Today’s businesses list e-mail as one of the top tools utilized in order to run their day-to-day operations. It’s just as valuable, if not more so, than the telephone and has become an expected means of communication between a company, their clients, customers, and employees. With that in mind, the idea of that system going down becomes an unacceptable notion. Because of the critical role e-mail plays, extended outages will often have grave outcomes such as unprocessed orders, missed deadlines, and blacked out communications.
Having your e-mail go dark affects not only the daily workflow and productivity of your company; it can also severely damage your reputation which ultimately can impact your bottom line.
Backing Up
- Offsite – For a full disaster recovery solution, ensure e-mail is backed up at an alternate location. Though this typically won’t allow for immediate access to backed up e-mails if there is an issue, it is one of the safest solutions.
- E-mail Archiving system – This will backup everything (cloud or locally) which allows for immediate access of backed up e-mails. Some options are:
- LiveOffice (Cloud Storage)
- GFI MailArchiver (Local Storage or a hosted server)
- Device such as a Barracuda (can be local or hosted)
Continuity
- Secondary E-Mail service – This is true continuity because it stores e-mail messages locally for constant access and relays them through a primary mail server. Typically accessed as a webmail in the interim, certain packages may have all your e-mail available, if needed.
- Store & Forward – Typically provided by a spam filtering service, it will hold e-mail until your mail server comes back up. However, it does not allow for immediate access.
- Clustering & Failover – A more advanced solution, it allows for easiest flow when geographically distant.
Speak to one of ACF Consulting’s IT specialists to see which e-mail continuity solution is right for you.
