Improving Disk I/O and Overall Performance for Your Mail Server, Part 1

While SmarterMail 11.x has a significant number of changes that greatly increase the performance and reliability of your mail server, there are still some configuration tweaks that mail admins can use to further increase performance. In this three part series (there’s a LOT to discuss) we’ll look at a few things you can do to increase the overall lperformance of your mail server beyond simply using SmarterMail. Part One will cover general server settings, Part Two will cover SmarterMail and Part Three will cover tweaks to email clients and devices as well as hardware changes to increase performance.

It doesn’t even matter if you’re running SmarterMail – any mail server will benefit from the various hardware, software and end-user/device mods mentioned. If you’re doing some of these already, then you’re ahead of the curve. However, read through and see if you can grab one or two more that allow you to squeeze the most out of your mail server performance.

Mail Server Settings

There are some changes that can be made to how your mail server is set up as well as some file system changes that can help increase performance. Below are a few ideas to get you started.

Use Robust Anti-virus

Use of good, robust antivirus software can help keep your mail server running smoothly by..well, scanning for, and removing, potential viruses that can come into your system via email. Antivirus software should be configured to scan messages as well as attachments, though care should be taken when designating where, and how often, some sections of your mail server are actively protected. See the next point, as an example. SmarterMail comes with ClamAV, an open-source anti-virus software, that can be configured when the mail server is set up, free of charge.

Limit the Resident Shield (or Similar) Component

Many anti-virus applications have a component that runs in the background that scans every single file that is copied to, saved to or even opened on the mail server. While these components allow system administrators to keep their mail servers virus-free, on heavily-used mail servers this can be a real drain on system resources. Therefore, it’s best to limit the resident shield component to only those locations that will most benefit by setting up exceptions in your anti-virus administration area.

Limit Where and What Is Scanned by A/V

In addition, you’ll only want to scan messages that come into the spool, and if possible, only scan writes and remove scans of disk reads. Disk i/o and CPU can be heavily taxed when scanning mailboxes over and over and over again. While you can run periodic checks on the server as a whole, maintaining the spool is the best way to ensure your mail server is virus-free as the only way a file can get to a mailbox is when it is written to the spool or to working/temp directories. Therefore, scanning writes only is a great way to keep your mail server virus free. Some may see this as a possible decrease in overall server security, but it will result in dramatic improvements to overall disk i/o and utilization.

Disable Pagefile

Opinions on the advantages of disabling the Windows pagefile vary: some say you should keep it “just in case” while others say that modern applications will never need it, so why keep it? Besides, most businesses run servers with more than enough RAM to compensate for any potential benefits that the pagefile represents. Therefore, you may as well disable your pagefile. The only time it’s beneficial is if you’re running a mail server with 4GB of RAM or less – and, to be honest, why would you do that?

Disable IIS Logging for the Webmail interface

Any Web hosting provider offering Windows hosting can attest to how IIS log files can grow..and grow…and grow. That’s great for customers’’ sites, but it’s not something you necessarily want to have happen to the SmarterMail Web interface. There’s enough reporting within SmarterMail for end users and administrators that seeing views, visits and hits isn’t necessary. Therefore, when you set up SmarterMail as a site in IIS (which is highly recommended in our system requirements), it’s a good idea to simply disable IIS logging for that site. Use the reports within SmarterMail versus using the IIS logs to generate reports.

A Few Other Items

There are a few other things that can be done to help optimize your mail server. These are pretty self-explanatory, so we’ll just bullet point them:

  • Disable hibernation or sleep for your server

  • Disable Windows Indexing as this reduces overall disk i/o and extends SSD life

  • Make sure write caching is enabled

  • Disable defrag for your spool, especially if you’re using a SSD

  • Defrag RAID arrays at least every couple of days, but do it off hours if possible

  • Do NOT use a realtime defragger – only use the one within Windows itself

  • Don’t defrag while backing up  your mail server

There you have it. A few tips to help maximize the performance of your mail server. In Part Two, we’ll discuss some settings for SmarterMail itself, though these tweaks can possibly be made to any mail server, so stay tuned!

