SugarSync Versus Google Drive

December 26, 2012 by 1 Comment

As we discussed in a blog post this past May (see How Google Beats Dropbox and SkyDrive), we made the transition from a local file storage solution to a cloud-based solution, and based on our needs, Google Drive beat out Dropbox and SkyDrive for our business. What it basically boiled down to was cost and functionality: Google Drive seemed the best choice as their costs were reasonable and their desktop app was more platform agnostic, allowing us to sync both Windows and Mac desktops and laptops as well as sync Windows, iOS and Android devices. SkyDrive isn’t there yet from a mobile standpoint, and Dropbox was just too expensive.

However, we DID make the following pretty clear: “One of the things that makes SmarterTools a successful business is that we are never really content with how things run or with how we do things. We always look for improvements.”

That constant evaluation brought us back to SugarSync. While Google Drive was stable, and extremely cost effective, we started noticing some issues with the GDrive desktop clients. The main issues seemed to center around our MacBook Pros and the occasional issue with missing files. While we could log in to the Web interface and see the files, the desktop sync was spotty, at best. Oddly enough, Windows users didn’t see any problems. We did contact Google support and our efforts netted us some possible solutions, but nothing concrete. To their credit, contacting Google customer support was fairly painless – more so than we thought.

So, we went back to take a look at SugarSync. We liked their interface initially, but again we had cost to consider. A quick call to them with an explanation of what we were encountering led to a nice offer from their Sales team, and an assertion that our 30-day trial would allow us to get everyone set up and running, so we could run full sync tests, without a cost to us. After that, if we decided to sign up, we had a nice promotional offer in our back pockets to use.

I’m happy to say that, after 2 weeks, we’re seeing few issues with keeping everyone synced, regardless of their platform or device. There ARE one or two issues that we were able to overcome, but nothing like what we were seeing with Google Drive. I do have to say that, with Dropbox, it was much easier to remove users from the overall sharing “team” – you simply had to remove them from the Team and Dropbox took care of removing shared files from the user’s account, and, therefore, their synced devices. With SugarSync it’s not quite that easy. Regardless, SugarSync has been very responsive and helpful throughout our testing. We’re very optimistic about our future with SugarSync. While we don’t rest for long, at least we’re resting comfortably with our selection. If you’re looking for a cloud-based file storage solution, you may want to give them a try.

Filed under SmarterTools, Technology Reviews Tagged with , , , , , ,

Google’s Winter of Discontent

December 19, 2012 by 3 Comments

Source: Pocket Now

Source: Pocket Now

Late last week, Google announced that, as part of its “Winter cleaning,” they would be eliminating, or “closing”, some the less popular features from their free products and services. Examples of these include the ability to create calendar events via SMS or to check your calendar via SMS.  And who knew about Punchd, an Android app that keeps loyalty punch cards on your smartphone? Apparently not many people as it is getting axed as well.

Source: iMore

Source: iMore

However, some other features that they’re eliminating are a bit more surprising. The one getting the most attention is Google Sync, Google’s implementation of Microsoft’s Exchange ActiveSync for syncing Google Mail, Calendar and Contacts. EAS is the premier syncing technology for mobile devices that run Apple’s iOS and Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8. Microsoft even added EAS support for Outlook 13, the update to their popular desktop email client. While it’s true Google is only “closing” Google Sync for new users of their free mail service after January 4, 2013, it will still cause a lot of headaches for a lot of people. They also state that, with their implementation of IMAP for syncing mail and CalDAV and CardDAV for syncing calendars and contacts, that users of their free mail service won’t really be affected.

Source: The Verge

Source: The Verge

There’s just one problem with that line of reasoning: Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 doesn’t support CalDAV or CardDAV as it relies solely on EAS for calendar and contact syncing. Therefore, anyone who purchases a Windows phone after Google’s Winter cleaning is completed won’t be able to sync their phones with their free Gmail accounts – well, at least not their Google calendars or contacts. As a result, many in the tech community are projecting that this is an escalation of the platform wars surrounding Microsoft and Google. In addition, it’s clear that Microsoft may have been taken by surprise at the Google’s revelation and is doing whatever they can to spin people from Gmail to Outlook.com, their own paid email service.

