[swinog] Pro / Contra Smarthosting
Heya Another one on about the same topic. Business Customer with own Mailserver. They ofter want to know, which of our mailservers they can use as smarthost. We usualy tell them, that they operate an own fully connected mailserver which does not need any smarthost to deliver email to the world. Some do not agree. The reasons the tell us are: - It Tech XY has told them that sending via a smarthost is much more reliable. - Their previous ISP asked them to use it's smarthost. - Our Server has better 'reputation' than theirs and thus emails are less likely to be considered spam by some spamfilters. - Some seem to see DNS issues which I never could understand (they have correct PTR and MX settings for their mailservers). The problems I see with smarthosting are: - If an email to a recipient does not make it there, we get the blame even on trivias like 'user unknown'. - We have to punch holes in the anti-spam thorttling measures to allow them to send more emails / time than the usual private customer does. - They can generate huge load peaks if they operate newsletters and similar. - They often do relay bounce emails for strange reasons, or cause mail loops which we do not want to be routed via our infrastructure. - The risk that our infrastructure get's blacklisted because of trojan activities on a customers infrastructure increases. So how do other ISP handle such requests? Do customer with an own fully connected mailserver have any reason to use their ISP's email infrastructure as smarthost? Mit freundlichen Grüssen Benoit Panizzon -- I m p r o W a r e A G- __ Zurlindenstrasse 29 Tel +41 61 826 93 07 CH-4133 PrattelnFax +41 61 826 93 02 Schweiz Web http://www.imp.ch __ ___ swinog mailing list swinog@lists.swinog.ch http://lists.swinog.ch/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/swinog
Re: [swinog] Pro / Contra Smarthosting
On Thu, 24 May 2012 17:07:58 +0200 Benoit Panizzon benoit.paniz...@imp.ch wrote: Business Customer with own Mailserver. They ofter want to know, which of our mailservers they can use as smarthost. We usualy tell them, that they operate an own fully connected mailserver which does not need any smarthost to deliver email to the world. Some do not agree. The reasons the tell us are: - It Tech XY has told them that sending via a smarthost is much more reliable. It's a pure thing of implementation which everybody can change to be reliable. - Their previous ISP asked them to use it's smarthost. Traditions are no reason of course - Our Server has better 'reputation' than theirs and thus emails are less likely to be considered spam by some spamfilters. That can matter - blacklisting is not only a technical thing. You know why swinog exists? - Some seem to see DNS issues which I never could understand (they have correct PTR and MX settings for their mailservers). No reason for anything. The problems I see with smarthosting are: - If an email to a recipient does not make it there, we get the blame even on trivias like 'user unknown'. What do you mean with get the blame? - We have to punch holes in the anti-spam thorttling measures to allow them to send more emails / time than the usual private customer does. I don't understand your point: if you don't like the customer: kick him. If you like the customer: sell him something. It's not about deeper technical truths. Many providers which offers services for small companies and private users allow big floods of mails because it doesn't fit in the price calculation. So you should communicate your technical limits in the AGBs and everything is fine. If a customer wants more than that find a partner which does this and make a business of that. Regards Oli ___ swinog mailing list swinog@lists.swinog.ch http://lists.swinog.ch/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/swinog
Re: [swinog] Pro / Contra Smarthosting
On 2012-05-24 17:07 , Benoit Panizzon wrote: Heya Another one on about the same topic. Business Customer with own Mailserver. They ofter want to know, which of our mailservers they can use as smarthost. We usualy tell them, that they operate an own fully connected mailserver which does not need any smarthost to deliver email to the world. Some do not agree. The reasons the tell us are: - It Tech XY has told them that sending via a smarthost is much more reliable. Then you setup a box which acts as that and let them pay for it too ;) After explaining them why it does not matter of course... Smarthosts can be very useful if their mailsystem is located on a unstable DSL link for instance which might have a random IP that belongs to others at times. - Their previous ISP asked them to use it's smarthost. Explain that the previous ISP only wanted their cash and data. - Our Server has better 'reputation' than theirs and thus emails are less likely to be considered spam by some spamfilters. That can be a valid argument, but typically if you share an outgoing system you also might have another customer that is sending spam which gets that outgoing system blocked, thus if it is really valid argument, not sure. - Some seem to see DNS issues which I never could understand (they have correct PTR and MX settings for their mailservers). Some admins are * and do not check/monitor their settings and configuration, bad things happen that way ;) The problems I see with smarthosting are: - If an email to a recipient does not make it there, we get the blame even on trivias like 'user unknown'. - We have to punch holes in the anti-spam thorttling measures to allow them to send more emails / time than the usual private customer does. - They can generate huge load peaks if they operate newsletters and similar. Yep, but they are paying thus these should not be an issue. - They often do relay bounce emails for strange reasons, or cause mail loops which we do not want to be routed via our infrastructure. That is a configuration issue that can be avoided. - The risk that our infrastructure get's blacklisted because of trojan activities on a customers infrastructure increases. You should keep your own infra separate from your customer infra. You could even go as far as giving every user their own Virtual Machine and IP with their own configured mailserver. If you use something ala LXC you could host thousands of these backups on the same gear very cheaply. Of course Xen/KVM/vmware allows you to accomplish the same. The advantage of course of VMs is the ability to move them around to other hardware where needed. So how do other ISP handle such requests? Do customer with an own fully connected mailserver have any reason to use their ISP's email infrastructure as smarthost? Them hosting it on an unstable link with changing IPs might be the only thing... Greets, Jeroen ___ swinog mailing list swinog@lists.swinog.ch http://lists.swinog.ch/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/swinog
Re: [swinog] Pro / Contra Smarthosting
Hello Benoit On 24.05.2012 17:07, Benoit Panizzon wrote: Some do not agree. The reasons the tell us are: - It Tech XY has told them that sending via a smarthost is much more reliable. And the customer is loosing the possibility to check on his own, if an e-mail has been delivered or is still in the queue. - Our Server has better 'reputation' than theirs and thus emails are less likely to be considered spam by some spamfilters. Then they are sending out e-mails (intentional or not), which helped to give a bad reputation... - Some seem to see DNS issues which I never could understand (they have correct PTR and MX settings for their mailservers). It also helps, if the sending MTA does use the same hostname in the SMTP helo/ehlo, which is configured for the A and PTR DNS record of the sending IP address. bye Fabian ___ swinog mailing list swinog@lists.swinog.ch http://lists.swinog.ch/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/swinog
