Messaging Solution

Electronic mail has become essential in daily communication with business partners and clients.  A proper messaging solution must consider the following criteria:-

• Efficiency
• Ease of maintenance
• User friendliness
• Security

iBASE is expertise in designing and implementation of email solutions in consideration the above requirements.  In 2003, iBASE is also proud to be the first official Chinese official site of qmail (http://www.chinese.qmail.org/), one of the most common email servers being adopted.

iBASE has developed an email strategy that provides edges over other solutions:

• Scalable database architecture

The solution will utilize a database mechanism for authentication, anti-spam, email forwarding and other routines.  This means unlimited versatility in the future expansion of the overall system for new functionalities.

• Coexistence

We understand that for managers and system administrators, any interruption of the messaging service is intolerable.  Our solution allows coexistence of the existing mail servers and new mail servers for progressive migration.  This allows the new system to be tested in the practical environment before it is put to production.  

• Enhanced security

Our messaging solution offers extended security features to protect your messages and your system from cyber rogues.

• SSL (Secure Socket Layer) encrypted link: data packets are encrypted during transmission to behave as a virtual channel.  This prevents eavesdroppers from understanding the data even if they succeed in intercepting the packets.
• ESMTP (Extended Simple Mail Transfer Protocol): the ESMTP protocol offers a secure way to identify authorized users from trespassers in providing email-sending service.
• S/MIME (Secure Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension): S/MIME encrypts email messages using RSA public key encryption technology, which is the de fact standard for industrial strength encryption.

Features

• Account Manager
• User Profile Manager
• Anti-spam Capabilities
• Virus Protection
• Remote User
• Electronic Newsletter
• High Volume Server
• Your Choice of Email Server

Account Manager

The system offers a comprehensive interface for system administrators to conveniently manage user accounts.

• account management - the administrator can add, remove or edit user profiles.
• mailbox size - the administrator can specify the mailbox size for each user
• anti-spam policy - the administrator can define the rules for identifying spam messages and denying them.
• accessibility - the administrator can assign privileges to specific users, e.g. ESMTP service. 

User Profile Manager

The User Profile Manager allows individual users to control his own profile settings, such as:

• auto forwarding - the user can configure to forward messages to his other email address(es).
• out-of-office reply - the user can enable/ disable an auto-reply message to incoming messages when he is on vacation or out of town.
• anti-spam rules - besides the anti-spam policy enforced by the system administrator, each user can further add rules to his own profile to customize for specific needs. 
• address book - the user can maintain and manage his list of contacts for his webmail account.

Anti-Spam Capabilities

While email has become an efficient way for communication, it has also been abused by some merchants to flood Internet users with unwanted messages ("spam message").  This wastes network resources and as well as stressing an unnecessary load to the system.

As a counter-measure, our proposed solution includes the anti-spam capability to filter out such messages.  The anti-spam mechanism bases on a set of predefined rules.  All incoming messages are checked against the rules; when a message violates the rules to a point that it exceeds the tolerance level, the message is declared to be a spam and is rejected to enter the mail system.  The rules and tolerance together assembles a versatile anti-spam filter which can be customized according to the situation of your office, and can be enhanced as the behaviour of spams evolves.

• administration interface - the system administrator can add, edit and remove spam rules on which the system depends to determine whether a message is a spam.
• spam rules updates - the style of spam messages changes constantly.  To respond to this, the anti-spam rules will be periodically updated to ensure that the module is ready to confront with future spam attacks.

Virus Protection

Virus protection is an essential part in the overall email system.  Email is the major vessel of virus propagation; and therefore blocking malicious viruses has become an important topic in deploying an email system. 

• Proven technology: the system is ready to adopt the industrial pioneer McAfee Virus Defense software as well as other popular anti-virus software.
• Periodic update: the system will be periodically updated with the latest virus definition to ensure that the system is impervious to attack of new viruses.

Remote User

A modern messaging solution is no longer confined by a static network; there are times that an user may need to access the system remotely when he is away from the office.

• ESMTP service - Generally users are required to configure their email program to set up the outgoing (SMTP) mail server according to the ISP they are connected to.  However, sometimes this poses a problem or nuisance for users who try to send mail from home or on a business trip. 

ESMTP service resolves this problem by identifying your users by their user id, rather than the current network orientation.  In other words, there is no need to change your email program settings again whenever you plug your computer into a new network environment. 

• Webmail - the major advantage of webmail is that you may access your mailbox anywhere thru the Internet, with or without your own mobile computer.

The webmail interface is on top of the user's own mailbox, and will not interfere with his existing emails (unless explicitly do so).

 
Electronic Newsletter

When you wish to notify your clients of company news, product highlights and/ or other updates, the electronic newsletter module allows you to send out the messages in a mass fashion.

High Volume Server

The High Volume Server solution is intended for clients who need to send out an enormous volume of emails.  This is designed to deliver email messages in a mass fashion, and is especially useful for companies who need to send out emails in large batches regularly.

• High-speed handling: the High Volume Server is configured to handling messages in large quantity.
• Scalability: the design of the system is scalable from a single computer to an array of computers for load-balancing purpose.

Your Choice of Email Server

iBASE has been adept at deployment of qmail mail server and Microsoft Exchange server.  Customers are welcome to pick their preferred solution to meet their requirements.