This is all extremely entertaining for those of us in the mail server business. While the big guys all slug it out, pointing people away from free services and funnelling them toward paid services, our products become even more important parts of the discussion. For example, when looking at the paid options from Microsoft and Google, SmarterMail’s price point really comes into its own, even with the Exchange ActiveSync add-on factored in.

As an example, let’s use a 15 employee business, which is the sweet spot for both Google and Microsoft. Below is a pricing matrix comparing Outlook.com’s price with Google’s Apps for Business paid service, and SmarterMail’s Enterprise licensing alongside. The numbers speak for themselves.

Outlook.com
$6/user/month		 Google Apps
$50/user/year		 SmarterMail
Enterprise
Monthly Fee $90.00 $62.50 N/A
Yearly Fee $1350.00 $750.00 $499.00
EAS Add-on N/A N/A $199.00
Yearly Total $1350.00 $750.00 $698.00

What this doesn’t factor in is that, with SmarterMail (or any SmarterTools product), yearly renewals of upgrade protection are extremely discounted – up to a 60% savings. So, year 2 would look like this:

Outlook.com
$6/user/month		 Google Apps
$50/user/year		 SmarterMail
Enterprise
Monthly Fee $90.00 $62.50 N/A
Yearly Fee $1350.00 $750.00 $199.60
EAS Add-on N/A N/A $199.00
Yearly Total $1350.00 $750.00 $398.60

That means SmarterMail Enterprise, with EAS, is almost half of the cost of Google Apps for Business. When you start adding employees, those savings become even more apparent as SmarterMail’s overall cost doesn’t increase until you hit 25 employees and need to increase your EAS subscriptions. And even if you don’t need EAS for syncing your Apple or Android devices, let’s say you’re a die-hard Windows fan and will cling to your HTC 8 or Nokia Lumia 920 until end of time, SmarterMail can accommodate you as well. That’s because SmarterMail natively supports IMAP, CalDAV and CardDAV so you can still get enterprise-level mail service for an even greater discounted price. Then there are the other things that come included: anti-spam and anti virus that keep mail servers, and users, secure; instant messaging and live chat, even when using external clients; shared contacts and calendars; industry-leading webmail interface, and much more.

So, go ahead, guys. Keep doing what you’re doing. We’ll sit on the sidelines with our popcorn and watch how things unfold…and we’ll just keep building a fantastic line of products that match and some ways exceed your offerings, but at a fraction of the cost.

Filed under SmarterTools, Technology Reviews Tagged with , , , , , , ,

5 Ways to Avoid Being Blacklisted

December 10, 2012 by 1 Comment

As the developer of popular mail software, we get a LOT of questions asking for tips and tricks on how to best manage mail servers. We are constantly getting questions on how to configure anti-spam, what anti-spam measures work best, how to set up a mail system for X users and/or Y domains. We even get some pretty off-the-wall tickets from potential administrators who tell us that they want to set up the next Gmail or Hotmail to give the world free email, then turn around and ask ”But, how do I do that?”

Most mail administrators realize that the configuration of a mail server, much less the business rules around how email is managed, is really up to them – there’s only so much we can offer in terms of how to best manage and maintain a mail server. What we CAN do, however, is provide email administrators with a number of tools to help ease the entire process. This post will focus on a few of the features and tools within SmarterMail that can both ease an administrator’s management tasks as well as give them peace of mind when it comes to preventing their mail servers from becoming blacklisted.