SmarterTools Product Integrations

As many of you have noticed, with the most recent releases of all three of our products, we’ve also released (or upgraded) a few integration modules for some popular Web hosting control panels. Most notably, we now offer integrations of SmarterMail and SmarterTrack for customers using WHMCS and we have a provisioning module for the new Parallels APS program that works with the Parallels Operations Administrator (POA). When you couple these with the existing integration we have for WebsitePanel, that means that SmarterTools’ products are now available for virtually any control panel Web hosts, ISPs, small businesses and others have available to them for managing their businesses.

Below is a brief discussion of what each integration brings to customers. Also, each  module discussed and linked-to was built by our own developers. While there are other modules available, the modules discussed below are the “official” integration modules, built by SmarterTools and documented in the help files associated with each product.

SmarterMail and WHMCS

SmarterMail offers a fantastic alternative for hosters and ISPs using WHMCS and CPanel for management of Linux shared, dedicated and VPS packages. While SmarterMail does require a Windows server to run, the feature-set available with SmarterMail, as well as its ease of management, stability, reliability and security features make it a perfect email solution regardless for Linux providers. Here’s a great example of one provider using SmarterMail, and the WHMCS integration, for their shared Linux hosting plans.

The SmarterMail module provides the following services:

  • Create, suspend, un-suspend, terminate, and delete domains from a SmarterMail server.
  • Multiple SmarterMail server support with management side interface for adding, deleting, suspending and unsuspending SmarterMail servers as well as setting max domain levels per server.
  • Client side link to a SmarterMail webmail login.
  • SSL support.

More information on the SmarterMail module can be found on the WHMCS SmarterMail Provisioning Module page of the SmarterMail help document.

SmarterTrack and WHMCS

While WHMCS offers a standard ticketing support solution as well as a knowledge base system, SmarterTrack provides a more more robust and feature-rich customer service helpdesk for hosting providers and ISPs. The integration module we created will replace the ticketing and KB systems that are part of a generic, default WHMCS installation. In addition, users can add in live chat functionality by simply generating live chat code and adding it to any page on their site.

The SmarterTrack module provides the following:

  • The ability to override the knowledge base links within WHMCS to redirect to SmarterTrack’s knowledge base articles.
  • The ability to provide live chat support links within WHMCS that will pop up a SmarterTrack live chat within the WHMCS interface.
  • The ability to override “contact us” emails to start a ticket within SmarterTrack rather than an email to a chosen email address. The ticket will also have a different comment added to it that states it was submitted via Sales Acquisition. You also get to specify which department these tickets are automatically submitted to.
  • Full email ticket support, including:
    • Include / exclude departments based on settings within SmarterTrack.
    • Full custom field support.
    • A comment added to every ticket submitted to show it was created through WHMCS.
    • Customizable auto responders with the ability to direct ticket links to WHMCS rather than SmarterTrack.
    • View all tickets on the support tickets page and all open tickets on client area page.
    • Restrict users from closing tickets based on settings set in SmarterTrack.
  • Help phone number and / or email address are displayed on error pages.
  • Full email / username and password sync support between WHMCS and SmarterTrack. This means that whenever a client changes their email or password in WHMCS, the change will also reflect within SmarterTrack.
  • A page in the management interface of WHMCS for syncing SmarterTrack and WHMCS users. (SmarterTrack uses the client’s email address for the username).
  • Full open source module with language string overrides, a custom style sheet and custom client template pages that can all be modified to serve a company’s needs.

More information on the SmarterTrack module can be found on the WHMCS SmarterTrack Provisioning Module page of the SmarterTrack help document.

The SmarterMail APS Module for Parallels

The Parallels APS program is quickly becoming the de-facto standard for businesses – even businesses beyond web hosts and ISPs – looking to have a centralized location for managing multiple areas of their business. From websites to email, billing to server provisioning, the Parallels Operations Automation and Parallels Billing Automation platforms offer a centralized location for virtually any aspect of a business. As such, having a provisioning module for one of the leaders in small business email is a must.

