Exchange connector for Mobile Devices from VPN Environment

[bence8810]

Dear Forum,

I am trying to achieve Push Email technology to our Mobile users from our Exchange SP2 which has only an internal IP.

Office Setup. We are a global operation with a VPN network throughout our offices, and there is no way to reach our Exchange server from outside, as it only has an Internal IP, and emails sent to us from the gateways internally.
The firewall cannot be changed to allow outside access.

What I do now, is to forward the emails to a POP3 account, but that is only for emails. That server is out on the open, so its reachable from the mobile devices. First of all it isnt push, because its not an Exchange server, secondly even if it was an Exchange, it would only be for emails, and not the Contacts, calendar, tasks, etc.

Is there any solution for a situation like ours? The VPN solution we use does not offer a Windows Mobile client, so its impossible to make the roaming users have a VPN link to the exchange, which would be otherwise the simplest and cleanest solution.

Thanks a lot, any help is appreicated,

Ben

 

[SteveRoadWarrior]

You might be able to find some hosted Exchange companies that will be willing to configure their servers for Always Up To Date (sms push to mobile devices).

http://www.msexchange.org/services/Exchange-Hosting/

Prices hover around 10 bucks per month per user.

 

[bence8810]

Hi

Yes, this is exactly what I am trying to eliminate. We have the hardware, the infrastructure, I just would like to find out how to implement it.

We already have a full Email exchange environment, just its limited to the LAN at the office, or through a VPN client we have on our laptops, and which doesnt work on any other platform.

That is why I was wondering if there is a way to forward all the exchange items to an other outside Exchange, in a secure way, where from it could be picked up by mobile devices.

Thanks, any suggestions are welcome,

Ben

 

[SteveRoadWarrior]

Here are some options:

1) Install the Firewall Client on your mobile devices (some windows mobile clients will talk PPTP/L2TP)
2) Use SSL VPN technology (which punches holes in your firewall anyway) to provide web page or full IP tunnel connectivity
3) Have a hosted external site hold the mail for your clients (which you're doing, but trying to get away from).
4) Pay a company like blackberry or Good to keep your phones in sync with your Exchange server.

It sounds like you can't do #1, don't want to do #2, and are already doing #3.

I understand that you have hardware and infrastructure. However given that you or someone you work with is unwilling to open the Firewall up to the outside, you must exclude that hardware and infrastructure from the "services" picture. That sounds like a strong statement, but you want to provide services to clients. Providing in-house services to clients usually involves opening up ports on your firewall. Providing services to clients via a DMZ is a generally accepted practice. If you're unwilling to provide services to your clients, and you want to get away from #3, your only option is #4.

 

[bence8810]

Hi

Thanks for the summary. So you feel our only option is a hosted Blackberry service? Can you explain how that works? Lets say we sign up for Blackberry service. Will they install something in our location, or otherwise how will the emails and other items get to their location?

There is nothing we can do ourselves? If an external company can do it, I am sure we can do it also, like I said, we have all hardware, IP pools on the open with configurable firewalls, etc. The only thing we cannot temper with (corp policy) are the internal AD server, exchange, DC, Fileservers, etc.

If we can foward things to an 3rd party who will serve it up for us, we can do it ourselves too. We will definetally not outsource our emails, as it works already internally, which is 99% of how its being used. Only the remaining 1% of instances would be initiated from outside, for this matter we wont release our email ops.

Thanks,

Ben
p.s. Now what we do is we have a Linux server with Exim, that receives forwarded emails from the Exchange, and makes it available through IMAP, and POP3. Another annoyance is that at times when for some reason the email wont go through to this forwarding server, the client who sends us the email will get a reply back that the email didnt go. Lets say our client sends an email to a.b@co.com and its also forwarded to a.b@linuxserver.com.

The client will get a response saying that a.b@linuxserver.com is unreachable. They will be often confused that the email didnt go through at all. Is there a way to Stop exchange making this forward public in a way that it wouldnt send any notifications?