Multi-User E-Mail

A high proportion of businesses now have some form of e-mail facility, although possibly only on a single machine with a directly-connected modem, perhaps sharing the fax line. This sort of arrangement is satisfactory for very light use, but quickly becomes inoperable when the amount of mail increases, or more than one user wishes to have e-mail.

Start on the right footing

We all tend to continue as we start. Email is no exception. As with a phone-number, once a company email-address is in regular use, it will be highly disruptive to change it. Therefore, best to get it right first time.

Perhaps the key mistake made with email is to start a business using domestic email-accounts. These are generally of the type "username@internetprovider.com"  for example, "joe342@gmail.com" This type of account allows only a single email-address per account, and thus offers zero room for expansion as the company grows. There is also the issue that if for any reason you need to change your ISP, you lose your email address in the process. It is thus a trap to be avoided.

Instead, choose a domain from the outset.  Domains are no longer the expensive items they used to be,  nor with a reliable registrar should there any great complexity in using a purchased domain as your email address.  Most business-grade ISPs will supply a domain with a  broadband  account, alternatively if you don't need a full service-package or haven't yet finalised on which ISP to use, then you can still pre-register a domain  at very low cost, so that it it will be available when needed.

The type of Internet-account you sign-up for is also pivotal to achieving a reliable and smooth-running email service;  To supply a number of users with email requires a business account, and it is a fact that many ISP accounts do not provide proper domain-based multiuser email, even if they claim to be business accounts. As always in such cases, let the buyer beware.

Choose a Mailreader Program


Outlook, or Outlook Express tend to be used on the majority of sites,  these being the de-facto standards, and the ones which most office-users already know how to drive.

Despite their 'brand leader' status,  neither of these programs is particularly stable or secure. Admittedly the security of Outlook has been drastically improved in recent versions, although it is still nowhere near as proof against malware as are some third-party alternatives. 

If you have an open mind on this, then Thunderbird, from the Mozilla programmers, promises to be a real rival to Outlook both in terms of functionality and its vastly better security.  Evolution, originally a Linux program but now available for Windows, offers similar calendaring and  scheduling functions to Outlook.

If on the other hand your choice is Outlook, then one point to be aware of s that while its Text or HTML message-formats should work for general internet use, Outlook's  "Rich Text" format is proprietary to Microsoft, and should not be used on the Internet.


Establish your Mail Service

For a very small site, the most simplest and cost-effective arrangement is one which provides multiple accounts at a domain of your choice. Preferably this would have a Web control-panel, so that you can make any needed changes yourself.  The disadvantage of this arrangement is that ALL email goes via the Internet, so it is not particularly efficient for internal communication.  Lack of control is also an issue with this setup, in that it is not so easy to, for example, screen incoming emails for undesirable attachments.

Rather than have each user connect to the Internet individually to collect email, a better approach for larger workgroups is to install an internal mailserver. In this case, users never access the Internet directly for mail. Instead, their email-program is set to query the internal mailserver, which handles all incoming and outgoing messages on their behalf.

The mailserver carries out "mail events" at timed intervals, (typically once every few minutes) at which mail from all local users is exchanged with the Internet, in a single, efficient operation.

The mailserver is a software-program. It may run on your existing fileserver, or it may have its own dedicated computer. Your office computers query the mailserver for messges instead of connecting to your ISP. The mailserver then forwards outgoing messages to the Internet.  At the same time, the mailserver downloads any inbound messages. It does this for your entire domain in one go, a far more efficient process than multiple indivudual downloads. These are then sorted into the internal mailboxes.  A key advantage is that you have control over this sorting process, and whereas with ISP accounts, you do not.  You may thus exercise a far greater degree of control over which messages go to which desktops.

The other key advantage of an inhouse mailserver is that  desktop-to-desktop messages never leave the building, and thus don't clog-up your Internet bandwidth.

Which Mailserver Package?


Where mailservers are concerned, the 'brand 'leader' in terms of number of servers deployed is almost certainly ... Linux. This might come as a surprise, since you only occasionally see Linux mailservers on company premises. But, we must not forget that ISP's mailservers are almost invariably Linux-based, and these make up by far the greatest bulk of email-handling computers in the world.

Fron this, I think it should be an intutive conclusion that Linux makes a for very stable and robust mailserver. This is in fact true.  Where Linux suits the ISP, it does not suit the business user to quite the same degree, being harder than most  to configure and manage. Linux is a good option if you have someone with a deep understanding of unix mailsystem practices onhand. If you do not, then expext to burn some midnight oil.

In the office environment, I would imagine that  Microsoft Exchange holds the greatest market share.  Exchange, like most Redmond products, is very heavily integrated with other Microsoft server-side software,  and in general you cannot run an Exchange server in-isolation, you must  accept that you are going to run your whole network the Microsoft way, or nothing.  Exchange requires an Active Directory domain, and must be set-up on a Windows-server platform - and preferably not on the same server which acts as the Domain Controller. Thus, the licensing costs for this whole setup can easily get out of hand.  

