Kerio Mail Server, known as Kerio Connect since the beginning of 2010, is the first mail server on the market with full functionality "Groupware " without any additional plugin.
Kerio Connect is the product that has allowed to Kerio to become an important name in the panorama of the mail server. It is, in fact, a solution with the right chemistry of functionality, flexibility, simplicity and universality.
Protocols
Kerio Connect has the full support of open protocols such as SMTP, POP3, IMAP4, HTTP, LDAP, and NNTP, all present in both the unencrypted version either in encrypted with SSL and implemented as a service in Kerio Connect: in fact, there is no need to install any other additional services, nor need to configure any "demon" inside the machine.
This feature is very important because there are several email solutions that rely instead on third-party projects to work. Who has experience in systems engineering knows how much can be complex to operate and manage different packages over time. The protocols described above can be used an infinite number of domains and a number limited only by the technical characteristics of the machine on which the software is installed.
Also, the number of domains does not change the license cost. The packages are determined only by two parameters:
- the number of users that the system should handle
- the choice of the option with the "McAfee antivirus plugin" integrated into the program.
In addition to these two aspects there are no restrictions of any kind and all the features of the product will be available both you buy the basic version for 5 users, and the version for thousands of users.
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Complete solution in one product
The antivirus software can scan all incoming and outgoing messages, checking the integrity of the mail. To do this you can get the plugin for integrated McAfee, instead of having to install additional external software. If you do not want to incur the cost of the license for the McAfee plugin, or prefer an alternative, you can make use of external anti-virus like Avast, Sophos, AVG and NOD32, or the free antivirus ClamAV. ClamAV had support for Windows until recently, and now the project is suspended for the Windows platform.
If you want to have a high level of security you can also use two scanning engines, adding McAfee integrated with an external product (Avast, Sophos, ClamAV or AVG and NOD32). Kerio Connect integrates anti-spam engine SpamAssassin, reducing substantially the number of unwanted incoming messages. The engine uses a set of heuristics to identify spam and mark it ad hoc.
This research strategy can be complemented by other features found in Kerio Connect, such as Spam Repellent. The Mail Server in this case introduces a delay of 5 to 25 seconds during SMTP transactions. This waiting, fully compatible with official standards, does not create any problem for corporate mail servers that are able to handle delays. Of course we must pay attention to the number of blacklists used because a significant number of controls introduces an additional delay to Spam Repellent, considerably increasing the waiting time for sending mail from the Mail Server. Spammers must instead send millions of messages per day and can not afford to wait so long for a single message: the connection will be interrupted, preventing the delivery of junk mail. This feature greatly reduces the traffic of unwanted messages.
Additional anti-spam features in Kerio Connect are, among others, control of the domain of source, access to public black list, creation of manual rules, and verification of parameters such as the number of concurrent connections, the amount of messages for hours and so on.
The functions of groupware type should be emphasized: Kerio Connect provides the opportunity to have address books, calendars, to-do lists and notebooks.
Each user can have their personal information or share information with others. So you can manage group diaries, shared calendars, company notes and so on. This feature is very well made and tend to replicate as closely as possible the operational status provided by Outlook and Exchange within Windows. Kerio Connect is thus the ideal replacement for the more famous Exchange and is definitely faster and lighter than Microsoft Exchange.
Kerio Connect 7 perfectly integrates with the Mac world through features CardDAV and CalDav and through regular programs present in MAC products: Mail, Contacts and Calendar or Microsoft Entourage.
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Your email wherever you go
Kerio Connect has two integrated systems Webmail: the first is extremely rich and complete, based on AJAX philosophy but working only on newer browsers (on Mac, Mozilla 1.7 or higher, Firefox 1 and 2 / 3 and Safari 1.3 or higher). With those browsers you have the drag & drop, context menus, the advanced panel, the real-time search and all the sophisticated interactions that we have used the dynamics of AJAX-style web interfaces. For older systems, for mobile devices or connected consoles instead, there is a webmail panel technologically simpler, based on pure HTML, and then viewed from any device that has a minimum of browser. Nobody is therefore excluded.
Kerio Connect also provides a complete system for creating mailing list with robots for the automatic management of subscriptions, and mechanisms of rights and creation of user profiles, administrator and moderator. The latest version of the package is then particularly directed to the emerging smartphone market. You can make devices based on Windows Mobile, PalmOS and iPhone have access to data in Kerio Connect (the iPhone without the help of plugins) all through the push-update mechanisms. A list of supported devices and features of groupware synchronization is available at http://www.kerio.com/connect/wireless.
You can also use the Black-Berry devices, running forward incoming mail to Kerio Connect to the BlackBerry box coupled with the device or by using a software to be installed on the phone to third parties.
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Benefits for IT Managers
The capabilities of Kerio Connect are rich and well done, but alone would not be sufficient to give Kerio success that is winning. What differentiates the product from most of competitors is the simplicity of management and administration. First, the program can be installed on any machine: even a Mac mini in standard configuration may be sufficient to handle dozens of domains and hundreds of users. Moreover, as emphasized by the Kerio itself, the software can be installed both on the server version and on the normal version of Mac OS X (and it is Universal Binary and then uses in native mode Intel processors). Kerio Connect is also distributed through an image Linux pre-installed on the new platform "VMWare", so to be able to virtualize our Mail Server.
The installation is very simple: it takes five minutes to get the product working. Then you can develop the advanced configuration using a software panel which can be installed locally or on a remote machine. For remote access to Kerio Connect simply open the doors UDP/44337 and TCP/44337 on our network router and send with a forward rule to the system that hosts Kerio Connect. The software client will use these two ports as data channels for the configuration commands and for the transition of the log data.
All the Mail Server configuration is stored in two binary files on the root of Kerio Connect. These two files (users.cfg and Connect.cfg) are sufficient to completely restore the installation in case of destructive crash of the machine. Following a disaster, you can then restart your e-mail system in a few minutes. The user data (mail on hold, groupware data, etc..) are in the store directory. The admin panel provides an automatic mechanism for generating the scheduled backup job. You can then place these files in the backup on tape job to get the entire database is safe.
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Everything under control
As for the user management, you can make use of an internal archive of Kerio Connect or use a corporate directory service based on Active Directory or Apple Open Directory. This greatly simplifies the configuration in environments with hundreds of accounts. The user management is full, and you can set quotas, rights in resource management groupware, group membership, rules of forwarding, handling of aliases and so on. You can also create user template to simplify the addition of new users.
All user activity and overall system can be checked by the monitor of the program queues, the monitor of the open sessions, use graphics and text log. These are completely standard and can be accessed using the graphic panel of the program or sent to a Syslog server for the integration of management data. The log is not unique, but divided by area: configuration changes, errors, e-mail traffic, security, spam control and warning. There is also a debug log which can be customized by the administrator to capture specific situations. Finally, we note that the latest available version, at the time of going to press, was the 6.3.1 (which, compared to 6.3.0, contains only bug fixes) and Kerio also provides a subscription program for the upgrade rights and extended technical support.
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