Switching Over to our Hosted Email
From Computer Tyme Support Wiki
If you have email hosted elsewhere and you are switching over to our hosted email there are a number of steps in the process. Depending on what you are switching over from you might be able to skip some of these steps. Let's assume for now that you have an existing email system and you want to switch over to our system.
Your current email system
If you are not hosted with us or using our spam filtering system the easiest way to start is to have us do front end filtering for your domain first, let the MX records propagate, and then switch over to our hosted system. First - your email reaches your current server as follows:
+-----------+ +-------------------+ | Internet |---->---| Your email server | +-----------+ +-------------------+
The Internet knows to sent email for your domain because your domain has MX records (Mail eXchange) set. MX records are DNS records (Domain Name Services) that is like a directory for the Internet. These MX records tell the world to send email from your domain to your server.
If you change your MX records you can direct your email to a different location. However the switchover doesn't happen immediately because servers that recently emailed you "remember" your old MX records for often up to a day. During this time some of your email might go to the old location and some to the new location and this can make the transition difficult. But we have a solution.
Using our Front End Spam Filter
What we recommend is that you use our front end filtering first. That way your email comes to us first, we clean it, and send it on to you. The important point of this is that it gives us direct control of your email stream and we can switch it over instantly. When your email is routed through us the flow is as follows:
+-----------+ +-----------------+ +-------------------+ | Internet |---->----| Our Spam Filter |---->----| Your email server | +-----------+ +-----------------+ +-------------------+