The other option for potential Exchange users is to purchase Small Business Server. (SBS)  A lot of small-business support sites are 'pushing' this package very hard, and it may come as something of a surprise that I do not. SBS provides you with a Microsoft fileserver and Exchange in one  package, and can be run on a single server. This sounds highly attractive, but it has its pitfalls. Unlike the standard Windows Server offerings,  you have very little control over the installation process. The 'wizards' largely dictate to you how it should be set-up. If the predetermined way of working doesn't suit you.. then you have a problem, because it is designed from the outset to be far less configurable  than the standard offerings.  That, and it's very much an 'eggs in one basket' scenario; If the email goes down, you may have to lose ALL office computing-services whilst the problem is investigated. This is probably the aspect I like least.  Even on small sites there is a requirement for some degree of fault-tolerance, and the monolithic nature of SBS gives you none.

Since the late 90's I've been promoting an alternative solution to Exchange, the excellent MDaemon mailserver, from Alt-N Technologies.

MDaemon offers many of the advantages of the other products, but with few of the drawbacks. It runs on any recent version of Windows. It's small, efficient and fast.  In the event of hardware failure it 's relatively easy to migrate to new equipment, without losing settings or messages. It's largely independent of other fileserver processes, thus mailsystem maintenance doesn't mean whole-office downtime. Perhaps the best aspect of all is the user-friendliness of the interface, which none of the above-mentioned products can match.

Amongst the really useful features of MDaemon I could list:

  • Much easier to setup and manage than Linux products.
  • More configurable than Exchange, suits a wide variety of situations.
  • Works with any standard mail-program, not just Outlook.
  • Serves Windows, Linux and Mac desktops with mail.
  • Robust and reliable. (1000+ hours uptime regularly achieved)
  • Highly-configurable mail-routing with redirects, aliases, usergroups, etc.
  • Server-side virus filtering. (with optional module)
  • Prohibited attachment-type blocking.
  • Comprehensive usage-stats and mailbox-contents monitoring.
  • Sophisticated spam-filtering engine.
  • Highly expandable, up to multi-site corporate level.
  • Hotmail-style Web-access (Roving users really like this -needs business ADSL line.)
    • Plus a whole lot more.. See the MDaemon site for the full rundown.

    The latest  release of MDaemon now includes connector-software which allows it to fully replace the role of Exchange in  providing  calendars and appointments to Outlook users. -This area has always been one posing difficulty to third-party mailserver developers owing to the Microsoft-proprietary natue of these features. I can say that Alt-N have a very good solution here, in fact  the end-user may not even be aware that an MDaemon server is feeding the information  to Outlook instead of Exchange, such is the level of compatibility.

    The  webmail feature of MDaemon has been styled to closely match an Outlook window. This makes it an easy transition for Outlook users. Now, the road warrior can use harmonised interface, whether at his desk or at a cybercafe. MDaemon Connectors for various types of mobile phone  -including Blackberries- are available from third-party developers, making this a very comprehensive email solution.

    With MDaemon as the server, roving users without a laptop can even check/send  their email at any location with Internet access, for example a cybercafe, using webmail. With the latest releasethis even extends to being able to check shared calendars and the like via Webmail access, essentially almost the full set of  features which are available when at-desk.  This gives a the roving user an unparalleled level of flexibility.

    Connecting to get mail

    To operate an onsite mailserver effectively, a broadband Internet-connection is  preferred. Not all broadband accounts are suitable, so ask for advice before signing-up.  If broadband is not available then it is still possible to operate a mailserver using a suitable dial-up connection, though in this day-and-age it would hardly be advised.

    Key points are that the connection should  be free from port-blocking  or other such restrictions as often apply to domestic accounts, and must have a static IP address.  These features are typically available on 'business' broadband accounts - and are why these accounts cost more -apart from the ISP's expectation that they will handle greater throughput than the domestic account. 


    Multiple sites or branch-offices

    Providing email to a firm having multiple sites is best done by  establishing one of the sites as the central mail-office.  This site will run a mailserver, and musthave a reliable and fast broadband connection to the Internet. This will act as the gateway  for company maill, handling all incoming and ouitgoing messages.

    Other sites will connect the main site to get their email. They will do this via the Internet, using any standard method of Internet-connection, either broadband or -for developing parts of the World- dial-up.

    To answer a common misconception, with a mailserver-based service there is no requirement for roving users to dial the main office to collect email.  This misconception often arises through association with systems of bygone years.  Roving users can even use mobile-phone data services, or wireless hotspots to download their email, basically as long as it's possible to get onto the Internet, it will be possible to collect email. Where nothing better is available it may be necessary to use a dial-up conenction to the Intenret. But, there is no dialling involved in the actual mail-collection process.

    One of the key advantages of the centralised mailserver approach is that all company email is handled at one master location; hence at this point it is possible to scan all of the mail for viruses, and if required, create an archive copy of all messages -Something which is not possible using a multiplicity of separate accounts.  A possible weakness is that the mail service for the entire company depends pivotally on the central site's Internet link; if this goes offline, no-one gets email, anywhere.  Hence for this kind of setup, a 'fallback' Internet-connection might be considered desirable to cover possible downtime of the main connection.


    To Summarise: