Email Setup

suarve · 24 Feb 2010 at 10:47

Hi,

Can someone please confirm my plan for changing a clients email hosting from one host to another - this is mission critical and the client musn't loose access to their email at all so I'm paranoid

Basically, they want everything to work first thing on Monday morning.

The client has 19 computers, each with a pop3 email account setup in outlook 2003.

This Friday at approx 12pm I'm going to ask the old host to change the nameservers to mine (we are hosting thier website too). I'm due to go down to their business at 3pm to amend the settings in Outlook.

I already added the domain and emails accounts to my hosting, so when the new nameservers resolve everything will be ready.

Just in case the nameservers change over very fast and the clients email stops working sometime after 12pm on Friday I've given the client webamil access as temporary measure - so they still have email access (as at some point on Friday their current outlook settings will cease to work).

Thanks

edscdk · 24 Feb 2010 at 10:57

when you say names server I assume you mean change MX records, so their SMTP email goes to your server not the old one?

the change will take hours to propergate round also some their clients email servers will cache the MX info for hours / days so email may well go to the wrong server..

I would add a 2nd pop account to outlook so it will get email from the old and the new for a while...

You can have delivery to the same PST so they will not see any difference..

edscdk · 24 Feb 2010 at 11:03

you can update their outlook any time before the change to get email from their old and your new pop box's..

then it does not matter how long the change takes... and it should be seamless to the users...

some spam filters might not like email comming from a host other than the one listed as a MX server.. (ive not had it happen during a change over yet but I always thought it might be an issue) ... you jsut need to make sure their outlooks SMTP setting gets updated fairly quickly after the MX is updated... unless it jsut points to a name that will be repointed during the DNS changes..

suarve · 24 Feb 2010 at 11:06

Well I'm trying to transfer everything from the old host to ours, where we have our own smtp server address.

I'm no expert on DNS, but I thought changing the namesevers to our own pointed the domain to the new hosted DNS setting? E.g. so any DNS setting (A records, MX records etc.) the old hosts has are not used.

Many Thanks

edscdk · 24 Feb 2010 at 11:36

what ever you are doing you can update their system to get email from 2 pop servers so the change is seamless.

I'm not a dns expert however there will be a lag between the change and people seeing the change, for some it can be a day or two as mail servers can cache records. (I've had it happen a few times)

You might want to take advice from an expert on this, usually the ISP keeps the DNS you jsut point the records to your servers. I think there is a tag (not sure if thats the correct term) on each domain to say which ISP owns (or rather manages it, when you move isp's the tag is released and then picked up by the other ISP), so im not sure you can just close the account with the isp.

suarve · 24 Feb 2010 at 11:53

edscdk said:
what ever you are doing you can update their system to get email from 2 pop servers so the change is seamless.

I'm not a dns expert however there will be a lag between the change and people seeing the change, for some it can be a day or two as mail servers can cache records. (I've had it happen a few times)

You might want to take advice from an expert on this, usually the ISP keeps the DNS you jsut point the records to your servers. I think there is a tag (not sure if thats the correct term) on each domain to say which ISP owns (or rather manages it, when you move isp's the tag is released and then picked up by the other ISP), so im not sure you can just close the account with the isp.

Do you mean MX record caching?

My web host just mentioned this - depending on how the current host has their DNS setup, thr MX records could be cached for you up to 24 hours - so its possible that some mail could be delivered to the old email server during this period.

CrazyMonk · 24 Feb 2010 at 11:56

You do have to change the MX record.
But only the Public Facing details as the IP address would be set to the old exchange box and e-mail will be sent there rather than to your new exchange server.