As every experienced network administrator knows, standardization lowers the total cost of ownership. Creating standards lowers helpdesk support calls and facilitates easier maintenance. Companies establish standards for everyone using the same software and hardware. Server hardware configurations are standard for every new application implementation. Each server uses the same hard drive configuration, same memory chips and all software service packs are all the same version. So issues encountered with any server around the world can be easily resolved. Read the rest of this entry »

GFI MailEssentials does an excellent job of leveraging third party blacklists such as ORDB, SpamHaus, Spamcop. This tool protects your email users from receiving spam. What do you do, if your company email server gets blacklisted? “No way” you say. This scenario can and does happen to companies that run a legitimate and ethical business.

Being blacklisted can temporarily put a chokehold on company communications. It’s like being an innocent person on a spammer wanted flyer in the post office. This situation can have a direct impact on company profits.

Not locking down your server to prevent relaying is not the only reason an email server can be blacklisted. Although there are many reasons, at this moment it’s not important why this happened. What’s important is to quickly coordinate getting your SMTP server off the blacklists. Read the rest of this entry »