then there's not a problem.

If it's going to be an issue for you because you receive a large amount of emails collectively, then you would want to look at an MX Backup (store-and-forward) solution, such as http://www.no-ip.com/services/managed_mail/backup_mail.html. This is set as an additional MX record on your domain, but when the server is accessible again, the mail is delivered directly to the server rather than having to do a manual download.

Thanks for the points :-)

-tigermatt

oldmuttonhead

ASKER

tigermatt:

I assumed I could keep my POP connector but change the polling to only check every so often. Would this not work as well?

tigermatt

You could... but it still means you have to manually create ISP mailboxes and update the POP connector if you create a new user account. A backup MX service is not linked to user accounts or email addresses in any way, so it will just store and forward any inbound mail if your server is unavailable, regardless of any other factors.

-tigermatt

oldmuttonhead

ASKER

Good point. I'll look into that too. Thanks!