E-Mail Restructuring

1. E-Mail Restructuring Getting the Mail Through! September 10, 2004

2. E-Mail Restructuring • Spam Filter • E-Mail Routing • Lotus Notes Improvements • Student E-Mail Upgrades • Best Practices http://www.uwindsor.ca/emailupgrade Information Technology Services

3. E-Mail Restructuring • Spam Filter • PureMessage Filter placed into production July 8 for students and July 12 for faculty/staff • Implemented with two options at this point, with a third to come: • No filtering • Daily Spam Digest • Tag and Deliver (still to come) • Statistics indicate 75% of mail is blocked as Spam. Information Technology Services

4. E-Mail Restructuring • Spam Filter • Some Spam is still getting through, but that is related to two factors: • Do not want to stop legitimate mail • Have not implemented all the security measures that we intend to which will stop malicious mail and Spam (more on this in e-mail restructuring) Information Technology Services

5. E-Mail Restructuring • Spam Filter • Five new mail servers were added at the same time • Configured to separate incoming mail and outgoing mail • Implemented new mail routing procedures which reduced the number of machines touching the mail (simplifying the procedure, fewer points of failure, eliminated the firewall) • Delivery time was cut by 10x • Reduced the load on the firewall, network, servers Information Technology Services

6. E-Mail Restructuring • E-Mail Routing • E-Mail routing architecture and policies have been changed (more are planned) • Architecture • Reduced the number of machines that are touching the mail (reducing the points of failure and improving the speed) • Working with other e-mail administrators on campus to handle their e-mail efficiently (about 21 machines handle e-mail outside IT Services) Information Technology Services

7. E-Mail Restructuring • E-Mail Routing • Policies have been updated to better accommodate the world we live in. We want to process valid mail quickly and be responsible Internet citizens. • Policies have been implemented to better protect both our systems and people using the systems • Decreased the size of an e-mail attachment that can be sent through Lotus Notes to 10 Meg • Increased the size of an e-mail attachment that may be sent through student Webmail to 5 Meg Information Technology Services

8. E-Mail Restructuring • E-Mail Routing • Policies • Block attachments with file extensions used by spammers and virus creators. These include *.exe, *.com, *.bat. People wanting to send legitimate e-mail are encouraged to *.zip their files or create *.rtf or *.pdf files • Reject mail that is coming to old University addresses such as @server.uwindsor.ca, or @ucc.uwindsor.ca - this mail was 99% spam and the rest was listserv mail. • Reject mail for invalid addresses Information Technology Services

9. E-Mail Restructuring • E-Mail Routing • Additional Policies • Working with System administrators to understand what the effect of implementing them will be on them. • Also trying to understand the effect that they will have on clients who have multiple Internet providers. Information Technology Services

10. E-Mail Restructuring • E-Mail Routing • Proposed Policies • Only allow e-mail through authorized e-mail hosts • E-Mail from campus should be authenticated before it is sent out (by a login) • Reject e-mail from addresses whose dns do not resolve • A complete list is available in the e-mail routing section of the e-mail upgrade web site: http://www.uwindsor.ca/emailupgrade Information Technology Services

11. E-Mail Restructuring • Lotus Notes • Issues for Lotus Notes servers has included: • Extended down times in the Winter semester • Short interruptions in service for extended periods of time up to several times a day • What we have done to resolve the problem: • Brought an IBM Lotus Notes consultant to Windsor in February to investigate our setup • Weekly meetings with IBM support for the last three months to resolve the issues. Information Technology Services

12. E-Mail Restructuring • Lotus Notes • Implemented a number of system improvements and upgrades during the last four months. • Upgraded the memory and CPUs • Upgraded the Unix O/S • Upgraded the release of Lotus notes to 6.5.2 (latest release) • Added a third server to the cluster to handle web and IMAP service. (Response time is better for iNotes webmail) • Added an archive server to reduce the amount of mail that is being handled by the system (there are some very large mailboxes out there) Information Technology Services

13. E-Mail Restructuring • Lotus Notes • With the help of IBM support we have eliminated the short interruptions in the past week. We have changed a logging setting in one location and voila, things are working. Information Technology Services

14. E-Mail Restructuring • Lotus Notes • Planned Policy Implementations in the future • Mail quotas (there is a need for some limits) • Mail archiving (server is in place to assist with introducing quotas) Information Technology Services

15. E-Mail Restructuring • Student WebMail System • Improved the interface making it more user friendly (simulates hotmail, Yahoo mail, Netscape) • Provides calendaring and web space for students • Increased the disk quota from 10 Meg to 20 Meg Information Technology Services

16. E-Mail Restructuring • Best Practices (the final piece) • Not enough to continue to upgrade the hardware and software, we are going to need to follow best practices to use the tools more efficiently. • Use other means of communication when appropriate. (have added a chat server to the campus for use and it is catching on) • Use team rooms and document libraries where appropriate to keep permanent records of meetings and reduce the volume of mail in people’s inboxes and the amount of mail that servers have to process. • Move files appropriately (through team rooms, or through Novell, or through ftp, rather than through e-mail) • When mailing files save them appropriately (via *.pdf or *rtf) Information Technology Services

17. E-Mail Restructuring • Best Practices (the final piece) • Publishing articles in inSight on best practices and have established a web site. Information Technology Services

18. E-Mail Restructuring • Summary • Many improvements over the summer and we are seeing results • Less spam to be processed by clients and by our servers • Mail delivery has been improved to seconds (and no lost mail) • Server uptime is better on all systems • Improved usability on the student system to go with the fast response time. • But…. there is still work to do. • More mail routing policies to be implemented to improve security of our system • Mail quotas and archiving policies inside Lotus Notes • Greater use of team rooms and document libraries Information Technology Services