The goal of the SmarterMail APS package was to provide a means of easily managing domains, mailboxes, mailings lists and aliases. To those ends, services provided include:

  • Domain Services
    • Add / Remove Domains
    • Add / Edit / Remove Domain Aliases
    • Add / Edit / Remove User Aliases
    • Domain Disk Space Reporting
  • Mailbox Services
    • Add / Edit / Remove Mailboxes
    • Configure Email Forwarding Settings
    • Configure Auto-responder Settings
  • Mail List Services
    • Add / Edit / Remove Mailing Lists
    • Add / Edit / Remove Mailing List Subscribers

More information on the SmarterTrack module can be found on the Parallels APS Package for SmarterMail page of the SmarterMail help document.

SmarterMail and WebsitePanel

Formerly known as DotNetPanel, WebsitePanel has quickly become one of the best control panels for cloud computing companies and IT providers to automate the provisioning of a full suite of services on Windows servers. As such, SmarterMail is a perfect complement to WebsitePanel for hosting providers and ISPs.

The SmarterMail module provides the following services:

  • Create, remove and manage:
    • domains
    • users/mailboxes
    • mailing lists
    • user aliases
  • User settings that can be modified include:
    • mailbox size
    • passwords
    • the ability to set domain admins
    • manage autoresponders
    • manage mail forwarding
  • Advanced mailbox/user and server settings are managed from within SmarterMail based on domain admin and/or system admin logins.

More information on the SmarterMail module can be found on the WebsitePanel Module for SmarterMail page of the SmarterMail help document.

SmarterStats and WebsitePanel

The SmarterStats integration module for WebsitePanel follows the SmarterMail module and provides industry-leading log analytics, SEO optimization and website tuning tools to domain administrators and website owners alike.

The SmarterStats module provides the following services:

  • Site and user creation
  • The ability to link directly to SmarterStats for viewing reports on a per-user basis
  • Advances site, user and server settings are managed from within SmarterStats based on domain admin and/or system admin logins.

As the module implementations are almost identical, more information on the SmarterStats module can be found on the WebsitePanel Module for SmarterMail page of the SmarterMail help document.

SmarterMail 11.x BETA Now Available

We’re excited to announce the BETA of the next version of our popular Windows mail server: SmarterMail 11.x. Over the last few major releases we focused on providing an incredibly powerful and user friendly Web interface that users would enjoy.  With this latest release, we kept the same look and appearance but rewrote the underlying architecture with the latest Internet technologies to dramatically improve the speed, reduce the size and increase compatibility with all the latest Internet browsers and tablets.

In addition, SmarterMail 11.x brings several new features, server side optimizations and fixes that continues to make SmarterMail compatible with the latest Internet trends.  As with all releases, we worked closely with customers and partners and while we couldn’t incorporate everyone’s ideas into this release, we prioritized our users’ wants to create a new version of SmarterMail that we think you’ll really like.

So let’s take a look at what’s new…

Tremendous Performance Increases

We spent a great deal of time benchmarking SmarterMail and then making changes to increase the level of performance across the board. In many instances we’ve seen increases of 70% or more in the speed and responsiveness of the SmarterMail 11.x interface. We’ve also seen huge decreases in memory and CPU usage, even under extremely heavy loads. All of this means that the product runs much quicker and much more efficiently than previous versions. Some of the changes we’ve made include:

  • Re-factored and completely re-wrote many areas of the web interface to reduce the amount of JavaScript code, CSS and HTML, making the entire web interface much faster, much more responsive and much lighter weight.
  • CSS files have been converted to LESS, making stylesheets much smaller and more efficient.
  • The button bars were re-factored to be lighter weight controls.
  • The context menus were re-factored to be lighter weight controls.
  • The date pickers were re-factored to be lighter weight controls.
  • The tree view controls were re-factored to be lighter weight controls.
  • Greatly increased the performance of the Web interface.
  • Replaced the message editor control with a more lightweight control.
  • SmarterMail Service memory has been drastically reduced using SpamAssasin.

As we mentioned in a blog post late last year, we feel efficiency IS a product feature, and SmarterMail 11.x really proves that point.

