Mail & messaging Toolkit

Have you got plans if your email goes down?

Mike Talon Tech Republic

Published: 25 Jan 2006 13:50 GMT

Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes, and other email systems have become the cornerstones of the modern business communications stream. Not only has the business itself become dependent on email to survive, but your disaster recovery (DR) plan is most likely based on using email alerting systems to keep everyone up to date on the recovery efforts. What happens when your email system becomes the disaster?

DR planning for email is always tricky, for many different reasons. Once you recognise that a failure has occurred, the first step will need to be determining how it occurred. If you're lucky, there will be an obvious server failure, and you'll be able to either restore from tape or fail over to a backup system to correct it. More often than not, however, email faults occur within the vast array of systems that make up the overall email path into and out of your organisation.

Troubleshooting that trail can take an incredible amount of time — sometimes more than a full business day if the problem isn't on your end. The issue could be contained within a local email database server, SMTP/virus/spam filtration system, or another relay station along the way of the email path. Just finding out what part of the system failed can take more time than fixing it in a majority of cases. During this time, trying to send out alerts to your end users will be next to useless, since that mail will have to follow the same path. So, in the event of an email disaster, you have two choices: either have an alternate system in place, or be ready to deal with irate end users who can't get their mail. There's some solace in the fact that they can't email you their complaints, but the phones will probably still be working, so they'll get through!

Alternate pathing for email can get very expensive, very quickly. Many times only the technical response-staff who will need to deal with the emergency and a few key executives will have this particular service. Examples are Web-based email systems (like Microsoft's Hotmail or Yahoo Mail), mobile email systems (BlackBerry, direct paging, etc.) and other types of non-server-dependent mail. Training on how and when to use those systems is vital, as accidentally jumping to the new systems will only cause more confusion.

You may also want to make sure that everyone in the organisation knows well ahead of time what will be going on during an emergency, and how fast you're going to restore service. This can greatly assist in making sure your technical personnel can focus on restoration of services instead of fielding end-user complaints.

Email system failures present an extraordinary challenge to your organisation. Ensuring proper preparation, proper communication among vital restoration personnel, and proper action during the crisis will go a long way to making sure you get back up and running fast.