Overview 


Automated Activation (If you have subscribed to the service)


  • The continuity service can only be subscribed to for all users at your domain/domains and not individual users.
  • The continuity service must be subscribed to for a minimum service interval of 12 months 
  • The continuity service will not function retrospectively if you decide to activate once already in a DR event

Description


The continuity service is a fully automated service, which initiates dynamically when our system observes that your destination mail server provides EveryCloud'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


How it works


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, so it is essential that all users are imported into the control panel, well in advance of any possible DR event.


Important continuity prerequisites 


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


1. Activate the continuity service on the EveryCloud Portal


(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.everycloudtech.com. 

(h) Users can request a password reset by going to https://cp.everycloudtech.com and clicking on Request password




3. Enable User Accounts - LDAP Option


As an alternative to manually adding users to the control panel, LDAP sync can be used (see https://support.everycloud.com/support/solutions/articles/4000035732-ldap-set-up-requirements). The benefit of LDAP sync is that alias email addresses will be associated against each users account.


To LDAP AD password sync;



(a) Users must log into https://cp.everycloudtech.com prior to a DR event occurring

(b) If users do not login to https://cp.everycloudtech.com prior to a DR event, then the users password will need to be manually set to allow them access to the Continuity service. 


User Login to Email Continuity

Users may login to the continuity platform with their normal email address and EveryCloud password at https://webmail.everycloudtech.com/  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.

Additional features


90-day rolling email archive


As soon as the continuity service has been subscribed to, EveryCloud will store all new inbound and outbound emails for 90-days. 


End-users can access these emails either via the Outlook plugin or via  https://cp.everycloudtech.com. 


Administrations can access these emails via https://cp.everycloudtech.com. 


From within https://cp.everycloudtech.com, archived emails are viewable in Workspace > Email Archive.


The Flash control panel is still available here - https://control.everycloudtech.com.




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. 


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. 


Password Restrictions


When continuity is enabled, we strongly advise that a password security policy is implemented. This is to ensure that the end-user account is not compromised and that the user's data is kept secure. Password restrictions are enabled at a customer level at Management > Settings > Restrictions. We recommend that the strong password policy is implemented that ensures:


- Minimum of 8 characters

- Upper case letter in password

- Lower case letters in password

- Number in password


Additionally, special characters can also be used;