As IT managers and executives finalize their various goals for the New Year, perhaps one of the changes entails achieving a higher level of uptime for the email servers under your charge.  The inherent nature of server downtime though, necessitates that any work to keep things running must be proactive or preventive in nature.

So what are some ways to preempt the issues that has the ability to bring your email server to its figurative knees?  I’ve come up with a list of five tips today.

1. Mind your patches

The most obvious (and boring) thing that an administrator can do is to ensure that all software patches related to the email server are diligent tested and applied.  While necessarily troublesome, since all but the simplest of them entails staying in the office after hours, they are also the most important.

One thing to keep in mind is that many of these patches or service packs contain security fixes to discovered vulnerabilities.  On that note, email systems that have not been patched for a long time are just waiting to be hacked into; also a sure way to trash the chances for any uptime record.

2. Take preventive steps against malicious attacks

While it can be argued that defending against from all malicious attacks can be difficult, there are a number of steps that can be taken to make your organization less of a target.  I would broadly categorize the threats into two types: server compromise and Denial of Service (DoS) attacks.

Putting your email server in the DMZ segment of your network or behind the firewall affords some rudimentary protection against general probes that originate from external machines.  While the above move will likely necessitate the use of a VPN connection for remote users, the steep decrease in the target footprint for your server makes it a worthy move.  On the latter attack, DoS attempts directed at port 25 can best be handled by implementing SMTP tarpitting.  On that front, my colleague has written an excellent article on how to slow spammers to a crawl using the technique.

3. Run a dedicated email server

To be clear, I’m not about to revisit the argument on the relative merits of a hosted deployment versus an on-premise setup, which I’ve already outlined in some reasons for an on-premise deployment of Exchange Server last year.  What administrators should watch against though, is burdening their email servers with unrelated software.

Generally speaking, running an email server on the same hardware as your web server, ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software etc is a bad idea.  Not only are the number of potential security vulnerabilities multiplied, but overall reliability also takes a dive, which can only lead to an increase in the amount of server downtime.

Of course, running a dedicated email server can be expensive, and some mid-sized businesses have taken running their email servers within a virtual environment.  That would work assuming adequate resources in terms of processor cycles, memory, and access to fast storage.  Obviously, care should be taken by businesses not to rely on lower-end or entry-level virtualization products where it is not possible to allocate a minimum number of processor cycles.

4. Perform needed maintenance

This could range from tasks such as scheduling regular disk defragmentation jobs, purging of log files, performing daily backups and periodic deleting of old mailboxes.  My suggestion is that a list of such tasks be created, with a clear schedule for implementation, which can range from weekly, once every fortnight, or monthly.

Do feel free to check out 11 New Year’s Resolutions for email admins to help you get to a running start if you require ideas for maintenance tasks that you can perform.

5. Deploy a backup server

There are many highly sophisticated options that can help increase the reliability and uptime of your existing email server.  One of the easiest without having to resort to expensive virtualization or high-availability (HA) solutions would be to deploy an additional email server to serve as a live backup.

To achieve minimum disruption, administrators setting up a backup email server will need to configure the backup MX record on their company’s DNS domain in advance.  The use of this aspect of the DNS system has other benefits too, which you can read more about in 4 Ways to Supercharge your Exchange Server using the MX record.

That’s all I have today.  If you have additional tips on how to increase the uptime of your server, do feel free to leave feedback via the comments section below.