BUSINESS eMAIL scenarios

Sending all email to a mail server located on your premises

Mail Servers
If your company has a large number of  local area network users requiring email capability, then it makes sense to set up an email server in your office ('Microsoft Exchange Server' is a commonly used email server). An office server provides staff with an email gateway to the Internet. It also allows office staff to send and receive email and documents across your local office network. Using a server as an Internet gateway removes the need to provide modems and Internet accounts for each staff member.

Permanent connection verses on-demand connection
Your Mail server can be configured to operate in a permanent connection mode or in a dial-up on-demand mode. The main difference between these two modes of operations is the way incoming mail is received and costed.

Permanent Connection
A permanent connection is suitable for companies that expect to have large volumes of email and can justify the cost of a permanent Internet connection.
With a Permanent Connection, your mail server is connected to the Internet, 24 hours a day. All incoming email is sent straight to your mail server. The mail server sends incoming email to your office mailboxes and notifies mailbox users. With a permanent connection WebCentral acts as a back-up mail server. If either your Internet link or mail server were to fail, you would have peace of mind knowing WebCentral, acting as your backup server, has stored all your email. When you come back online, WebCentral's backup server forwards your stored email to your server. When you are offline and not backed up by a secondary email server, senders may received a 'Failure' message advising them your mail server could not be found.

On-Demand Connection
An on-demand dial-up connection is a very cost effective way of connecting your mail server to the Internet. With an On-Demand Connection your mail server connects to the Internet at certain times of the day to receive mail. (e.g. every hour). Once an Internet connection is established, mail is downloaded to your server and sent to the appropriate user. After all email is downloaded, the modem disconnects. The mail server re-connects to the Internet when your staff sends email. The modem is only used for short periods of time.  The on-demand connection can be made through any Internet service provider's dial-up account. An on-demand connection is not a special account or a permanent connection.You do not require a static IP address.

Using both individual mailboxes and mail servers
Normally when you connect your mail server to the Internet, ALL email is sent to your server. This can be a disadvantage if you have employees who work in remote locations where they may be unable to directly connect to your office network. You can solve this problem using WebCentral's Mission Control site. Mission Control can be configured to send remote employees' email via WebCentral and not directly to your server. Remote employees can collect their email stored at WebCentral using a normal dial-up account which they can established with their local Internet service provider. Remote employees would not have to call WebCentral. Alternatively their email can be forwarded to a local fax machine using WebCentral's advanced Email-to-Fax service (This option is only for on-demand connections).