Roles of SmarterMail

SmarterMail is a feature-rich Windows mail server that brings the power of enterprise-level functionality and collaboration to businesses and hosting environments. SmarterMail is powerful enough to be used as a complete mail system that performs all of the following roles from a single server. SmarterMail installations can also be used to perform specific functions on mail networks to enhance an existing infrastructure or to gain performance — whether you are running SmarterMail as your primary mail server or to support another mail server that is having difficulty performing under the current load.

As you will discover, SmarterMail can be used to fulfill a variety of roles that can be deployed for little to no cost. Adding SmarterMail in one — or several — of these roles will increase the stability and longevity of your email system.

Your Primary Mail Server

Use SmarterMail as your primary mail server and provide customers with an unmatched email service that includes industry standard connection methods like POP3, SMTP, and IMAP, as well as support for EAS and EWS/MAPI at the server level, offers multi-language support, and provides all of the features and functionality you expect from enterprise-level mail servers like Microsoft Exchange.

SmarterMail does this via a completely browser-based design, delivering all of the coordination, communication, and world-class collaboration functionality that you expect through an intuitive and modern web interface. Whether a standard user, a domain administrator, or a system administrator, you have every feature in SmarterMail right at your fingertips, using any mobile or desktop browser, and available from anywhere, at any time.

As an Inbound Gateway

Configure SmarterMail as your inbound gateway server and reduce the load on your primary server. In this role, SmarterMail can manage all inbound SMTP sessions and detect abuse and intrusion attempts. In addition, SmarterMail can also host third-party antivirus and antispam software, such as Declude or Trend Micro, and pre-scan messages prior to delivery to the primary mail server. Best of all, these functions can be integrated at no cost by downloading and installing SmarterMail Free Edition to operate as your inbound gateway server.

As an Outbound Gateway

In high-volume scenarios, SmarterMail can reduce primary server load by functioning as your outbound gateway server to spool outbound messages. One benefit of configuring SmarterMail in this role is that it functions as an effective method to combat blacklisting and can help ensure a quick system recovery. For example, if one of your IP addresses is blacklisted by an external email provider, you can resolve the issue by changing the IP address of the gateway server or turning off the gateway server until the IP address is removed from the blacklist (providing there are multiple gateway servers set up). In addition, this configuration of SmarterMail can run spam checks on outbound messages to prevent spam messages from being sent to remote servers, thereby reducing the likelihood of a blacklisted IP address. These functions can also be integrated at no cost by downloading and installing SmarterMail Free Edition to operate as your outgoing gateway device.

As a Backup MX Server

In the case that your primary mail server goes down, ensure that your users will continue to receive incoming email by setting up a backup MX server. When the primary mail server cannot be contacted, email servers on the Web will attempt delivery to the backup MX server. When the primary server comes back online, the backup MX server will deliver all held email.

As All of the Above

SmarterMail was built for a large-scale, multi-tenant environment: a shared web hosting company. Anyone familiar with multi-tenant environments knows they are taxing, from an employee perspective as well as a system resource perspective. Users demand performance, and administrators need tools to ensure the users get what they want. Knowing this, SmarterMail was built for efficiency, performance, security, and reliability -- all the while knowing that it needed to be easy to use, and easier to manage and maintain.

As a result, SmarterMail can handle an immense amount of email, and can act as an inbound gateway, an outbound gateway, and provide enterprise-level communications services for users -- all from a SINGLE installation.

As SmarterMail has grown, so has our commitment to what got us here: efficieny, performance, security, and reliability. Those goals PLUS building one of the most functional, and cost-effective, email and communications platforms available, one that rivals Microsoft Exchange -- and BEATS it most cases.