Google Apps and MX Records

[glitch]

I'm looking into the feasibility of utilising Google Apps for my small business but I'm struggling to work out if something would be possible that seems to relate to MX Records.

As I understand it, I need to point my domain's MX Records to Google in order for Apps to work, but would it be possible to have two sets of MX records, with one pointing to my current webmail setup and one to Google?

The reason I ask is that I'm pretty sure that Google Apps is the best solution for me but I still want to make sure that any mail sent during the transition phase is still delivered somewhere. If mail starts going missing during the move to Google Apps it's more than likely going to cost me money.

Google's help on dual-delivery seems to cover everything other than a webmail system, unless I'm just not looking in the right place?

 

[AfterEffect]

I think an easier option would be to import all of your current mail into Google Apps mail?
You can even import user lists too.


edit: Go to your Google Apps page and go to the advanced tab... the URL should be:
https://www.google.com/a/cpanel/***YOUR DOMAIN HERE***/Advanced

There you have two options:

Create multiple users
Create and update many user accounts at once
User email uploads
The Google Email Uploader is a desktop utility for Microsoft Windows that uploads email from other desktop email programs (like Microsoft Outlook) into your Google Apps mailbox. More information can be found at http://code.google.com/p/google-email-uploader/.
Download it here or share this link with your users: http://mail.google.com/mail/help/email_uploader.html

 

[V4NT0M]

I doubt you will lose any mail but it may be delayed slightly, for example any emails sent during the transition period will go to either you old server or your new server. If there is some kind of down period in the middle emails will either be bounced back to the sender (so they know) or merely kept by the sending server until their valid period runs out.

 

[glitch]

I think an easier option would be to import all of your current mail into Google Apps mail?

Not really.

At some point my MX Records will have to change from pointing at my webmail to Google Apps. Google say that changes can take 'up to 48 hours to propagate' which implies that during this time email will not have anywhere to go.

Now, I may very well have misunderstood how it all works, but that was what I wanted to find out.

That little uploader tool is very useful though. Thanks for uncovering that.

I doubt you will lose any mail but it may be delayed slightly, for example any emails sent during the transition period will go to either you old server or your new server. If there is some kind of down period in the middle emails will either be bounced back to the sender (so they know) or merely kept by the sending server until their valid period runs out.

What about dual-delivery?

Is there any way of having, for want of a better term, 'multiple' MX Records? So that any incoming mail goes to both my webmail and Google?

 

[chriscpritchard]

Not really.

At some point my MX Records will have to change from pointing at my webmail to Google Apps. Google say that changes can take 'up to 48 hours to propagate' which implies that during this time email will not have anywhere to go.

Now, I may very well have misunderstood how it all works, but that was what I wanted to find out.

That little uploader tool is very useful though. Thanks for uncovering that.

What about dual-delivery?

Is there any way of having, for want of a better term, 'multiple' MX Records? So that any incoming mail goes to both my webmail and Google?

your MX records will either be google's ones or your original ones, so mail will either be sent to your original server (which I hope you keep up) or your google one for up to 48 hours after the change

 

[glitch]

your MX records will either be google's ones or your original ones, so mail will either be sent to your original server (which I hope you keep up)...

The current mail server isn't technically mine. I'm just running off a normal webmail service that's part of my hosting.

or your google one for up to 48 hours after the change

So what are you saying here? That during the transition incoming mail may go to one or the other but never both?

And does that mean there's no downtime?