Simple Customization of the Webmail Interface

personalizationSmarterMail 11.x introduces a much simpler way for users to customize the look and feel of their webmail experience. Now, rather than having to access system files to create custom styles, users can simply override existing SmarterMail styles with their own variables or, more simply, by modifying the overall color scheme of the primary, secondary and hyperlink colors. Users can even drastically revise the look of the webmail interface. For example, by moving the navigation icons to a horizontal position versus their default vertical position. Of course, if the Domain Admin prefers the defaults, customization at the user level can be disabled, thereby preserving branding and corporate identity.

Significant Improvements to Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync

Note-2-Calendar_smCustomers using the Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) add-on enjoy the industry standard in syncing technologies for all mobile devices and will be ready for the next version of Microsoft Outlook for Windows that’s coming in Office 2013. With SmarterMail 11.x we’ve made some significant changes in how SmarterMail integrates EAS, including better handling of the most popular devices from Samsung, the Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note II, and seamless integration with their native email clients.

Changes to how SmarterTools products work with add-ons are often only available with major upgrades due to the agreements we have with our vendors and partners. Customers who stay current with Upgrade Protection are able to take full advantage of these changes and modifications, not to mention receive full version upgrades at no additional cost. In addition, with SmarterTools, you can reinstate your Upgrade Protection at any time and still receive a discount. And unlike our competitors, SmarterTools doesn’t force customers to purchase each incremental upgrade that’s available when reinstating Upgrade Protection.

IPv6 Now Available

With the dwindling availability of IPv4 addresses, more and more hosting companies and service providers are moving towards utilizing IPv6 addresses. In addition, there will come a point where businesses of all shapes and sizes need to begin using IPv6 addresses as well. SmarterMail 11.x is here to help ease that transition. In fact, implementation of IPv6 with SmarterMail 11.x is just as simple as IPv4 – there’s no learning curve, no hassles and essentially the same functionality is available for IPv6 addresses as for legacy IPs. End users won’t even be able to tell the difference!

Greater Calendar Control

new_calendar In SmarterMail 10.x we greatly increased the functionality of our calendaring, and with SmarterMail 11.x we’re continuing that trend. In this latest version, users can not only set the default view for their calendars in the Web interface (either daily, weekly, monthly or all appointment views) but users can also automatically clean out old calendar entries. Domain or System Administrators can also default the auto-clean feature for calendars, making it an ideal solution for those admins who want to keep their mail servers manageable and running as smoothly as possible.

spell_checker

Improved Spell Checking

No one likes to send emails with spelling errors. With SmarterMail 11.x we completely revised how spell checking works, greatly increasing the accuracy and adding in grammar support. In addition, the new spell checking ignores things like URLs and email addresses and users can select an option to force spell checking before their email is actually sent, which should help with those awkward misspellings and grammar mistakes. You can also add your own words to your own dictionary to further customize and simplify your communications.

contact_pictures

Personalize Your Contacts

With the growth in popularity of social networks, people are used to see whom they’re talking to when typing up messages. SmarterMail 11.x allows users to add pictures to their contacts, thereby putting a face to a name, as it were, when typing up emails or using the included live chat. Contact pictures will even carry over to third-party live chat clients like Adium or Pidgin so users always see the person they’re communicating with, regardless of medium. In addition, ActiveSync and CardDAV will synchronize contacts with your choice of Third-party applications.

New Features for System Administrators

As if the incredible performance increases won’t make their jobs easier enough, we’ve also included several new features, tools and improvements for System Administrators. Some of these include the ability to utilize an abuse detection rule that allows blocking of IP addresses that exceed a set number of authentication failures over a variety of protocols, the ability to delete IP address that no longer exist right from the IP address bindings page and the implementation of the UIDPlus extension for IMAP. System administrators can even search log files written to the MRS\App_Data\Logs folder from within the management interface and much more.

17 Different Spell-check Dictionaries Included

In addition to the improved spell checking, SmarterMail also includes dictionaries for 17 different languages. The languages supported include:

  • English (US+UK Combined) – DEFAULT
  • English (US), (Australia), (Canada), (UK)
  • French
  • German/German (Switzerland)
  • Greek
  • Hungarian
  • Italian
  • Norwegian
  • Polish
  • Portuguese/Portuguese (Brazil)
  • Russian
  • Spanish

Greater Support for International Customers

SmarterMail is a truly international product. With customers in well over 120 different countries, support for languages other than English is a priority. In addition, as SmarterMail’s adoption across the globe continues to rise, support for non-Western character sets is also essential. With SmarterMail 11.x we’ve not only included support for right-to-left languages in our Web interface, but we’ve also gone through the entire product and greatly simplified our language strings to make things much easier for automated translations and for customers who create their own translation files.

