Hello, I share a domain with several people. Most of them only use it for e-mail, while I use it for web hosting as well. After several problems where our current host (HR) was unable to respond in a timely manner to issues that interruped e-mail service, the other users of the domain have asked me to try to find a more reliable solution for e-mail. As I see it there are two options:

(1) Move to another host.

(2) Spearate e-mail and hosting so that problems with one don't affect the other.

I prefer the second alternative because I am then free to move hosts as I need to without affecting e-mail for the other users. But it seems to me that there are two ways I can do this:

(A) I can use a domain pointing service (such as www.easydns.com and have it forward e-mail to one location and point my web site to another (my current host).

or

(B) I can have my host set my MX records to point to a third-party e-mail host, such as www.everyone.com (although I'd prefer to have IMAP support as well).

Does anyone have any suggestions for how I can get the most reliable e-mail service without moving to an expensive host (i.e. verio.com, etc.). Please don't tell me that I should look at such and such a host (option 1 above), I am more interested in knowing the difference between options 2-A and 2-B.

Thank you.

Kerim

Hey Kerim,

Really you can't COMPLETELY separate your website hosting from its email, since the dns service behind the scenes will still be a single point of failure no matter what you do.

With 2a you hope that easydns does a good job keeping the dns working, and I guess you still need another email service or mail server you run yourself to keep working. Another problem with 2a is that your webhost MAY sometimes change the ip your domain is on. Unless you buy a static ip from them (not just unique, but static as well) it's really within their right as a virtual host to do so if necessary because of data center moves or other network changes. Probably they won't realize that you're not using them for dns (since 99% of their clients do) and your web site will break until you contact them and find out what the new ip is.

With 2b, you're still relying on your web host to handle the mx records correctly for your domain and to keep dns up and running. Hopefully they will, but it's still basically your web host that is the point of failure, and if they have a catastrophic dns failure ala ***** in dec 1999, your email will still be caput. Some hosts (us for example!) have special features built in to set your mx host to everyone.net or bigmailbox.com so at least then you won't be a special case and should be handled okay. Generally if you want good service from a host, try not to do anything very far out of the ordinary! The more weird stuff there is with your set up, the less the web host will realize that your stuff will break when they change something.

Really the best way I guess to have a separate yet reliable web hosting, dns, and email service would be to run your own dns service. Then at least you're ultimately responsible for that side of things, and then you've really separated the three parts from each other, leaving the most crucial one in your own capable hands. But dns is a tricky thing to set up for most people and so 2a or 2b look like your best choice! Or just try a new host for everything and give up on trying to separate out the email from the hosting..

Thanks for the comments. In response to what you said about the dedicated IP - I would actually be using a second domain altogether. Thus, my "real" domain would be hosted by Easydns.com, and it would point to my "alternative" domain (and the same for subdomains) at the host.

i.e.:

mydomain.com --> mypseudodomain.com

subdomain.mydomain.com --> subdomain.mypseudodomain.com

I understand that this works fairly flawlessly, and it would ensure that my endusers don't know they are being redirected, but my control panel and everything else would still work at the host.

What I am most interested in, however, is this MX forwarding as it seems simpler. With your service, what would happen (for instance) if my site was shut down for some script that had (without my knowing it) overloaded the server and you had to shut my site down? Would the e-mail still be working OK at everyone.com? Or would the shut down affect the MX records as well? And if your severs went down - short of a major network outage - would server down time at your host affect the MX routing to everyone.com? This is what I'm trying to understand.

kerim

Originally posted by kerim
What I am most interested in, however, is this MX forwarding as it seems simpler. With your service, what would happen (for instance) if my site was shut down for some script that had (without my knowing it) overloaded the server and you had to shut my site down? Would the e-mail still be working OK at everyone.com? Or would the shut down affect the MX records as well? And if your severs went down - short of a major network outage - would server down time at your host affect the MX routing to everyone.com? This is what I'm trying to understand.
If the DNS zone file is still operating but the account is shut down, everyone.net will still work. It all has to do with whether or not the host ditches the DNS zone file. everyone.net has nothing to do with the webhost you choose, except for that one link in the DNS zone file. That's why people sometimes use third-party DNS servers (or your own -- better) to handle the DNS so that in case your provider shuts you out, you can change the DNS zone file somewhere and move your site elsewhere.

What I might do, is find a host that does Email Hosting that comes with DNS hosting also for your domain and use that for email/DNS. Then find a host for your website (if you don't want to use the same host) and have your email host point the www part of the domain and all the subdomains to your web host. Chances are great that the email hosting account won't shut down (there are rare cases though -- spamming is one). That way, if your website "consumes too many resources" (heh), simply tar it all up, move to another host, and have the email host change your DNS information to reflect the new IP. The DNS change will happen instantly, and anyone who is using a cached version of the old DNS file will see your new site in a day or so. Plus, your email _never_ gets interrupted by your web host (best part :))

I hope that made some sense. :)