This is a sponsored post by the folks over at EveryCloud.  They have recently developed and released a new tool to help manage and troubleshoot email issues, which is starting to get some traction, especially among Exchange environments.  As a mail admin in a previous life, I can sympathize with desire for better monitor tools.  Here’s their post.

Managing mail flow is a challenge for every systems administrator, and the price of a mistake is very high. Any interruption in mail flow can spell disaster for a company, disrupting daily operations and leaving the management team, the IT team and the systems administrator scrambling for solutions.

While there are a number of mail flow solutions on the market, they tend to be quite pricey, making it difficult for systems administrators, especially those who work for small businesses and start-ups, to justify the cost.

For those who do not already know, the makers behind the EveryCloud mail flow monitor have recently launched a free service – Mail Flow Monitor (MFM). EveryCloud MFM tool is the only free round-trip mail flow monitor on the market, giving systems administrators the ability to observe their organizations’ email systems 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year, all without spending a penny.

Some of the features of Mail Flow Monitor include:

• A full-featured round trip monitor, with start-to-finish email tracking and monitoring
• Systems administrators can receive real-time text and email alerts whenever a delay or rejection occurs – to your cell phone as well an email or to your alternative email address.
• Timely monitoring means issues can be addressed quickly, before they spiral out of control
• The system sends a test email every few minutes to a monitoring mailbox on your server. You set up a forward to send the emails back and the Everycloud team does the rest.
• MFM is cloud based, which means there is nothing to update or manage.
• MSP’s and IT Resellers can create an account and manage as many customers as they wish via the EveryCloud Partner Area, all completely free!

When you consider that competing mail filtering solutions generally cost about $30 a month, it is easy to see the saving potential. That $360 annual cost savings may not seem like much, but since it is assessed on a domain level, the charges can add up quickly. In addition, the per-domain charges can make managing a complex IT operation difficult, an extra level of hard work that systems administrators do not need.

From the smallest startups to the largest multinational corporations, modern businesses live and die on their email. An unexpected email breakdown, significant bottleneck or major failure could make the firm’s email inaccessible and unreliable for hours or even days, and every minute of downtime is costing the company money.

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