Forcing messages to go out instead of going directly into user's inbox

[Stoemp]

Hi

I have a SBS2003 server with Exchange 2003. In the future (let's say in about 4-6 months) I will set up a VPN for our representatives on the road so they can access our network from outside the company. This will also be the time that I will start using Exchange. I already have an AD with users, each with their e-mail address and Exchange mailbox. This e-mail address also exists on the Internet from our ISP. I want to use the POP3 connector for downloading these messages from our ISP, but in the first stage I only want to do it for a few people (just to test the reactions from these people on the integration of Exchange in their daily life and to start experimenting with sharing mailboxes). The problem is if I have some people using Exchange (internal people), when they will send a mail to someone in the company, this e-mail will be dropped in this person's mailbox instead of going out to their mailbox on the Internet. Is there a way to force all e-mail messages to go out instead of going directly into the user's mailbox, or perhaps another workaround that will do?

Thanks

Steven

 

[markdmac]

Forgive me, I don't understand your thinking here. Why would you want the Exchange users mail to go to the ISP and take up bandwith just so it can be delivered back to your server?

Ideally you should just do away with the ISP portion of this and let exchange do all the work. Your travelling people will get a much more feature rich experience using remote mail on Exchange than they would on the ISP and they will have full access to their mailboxes remotely as well as their work PCs.

If you have not already done so, take a look at OWA (Outlook Web Access). From any client in your domain just open a web browser and visit

http://servername/exchange

to check it out. Externally the URL would be

http://fqdn/exchange

such as

http://mail.mycompany.com/exchange.

It is imortant to note that by switching over to full use of exchange your users could purchase PocketPC or Smart phones. They will then be able to use the built in ServerActiveSync to be able to get their email delivered right to their phone (and still have it in their mailbox). ServerActiveSync will syncronize messages, tasks, calendar, files etc. Whatever they want. You loose the power of this by not using Exchange.

Take a peak at this thread for my post for some additional configuration advice. thread955-1122214

Remote access to workstations would be via Remote Web Workplace. That address would be

http://fqdn/remote.

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

 

[Stoemp]

Hi Mark

Maybe I wasn't really clear when explaining my problem. Let me try and clarify this.
The major problem is that my IT budget has been frozen and I don't get any money for implementing extra safety measures that come with running my own e-mail server. I have to wait for an unspecified amount of time before my budget gets back. That's why I want to start using my Exchange server internally. For downloading messages with the POP3-connector, not much extra safety measures are needed. I really want to start using Exchange here internally because we really need the feature of shared agendas and mailboxes. When I will implement this for everyone internally and they will send an e-mail to someone from our sales people, the e-mail will not arrive in the mailbox from the sales people at our ISP. That's why I want to send all the e-mails outside for an unspecified amount of time.

So it's all a matter of frozen budget, combined with my needs to go further anyway. In the future, when my Exchange runs stable with pop3, then I will cancel the ISP story and continue only on Exchange, but one thing at a time. We're a small business with 14 employees, so there's not always room for quick evolving, you know ;-)

I hope my problem is more clear now.

Regards

Steven

 

[markdmac]

Steven,

I am afraid you have me even more confused than before. I don't see how budget correlates to this. You should give everyone an Exchange mailbox on your server. Any external emails can get delivered to your ISP since that is where your MX record is. Your SBS will pull those messages down and incorporate them into the Exchange store. Any messages from inside sent to employees will automatically go into the Exchange store and outbound mail destined for external recipients will go out over the WAN.

Your sales people will be able to get all of their email via Outlook Web Access, Outlook Over HTTP or VPN. They have lots of choices and only need to visit your server and not the ISP. There is no additional cost associated with this, you already paid for it.



I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

 

[Stoemp]

Mark

I might have sounded confusing, I know. It's sometimes hard for me to express myself due to the foreign language. The problem is that my Exchange server is not yet accessable from outside the company, and this is where the budget problem comes in. I first have to get more bandwidth, a decent firewall etc. implemented. So far this isn't done yet. So now I want only the e-mails for the people here in the office directly in their Exchange mailbox, and the e-mails for our sales people that work at home should go into their mailbox at our ISP. So when we send an e-mail from our Exchange mailbox here internally to one of our external sales people, this e-mail should not go into the Exchange mailbox of the sales person, but should go out to the ISP's mailbox. Maybe I should give this extra info: the e-mail addresses in Exchange and the ones we use now at our ISP are the same.

Regards

Steven

 

[markdmac]

You will not be able to get exchange to do that as far as I am aware. Even using a Smart Host would only forward messages for domains other than yours.

If the reason your Exchange is not accessible from the outside is related to a lack of static IP address, then you might want to take a look at

http://www.dyndns.org.

Do you have SBS Standard or Premium? If you have premium then you have ISA to use as a firewall. If you are looking for a hardware solution, I would go and get an inexpensive LinkSys firewall just so you are protected.

You only need to open the following ports up on the firewall. 25, 80, 443, 4125 for SMTP, HTTP, SSL and RWW.

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

 

[Stoemp]

Dear Mark

It's indeed a problem of not having a static IP address. I have prepared the whole project and there will be a static one in the future, but just not yet.

I'm using the standard version of SBS2003, so there's no ISA server installed. I will install a firewall with a VPN solution so everyone can use Outlook to download their e-mail on their computer (and for other purposes too of course), but I lack the money to do this, so I guess I'll just have to be patient...

Thanks for the information

Best regards

Steven

 

[markdmac]

I don't know how expensive things are where you are but you can get an inexpensive VPN firewall for under $70 US.

http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=806012

And without the VPN they are available for under $55.

http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=196823

You can always use your server to handle the VPN.

Budget constraints or not, if you have sales people out in the field they should be able to access your network as a core function of the network. Maybe you should look at seeing if you were to do away with the POP accounts if that will free up the money needed for the firewall.


I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

 

[Stoemp]

Indeed Mark, I know that it's pretty inexpensive. The problem is that my boss is not really computer-minded, and as long as he can e-mail and open some documents without problems, it's ok for him. Sad situation, I know. I have already a long way behind me, but still a long way to go. I think only patience can save me here.

Thanks a lot for the tips, but I will just have to wait until I get the budget to do this right from the start. He has granted me my budget for this year (a pretty big one), but I have to wait a little more, but I'm living on hope... (or how hard the life of an IT manager can be in a small company...)

Regards

Steven

 

[markdmac]

Good luck to you.

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

 

[Stoemp]

Thanks a lot. I will need it...

Steven