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Marcy Theobald
Carabiner Communications
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Press Release
Message Systems Releases New Version of Email Solution
COLUMBIA, MARYLAND – May 8, 2007 – Email software solutions provider Message Systems announced the newest version of its email solution. Version 2.2 builds on Message Systems clustering capability with the addition of a Web-based user interface that provides system administrators with visibility into cluster operations for real-time analysis.
"Email solutions running in a clustered environment provide a number of benefits to corporations, ISPs and ESPs, including ease of configuration and management, quality of service, high availability and on-demand analysis," said Barry Abel, Message Systems' vice president of field operations. "With Message Systems 2.2, we also provide the Web-based Cluster Console so that systems administrators can visually monitor cluster metrics in real-time and make immediate policy changes to ensure continued high performance."
The Message Systems Cluster Console displays metrics on connections, deliverability and bounce data to help administrators maintain a high quality of service. With Message Systems' consolidated logging capability, utilization information is continually collected from all the servers in the cluster and visually displayed on the console. Analysis is straightforward and corrective actions can be immediately implemented, from reallocating resources to adjusting traffic flow to implementing new policies in order to deal with emerging threats.
"The benefit of being able to look at the health and well-being of your entire cluster of servers from a single interface allows you to understand how your servers are being utilized at any given time so that you can take action before performance is compromised," said Abel. "In a traditional server environment, this type of information can take days to collect and analyze, which can mean lingering service and deliverability problems."
In a clustered email server environment, multiple servers run as one, sharing intelligence on how to treat incoming and outgoing mail. "The beauty of clustering is that it allows you to add servers as needed to share the load without having to individually configure and maintain each one," said Abel. "Clustering can also eliminate the danger of a single point of failure. For example, Message Systems 2.2 is the only email solution to incorporate active/active failover clustering, a high-availability method that prevents lapses in mail delivery caused by server failure and maximizes resources by allowing all servers in the cluster to share workloads."
With active/active failover-or dynamic node failover-each server in the cluster is always in use as a mail processor. When a server goes down, all of the IP and configuration information in that server is automatically transmitted to other servers in the cluster. These servers assume the load of the failed server, while continuing to process their own traffic with no degradation in processing speed.
Clustering also provides the advantages of single-point server configuration and management. Instead of configuring each server individually, all servers are configured simultaneously to dramatically reduce administration and eliminate server inconsistencies due to typos and invalid entries.
Single-point configuration also prevents over- or under-utilization of servers for both incoming and outgoing mail. Cluster thresholds can be established to ensure that all servers are effectively utilized to prevent the backlogs that occur when one server becomes overtaxed. Setting global connection thresholds across the cluster ensures that server resources are properly and consistently allocated despite demand fluctuations.
Clustering also provides a proactive way for ISPs to respond to threats such as an influx of spam coming from a specific domain. When an inbound threshold is broken, administrators can set a new policy to limit the number of messages per second the ISP will accept from the offending domain, which is immediately rolled across the cluster to minimize the potential threat across all servers.
Message Systems 2.2 is compliant with the proposed Domain Keys Identified Email (DKIM) authentication standard for senders and receivers as well as Microsoft's Sender ID e-mail authentication technology protocol. It also includes support for the Authentication, Authorization and Accounting (AAA) security protocol to allow administrators to control user access to servers based on defined roles.
Message Systems 2.2 will be available at the end of 2Q 2007.
About Message Systems
Founded in 1997, Message Systems is a worldwide provider of email software solutions and services for email service providers (ESPs), Internet service providers (ISPs) and large enterprises that need to manage the delivery of large amounts of business-critical email. Through a combination of technology, partnerships and intellectual capital, Message Systems offers a family of software solutions and services that address the email infrastructure and deliverability needs for organizations ranging from regional businesses to the Global 2000. With the most powerful Message Transfer Agent (MTA) on the market supporting more than 100,000 concurrent connections per server, Message Systems gets millions of unique messages to the right place at the right time. Headquartered in Columbia, Maryland, Message Systems has a network of channel partners in North America, Europe and Asia. For more information, go to http://www.messagesystems.com.
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