Is that it?

Of course not! SmarterMail 11.x has many more features and improvements. You’ll find them in the release notes we’ll post in the SmarterMail 11.x BETA forum, but here are a few more that might be of interest:

  • A new content filter action was added for flagging messages and setting their priority.
  • Print preview now includes a list of attachments, perfect for regulatory compliance.
  • Users can now set start dates and end dates for their auto-responders.
  • Status messages and tip text now drops down from the top of the page and no longer disrupts page flow.
  • Language strings have been simplified so that they are much easier to translate.
  • In the webmail interface, the message grid now adds a color to the subject of unread messages to better distinguish them from messages that have already been read.
  • The ability for SmarterMail to detect missing attachments when they should be present. For example, when a message contains the word “attachment” but no files are attached or the subject is empty.

Getting started with the BETA

To get your hands on the BETA simply visit the SmarterTools BETA release forum, where you’ll see how to:

  • Sign up for the BETA
  • Get a special BETA license key
  • Download the latest BETA release (we update it regularly)
  • Communicate with other BETA testers and the SmarterTools development team
  • Stay up-to-date on the latest release note and BETA news

Sign up for the BETA

SmarterTrack 9.x BETA Now Available

We’re excited to announce the BETA of the next version of our popular help desk: SmarterTrack 9.x. Over the last few major releases we focused on providing a Web interface for SmarterTrack that agents, managers, administrators and end users would find as simple as it was powerful.  With this latest release, we kept the same look and appearance but rewrote the underlying architecture with the latest Internet technologies to dramatically improve the speed, reduce the size and increase compatibility with all the latest Internet browsers and tablets.

In addition, SmarterTrack 9.x brings several new features, server side optimizations and fixes that continues to make SmarterTrack compatible with the latest Internet trends.  As with all releases, we worked closely with customers and partners and while we couldn’t incorporate everyone’s ideas into this release, we prioritized our users’ wants to create a new version of SmarterTrack that we think you’ll really like.

So let’s take a look at what’s new…

Tremendous Performance Increases

We spent a great deal of time benchmarking SmarterTrack and then making changes to increase the level of performance across the board. In many instances we’ve seen increases of 70% or more in the speed and responsiveness of the SmarterTrack 9.x interface. We’ve also seen huge decreases in memory and CPU usage, even under extremely heavy loads. All of this means that the product runs much quicker and much more efficiently than previous versions. Some of the changes we’ve made include:

  • Re-factored and completely re-wrote many areas of the web interface to reduce the amount of JavaScript code, CSS and HTML, making the entire web interface much faster, much more responsive and much lighter weight.
  • CSS files have been converted to LESS, making stylesheets much smaller and more efficient.
  • The button bars were re-factored to be lighter weight controls.
  • The context menus were re-factored to be lighter weight controls.
  • The date pickers were re-factored to be lighter weight controls.
  • The tree view controls were re-factored to be lighter weight controls.
  • Greatly increased performance of the Web interface.
  • Replaced the message editor control with a more lightweight control.

As we mentioned in a blog post late last year, we feel efficiency IS a product feature, and SmarterTrack 9.x really proves that point.

color_customization

Simple Customization for the Portal and Management Interface

SmarterTrack 9.x introduces a much simpler way for users to customize the look and feel of their management interface as well as the entire customer-facing Web portal. Now, rather than having to access system files to create custom styles, users can simply override existing SmarterTrack styles with their own variables or, more simply, by modifying the overall color scheme of the primary, secondary and hyperlink colors. Users can even drastically revise the look of the management interface. For example, by moving the navigation icons to a horizontal position versus their default vertical position. Of course, if an Administrator prefers the defaults, customization at the user level can be disabled, thereby preserving branding and corporate identity. Regardless, with these changes to the customization experience, web developers can more fully integrate a SmarterTrack help desk into an existing Web site.

