Presentation to London SMB IT Pros group

Monday 14th October 2013

Room101 – the story so far …

• Founded 1998 as web development workshop

• Launched first datacentre presence 1999

• Hosting & supporting PC/Mac email users since 2000

• Reseller services to IT Support Companies since 2003

Which of your clients will MessageFlow help?

• Company with a Microsoft® Small Business Server in house (2003, 2008, 2011 etc…)

• Receives incoming mail directly via SMTP• Single MX record pointing to the fixed IP number of an ADSL

line or leased line• Company receiving too much spam• …whose broadband goes down from time to time• …who has an upcoming office move• …who is about to change broadband provider

Example potential client

• Domain: acmewidgets.com• Single MX record: priority 10 mail.acmewidgets.com• mail.acmewidgets.com resolves to 62.3.235.48 (Tiscali)

But what’s wrong with this setup?

• Best practice is to have TWO MX records• They have to open port 25 to the world, including spammers• What if the ADSL line goes down? Or is heavily congested?• What if the IP number needs to change?

The MessageFlow answer

• Domain now has two MX records, each pointing to MessageFlow servers

• We relay messages via SMTP to the specified IP number(s) You can therefore firewall off port 25 to listen only to us• If the ADSL goes down, we can store-and-forward• If the IP number of the ADSL is changed, our system relays to

that IP number with immediate effect (no DNS propagation delays)

• You can specify more than one IP number• Keeps annoying spam traffic away from your Exchange Server

So what’s the benefit of all this?

• MessageFlow can help cut down on spam • Increasing broadband security and performance

Broadband down? Big problem!

In the current economic climate, what impression does it give if you email a company and the message bounces back as undeliverable?

Broadband down? No problem!

• Store-and-forward means no more embarrassing undeliverables / bounce-backs

The Two Towers

This hardly ever happens!….but when it does, MessageFlow remains UP

Migrations made simple

• Either physical server relocations or switching broadband provider, result in a change of IP address

• Change the relay-to IP number with immediate effect. (Change back again if your new config doesn’t work straight away)

• Specify more than one IP number in priority list ideal for out-of-hours office/provider migrations

Trapping Spam- three methods

Real-time Blackhole List filtering

Valid user filtering

Content-based filtering

1.) Realtime Blackhole List Filtering

• Subscription lists of IP numbers from which spam has recently originated

• Queried in realtime by MessageFlow servers• Advantages?

Very efficientTunable

• Disadvantages?Ignores the content

Our current partners

Sunny spells and scattered showers

2.) Valid Users filtering – why needed?

• Departed members of staff

• Guessed addresses

• Internal-only email accounts

• High-privilege accounts (eg Administrator)

3.) Content-based filtering

• Most spammers send millions (or billions)this can take them several days to

complete

• Aim to get a sample asap using spam-traps

• Update MessageFlow contentdatabase in real time

What to do with suspect emails…

• Discard

• Forward to webmail

• Pass-thru with tagged header

• Pass-thru (ie disabled)

Competition – how do we stack up?

We charge a ‘per company’ fee with no‘per user’ fees - so if client hires

extra staff, fees are the same.

The Reseller model

• End-user price £250 + VAT per annum (incl. 1 master + 4 alias domains)

• Reseller price £175 + VAT per annum

• Additional pack of 5 alias domains - £50 + VAT

• Addition of Outgoing Auth-SMTP - £35 + VAT

Your client, remains Your client

• What happens if we’re contacted direct• What we expect you to do

IT Support!Drive the MessageFlow control panel

• What you can expect us to doSupport you (but not your clients)Track and trace using our logfilesMarketing support (promo material, trade shows etc…)Free Trials (30 days)

Example clients (past & present)

• Server vendor• Town council• Marketing agency• A South-London based local magazine• Insurance broker• Veterinary clinic• Insurance broker• Car dealership

The RoadmapRelay to different IP based on username@ part of email address

Spotting malware-hosting web site URLs in spam messages

Scoring system for spams (for tag-header users)

Notify you if client SMTP relaying is down for > 5 mins

Our Special Thanks to ….

Alex Stanier

Anthony Goold

Alan Barnett