Description


The continuity service is a fully automated service, which initiates dynamically when our system observes that your destination mail server provides MPmail's servers with a temporary SMTP fault response code (SMTP 4xx error).


A temporary SMTP fault response can be provided by your mail server for a multitude of reasons.

Examples: (This list is not exhaustive).


  1. Internet downtime
  2. Server overload
  3. Server mail database corruption
  4. Firewall interference
  5. DR situation
  6. Mail server issue, e.g. lack of resources

Requirements


  • The continuity service can only be subscribed to for all users at your domain/domains and not individual users.
  • The continuity service will not function retrospectively if you decide to activate once already in a disaster event(If the email is lost, Continuity can't reverse time)


The Process


Once our service receives the temporary SMTP mail delivery fault, our system will then redirect mail to the continuity platform for each of your control panel registered users.  Inbound email for non-existent users will not be sent to the continuity platform. If the relay check isn't automatically adding postboxes, mail won't be stored for postboxes that don't exist. For MPmail365 customers users and aliases are automatically synchronised between Microsoft 365 and MPmail, however password will still need to be reset.


Emails can be released from the archive at any time. If emails are released from the archive during a DR situation, the emails will be copied to the Continuity service.



Important continuity prerequisites 


In order to use the continuity service, the following actions need to be implemented;


1. Activate the continuity service on the MPmail Portal or select MPMUA in https://converge.mp


(a) Go to Management > Select Domain > Email > Continuity Service,

(b) Enable continuity, select All users and tick the "Send outgoing e-mails to own mail server during server failure";

(c) Click Save



2. Enable User Accounts - Manual Option


For users to log into their continuity mailboxes, the users need to be listed on the filtering service, a password needs to be set for a user and their user account set to activated. 


(a) Go to Management > User > User

(b) Add any users who are missing

(c) Go to Management > User > User Settings.  From the drop-down, select the user. 

(d) Set a password for the user and set the status to Activated   **Note: All end users must be activated for continuity to work properly**

(e) If the user has any email aliases, manually add these in the Aliases tab

(f) Click Save




(g) End users will now be able to login to their email continuity account at https://webmail.mpmail.com.au/


User Login to Email Continuity


Users may login to the continuity platform with their normal email address and password at https://webmail.mpmail.com.au/ and send and receive emails directly via the Webmail platform as if it were business as usual. Recipients will still see your domain address as the sending address.'


During this time you can also setup the IMAP/POP mailbox on your Outlook or Mobile device using the following settings:


IMAP4: imap.antispameurope.com Port 143 or 993 (SSL)


POP3: pop.antispameurope.com Port 110 or 995 (SSL)


SMTP: smtp.antispameurope.com Port 25 or 587 (use SMTP authentication with your email address and MPmail portal password)


Please note that this is not a Full Exchange Mailbox so on Mobile devices please select IMAP/POP and not Exchange.


If you would like to know about the delivery of emails once your system is back up please see Emails are Deferred When Will They Retry.

Additional features


  • 90-day rolling email archive
  • As soon as the continuity service has been subscribed to, MPmail Continuity service will store all new inbound and outbound emails for 90-days.
  • End-users can access these emails via https://webmail.mpmail.com.au
  • Archived emails are viewable in Workspace > Email Archive.
[IMPORTANT]: Re-delivery of Emails once a DR situation has finished


Once your mail server becomes reachable and does not present any more temporary mail server faults, our system will re-deliver any email that any users have sent or received back from the continuity service to your mail server. Please note that if an email is deleted from the Webmail continuity service, the email will not be redelivered.


FAQ's


How long would it take for our continuity service to go live after we have activated it?


The Continuity Service starts to redirect email approximately 30 minutes after the time of its activation. Please note that is only emails which have been received/sent after its activation which will be redirected to the Continuity Web mailbox and to the customers 90 rolling archive.  Be aware that there is no "instant" access to the previous 90 days of clean emails, as these emails are stored on a rolling basis.


Emails remain “Deferred” from the Control Panel once handled by the Continuity Service


The Continuity Service ensures access to your emails while the recipient mail server is unavailable. The service will deliver the emails once the server is available again.


You can identify any emails handled by the Continuity Service through the Control Panel. First, you will need to locate the emails through Email Live Tracking and then vies the "SMTP code" by expanding the email entry via the dropdown menu on the right. There you will find a reference to Continuity:


TLS - continuityservice - 444 Redirect because:


 As soon as an email has been made available through the Continuity Service it will keep its "Deferred“ status, even if the server becomes available again and the email was successfully delivered. This is expected behaviour, as the email was already processed through the Continuity Service.


How does the Continuity Service work when my server has stopped accepting emails? How and when does MPmail sense that my mail server has gone down?


If a connection to the customers server cannot be established (timeout of approx 10 seconds), or their server answers with a 400 SMTP error for some reason. The Continuity Service gets activated immediately (if already activated of course in the customers Control Panel). The mails are then sent to another server called the portal server. This server administers the POP accounts, the access by IMAP and even the automatic checking service which monitors the status of the customer's server.