kb_suggestions

Streamlined Knowledge Base Suggestion Process

Both live chat and ticketing are integral parts of any company focused on customer service. However, they shouldn’t be barriers to customers finding out information on their own. In fact, companies can cut support costs by better positioning self-help resources, making them more apparent and easier to use for their customers. With that in mind, SmarterTrack 9.x better integrates self-help options for issues prior to a live chat being sent to an agent or a ticket being submitted from the Web portal. After an end user types in their initial query they are presented with a new page that lists suggested knowledge base articles based on keywords and phrases that are contained in the live chat or ticket text. End users can then see potential solutions before communicating with customer support agents and possibly resolve their issues themselves.

spell_checker

Improved Spell Checking

No one likes to send replies to tickets or live chats with spelling errors. SmarterTrack 9.x offers a completely revised spell checking engine that greatly increases the accuracy of the spell check as well as adding in grammar support. The new spell check also ignores things like URLs and email addresses and allows agents to add words to their own personal dictionaries.

Better Mobile and Tablet Support

SmarterTrack was architected so that the experience a user gets from a browser on a tablet mirrors their experience in the browser on their desktop. With this latest release, the experience is even more fluid and enjoyable due to a complete revision of the HTML editor used to create and/or reply to tickets, create knowledge base articles and more. Now it’s even easier, and more efficient, for agents to work from anywhere, at any time, using the laptops or tablet devices. And of course, the mobile interface is still available for devices with smaller screens, like smart phones.

Greater Support for
International Customers

SmarterTrack is a truly international product. With customers in well over 120 different countries, support for languages other than English is a priority. In addition, as SmarterTrack’s adoption across the globe continues to rise, support for non-Western character sets is also essential. With SmarterTrack 9.x we’ve not only included support for right-to-left languages in the management interface and on the portal, but we’ve also gone through the entire product and greatly simplified our language strings to make things much easier for automated translations and for customers who create their own translations files.

17 Different Spell-check Dictionaries Included

In addition to the improved spell checking, SmarterTrack also includes dictionaries for 17 different languages. The languages supported include:
configure_dictionary

  • English (US+UK Combined) – DEFAULT
  • English (US), (Australia), (Canada), (UK)
  • French
  • German/German (Switzerland)
  • Greek
  • Hungarian
  • Italian
  • Norwegian
  • Polish
  • Portuguese/Portuguese (Brazil)
  • Russian
  • Spanish

These dictionaries are fully editable as well, so agents who speak multiple languages and use the dictionary of their choice and add words as needed.

Is that it?

Of course not! SmarterTrack 9.x has many more features and improvements. You’ll find them in the release notes we’ll post in the SmarterTrack 9.x BETA forum, but here are a few more that might be of interest:

  • Phone numbers now carry over from the login and user creation external provider.
  • Incoming or outgoing tickets created by agents can now be pinned to an agent when they are created.
  • Status messages and tip text now drops down from the top of the page and no longer disrupts page flow.
  • Language strings have been simplified so that they are much easier to translate.
  • SmarterTrack Communicator users can now designate calls, either incoming or outgoing, as “Personal” in order to prevent automated call logs.
  • Canned replies are now inserted into a ticket or chat wherever the cursor is located.
  • Duration now appears in the ticket grid so that agents and managers can see the total time a ticket has been worked on.
  • All default system emails were reviewed and rewritten to make them easier to understand.

Getting started with the BETA

To get your hands on the BETA simply visit the SmarterTools BETA forum, where you’ll see how to:

  • Sign up for the BETA
  • Get a special BETA license key
  • Download the latest BETA release (we update it regularly)
  • Communicate with other BETA testers and the SmarterTools development team
  • Stay up-to-date on the latest release note and BETA news

Sign up for the BETA

SmarterStats 8.x BETA Now Available

We’re excited to announce the BETA of the next version of our popular business analytics product: SmarterStats 8.x. Over the last few major releases we focused on providing a Web interface for SmarterStats that administrators and end users would find as simple as it was powerful.  With this latest release, we kept the same look and appearance but rewrote the underlying architecture with the latest Internet technologies to dramatically improve the speed, reduce the size and increase compatibility with all the latest Internet browsers and tablets.