Lock down users and mailboxes

Users. If they’re not using “abc123” for their passwords, they’re mass emailing cat videos to their friends and family. There are several things mail administrators can do to keep users from abusing their email privileges, not to mention keeping mailboxes, and entire mail servers, secured. SmarterTools makes these things extremely easy:

    • Set up password policy and perform password audits
      Administrators should set some guidelines for users so that they don’t gravitate towards the most commonly used passwords. In addition, periodical audits should be run and users notified if their passwords don’t meet requirements.
    • Require SMTP authentication and sender match authentication
      Spoofed emails can be a real problem, and now some compliancy agencies require mail servers to ensure emails can’t be spoofed. Therefore, mail admins should be sure to enforce SMTP authentication and then take the extra step of enabling sender match authentication, so that the mail server will ensure the sending address matches the SMTP authenticated address. Doing this will greatly reduce, if not totally eliminate, senders spoofing mail accounts.

      • Throttle outgoing email
        Set up some simple throttling rules, either for users, for entire domains or even for particular features, like mailing lists. Throttling allows administrators to manage the amount of email that flows out of mail servers. Couple throttling rules with spam checks to achieve even better results.
      • Spam check outgoing email
        In addition to throttling, spam checking outbound mail can help keep mail servers running and can help prevent a single user from getting your entire server blacklisted. Administrators can spam check outgoing messages against any of the included spam lists that come with SmarterMail. Couple this with usage reports and system events to stay on top of potential issues.

Set up Abuse Detection

On top creating guidelines for users, mail administrators also have tools at their disposal that will alert them to potential issues way before they become problems.  Two tools come to mind for keeping the mail server secured and off of blacklists:

      1. Internal Spammer Notification- There are times that, no matter what other preventative measures an admin has in place, users try sending out mass emails. Most of the time these are legitimate attempts, but there are the occasional users who simply want to spam. Setting up a notification to fire off when a sender reaches a certain number of the same sized emails in a given time frame can help prevent a user from spamming, regardless of their intent.
      2. Bad SMTP Sessions - Keeping on top of bad SMTP sessions assists mail administrators with preventing email harvesting attacks against a mail server. Harvesting attacks can open a mail server up for address harvesting, and that can lead to your users getting spammed or even accounts getting hacked. Neither result is good for mail admins.

Use System Events!

System events are a great way for administrators to be notified when something happens on the server. Below are a few examples of the types of events that an admin can create. In terms of notifications, an email can be sent or a SMS can be sent as well so that admins are aware of issues almost immediately.

      1. Be notified when any abuse detection rules are tripped
      2. Keep an eye on system memory or spool count -
      3. Receive a notice if a message over a certain size is being sent
      4. Tie into throttling and get a notice when a user’s email is throttled

Lock down mailing lists

Mailing lists can be a big problem, especially if they’re set up improperly. As an example, recently New York University had an issue with a mailing list that was incorrectly set up and that allowed every NYU student  – all 26,000 of them – to post replies to the entire list. Lovingly labeled the “Reply-allpocalypse”, imagine the headaches had several hundred students reported the list to SORBs or SpamHaus? Therefore, it’s best to use these simple rules of thumb for mailing lists

      1. Only allow moderators to post to a list, unless the list is very small and/or very well managed
      2. Set mailing list email to lower priority
      3. Throttle your outgoing messages

Keep an eye on your reports

SmarterMail has a number or reports that admins can use to keep an eye on their server, their traffic, the spam that’s being caught and much more. Reports are a great way to spot trends and even identify the potential for trends, so that admins can head off issues well before they become full-scale problems. Some reports of particular interest are:

      1. SMTP Out usage
      2. SMTP Out Connections
      3. Outgoing spam reports
      4. Abuse Detection

So there you go. While we can’t set up your mail server for you, we can certainly provide the tools you need in order to ensure you’re running a safe, secure and reliable system once you DO get it up and running.

That being said, there is zero guarantee your servers won’t get blacklisted at some point. Therefore, one final piece of advice: use separate IP addresses for SMTP, so that you can change it from time-to-time. This gives you the ability to change IPs in the off chance one gets blacklisted, so that your mail server can quickly get back up and running while you work with the blacklist organization to resolve the issues.

So, do we have any email admins out there? What tips and tricks do you have for keeping your email systems, and your users, secure?

Filed under SmarterMail, SmarterTools Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

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