High Availability Clustering
for Linux and Windows
Whether you have one domain with millions of users, or a million domains each with a single user, SmarterMail High Availability (HA) allows administrators to build a fault tolerant cluster on Linux or Windows. SmarterMail HA is a game changer for email performance, scalability, and uptime by expanding SmarterMail to a fully distributed architecture. The same SmarterMail experience supporting an unlimited number of users and domains across a secure and scalable cluster.
Benefits of SmarterMail HA
SmarterMail HA IS SmarterMail. The "HA" part simply brings scalability to any sized business, enterprise, service provider, or ISP. SmarterMail HA expands all the groupware and collaboration features and functionality of SmarterMail that businesses have come to expect to Linux and Windows clusters that can effortlessly scale up to millions of users.
Other benefits include:
- Built-in fault tolerance for maximum uptime.
- Flexible distribution of domains, including splitting a domain's users across multiple nodes .
- Monthly licensing that includes MAPI & EWS.
- Easily deploy using virtualization and/or containers.
- Centralized management, performance monitoring, and cluster health.
SmarterMail HA Architecture
Simple, straightforward architecture consisting of two primary pieces: Hubs and Nodes.
- Hubs - Hubs are responsible for knowing where everything is on the cluster, and it's where administrators can view the status and health of all Nodes. Hubs proxy all authentication and content to and from SmarterMail Nodes and they’re also responsible for bringing standby Nodes online to self-heal the cluster and continue providing mail services to users.
- Nodes - Nodes are very similar to the standard SmarterMail installations that customers and administrators are familiar with today. The only difference is that they’re tied to a Hub.
What you add to your scalable distribution of hubs and nodes, however, can be dynamic, and include incoming/outgoing gateways, security appliances, and more. We offer a downloadable PDF that outlines an example of SmarterMail's high availability architecture.
Deployment and Flexibility
Flexibility is a key component of SmarterMail HA. Businesses can start with a simple set up, and then expand their installation by quickly and easily adding hubs and nodes as needed.
SmarterMail HA is an ideal solution for:
- Large businesses and enterprises where uptime, scalability, and reliability are essential.
- Hosting companies and ISPs with thousands of domains and tens of thousands of mailboxes .
- Enterprises with a single domain looking for unlimited users.
- A business looking to create "the next Gmail" that offers free email services.
If you're not sure what you need, just let us know. We love having deployment discussions with customers and hashing out their options. For example, adding centralized storage for consistent and synchronized data, or adding load balancers, incoming/outgoing gateways, external antispam providers, and more. SmarterMail HA is truly built with flexibility in mind: start with a basic deployment, then expand it to fit the needs of your business.
Getting Started
Building out a high availability cluster can be expensive when factoring in both hardware and software costs. To help with those costs, SmarterTools offers SmarterMail HA as a separate licensing agreement that allows you to expand and contract your cluster to fit your needs, and we include the first 30 days for FREE to help get you started!
In addition, building a high availability cluster is a process, and we want to become your partner during that process, giving you the time and assistance you need to build something that can easily grow with your business. For more information on SmarterMail HA, please contact us at sales@smartertools.com