In addition, SmarterStats 8.x brings several new features, server side optimizations and fixes that continues to make SmarterStats compatible with the latest Internet trends.  As with all releases, we worked closely with customers and partners and while we couldn’t incorporate everyone’s ideas into this release, we prioritized our users’ wants to create a new version of SmarterStats that we think you’ll really like.

So let’s take a look at what’s new…

Tremendous Performance Increases

We spent a great deal of time benchmarking SmarterStats and then making changes to increase the level of performance across the board. In many instances we’ve seen increases of 70% or more in the speed and responsiveness of the SmarterStats 8.x interface. We’ve also seen huge decreases in memory and CPU usage, not to mention much faster importing of log files, even under extremely heavy loads. All of this means that the product runs much quicker and much more efficiently than previous versions. Some of the changes we’ve made include:

  • Re-factored and completely re-wrote many areas of the web interface to reduce the amount of JavaScript code, CSS and HTML, making the entire web interface much faster, much more responsive and much lighter weight.
  • CSS files have been converted to LESS, making stylesheets much smaller and more efficient.
  • The button bars were re-factored to be lighter weight controls.
  • The context menus were re-factored to be lighter weight controls.
  • The date pickers were re-factored to be lighter weight controls.
  • The tree view controls were re-factored to be lighter weight controls.
  • Greatly increased the performance of the Web interface.

As we mentioned in a blog post late last year, we feel efficiency IS a product feature, and SmarterStats 8.x really proves that point.

Auto-detection of Log Files

One of the major hassles with setting up a site in SmarterStats is accurately labeling the log file type that the site uses. This is especially a problem when managing a mixed-platform environment: Linux and Windows servers. SmarterStats 8.x greatly simplifies the process of adding in new sites as it will now auto-detect the log file type when the site begins processing. Having SmarterStats auto-detect the log file type will make setting up mixed-mode sites much easier for most System Administrators.

New Support for Rotating Logs

It’s no surprise that log files can take up a lot of valuable disk space. In some environments, particularly those running Linux and Apache, System Administrators conserve system disk space by rotating log files. That means they will allow a log file to grow to a certain size or for a certain time, then move it and rename the file (most commonly by adding a date stamp) and instruct the web server to begin writing a new log file for data. While it is a simple way to conserve space, it can be difficult to report on those rotated logs. SmarterStats 8.x now fully supports the rotation of log files and can easily manage, import and report on rotated log files.

Greater Support for International Customers

SmarterStats is a truly international product. With customers in well over 120 different countries, support for languages other than English is a priority. In addition, as SmarterStats’ adoption across the globe continues to rise, support for non-Western character sets is also essential. With SmarterStats 8.x we’ve not only included support for right-to-left languages in the management interface and on the portal, but we’ve also gone through the entire product and greatly simplified our language strings to make things much easier for automated translations and for customers who create their own translations files.

Is that it?

Of course not! SmarterStats 8.x has many more features and improvements. You’ll find them in the release notes we’ll post in the SmarterStats 8.x BETA forum, but here are a few more that might be of interest:

  • The list of sites sites can now be filtered by server in SmarterStats Enterprise, making it much easier for administrators to review sites from server to server.
  • Geographic reports now include Unique Visitor counts.
  • Email reports will now wait until data is available before they are sent out.
  • SmarterStats will now detect the integrity of SEO searches, and update automatically if search engines change.
  • Status messages and tip text now drops down from the top of the page and no longer disrupts the page flow.
  • Geographic database updated with new IP information.
  • Renamed or compressed log files will no longer be re-imported as if they were new.
  • Exporting report data now saves the file as the report’s name rather than “ExportedData”.

Getting started with the BETA

To get your hands on the BETA simply visit the SmarterTools BETA forum, where you’ll see how to:

  • Sign up for the BETA
  • Get a special BETA license key
  • Download the latest BETA release (we update it regularly)
  • Communicate with other BETA testers and the SmarterTools development team
  • Stay up-to-date on the latest release note and BETA news

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