Email blocking - Big problem

[hk.com]

Mr Moo, I honestly don't give a flying crap how many data centers, BGP peering points how slick their overnet is, how smartly they GEO load balance. You can wank over the brouchureware and think of it gospel if you want.

I can also introduce you some Google Apps customer that have only been with them for 3 months and already reporting to me their down time.

Simple test, how did they cope when the cable broke in Taiwan around 18 months ago? They were not accessible for 4 days. I recall that at least 30 people on this forum where using our proxy server to get out onto the net. Even when Google place their servers in HK, there are just many ways their network can implode.

Google/Yahoo do go down, particulary because their network complexity and fault tolerance functions fail. If they could keep it simple yes maybe they would be more reliable than us, but the truth is they can't due to their scale.

We are not infallible (no doubt murphy will visit us next week!), but we will piss over them time and time again on reliability due to the clever, yet simple of fault tolerance.

It is normal for you guys to want to defend the decision you have made joining Google Apps. No one wants to be wrong either today or after 3 years of putting up with a crap service. When that day comes, I'm sure none of you will join our service then.

[gilleshk]

I actually never bothered to read other people's email and my little quote is simply to make the point that many do. I've had more than one network admin/staff mention their perusing at different workplace. I personally don't give a crap since I have nothing to hide.

As to prosecution, there's a case today in the news of people that accessed passport data information that they weren't supposed to read and they didn't get prosecuted, they got fired.

The only way you might get prosecuted is if you used the data for personal gain and you were found out.

As to people's choice Google, Yahoo etc... well if you pay nothing and you're satisfied with the service, what's wrong with that? Pretty hard to criticize satisfied customers and say, come to my place, we're much better but you have to pay. Obviously, you'll offer a more personalized service but with the fee that comes with it...

[lionrock88]

This debate is great. It's really helping us SME owners decide what the best email solution is for our business.

hk.com, do you think you could get more of your customers to comment about their experience using your services?

jaykay, is it really that good? what are some negatives?

[MrMoo]

They were not accessible for 4 days.

There's two ways of looking at this, the other is that local Hong Kong email servers were not accessible from the rest of the planet either. So what if you can access you mail locally, you are not receiving anything!

It is normal for you guys to want to defend the decision you have made joining Google Apps.

I don't actually use Google Apps, I have my own hosting in Atlanta & Wan Chai

The Wan Chai contract ends next month, so I'm looking for replacement too.

[hk.com]

There's two ways of looking at this, the other is that local Hong Kong email servers were not accessible from the rest of the planet either. So what if you can access you mail locally, you are not receiving anything!

I don't actually use Google Apps, I have my own hosting in Atlanta & Wan Chai

The Wan Chai contract ends next month, so I'm looking for replacement too.

That was not our case, all our customers from USA to Australia could access our servers, and send and receive globably. It was little bit slower than usual but acceptable.

Sounds like will be using Google Apps. Admit it!

My advice: If it works for you, don't change. If you change never go for anyone that appeals to your greed.

[jaykay]

Google have servers all over the world, a new super datacentre is currently in the planning stage for Asia, current international list is:

INTERNATIONAL

* Toronto, Canada
* Berlin, Germany
* Frankfurt, Germany
* Munich, Germany
* Zurich, Switzerland
* Groningen, Netherlands
* Mons, Belgium
* Eemshaven, Netherlands
* Paris
* London
* Dublin, Ireland
* Milan, Italy
* Moscow, Russia
* Sao Paolo, Brazil
* Tokyo
* Hong Kong
* Beijing



Wrong. The problem is that trans-Atlantic data travels through Hong Kong and South East Asia, this is why many billions of dollars are being spent on a new direct link from the mainland to US.

Ah, so the 40 Kbps we constantly achieve to the US from China is crap then. Cool. When we're hitting 2Mbps to HK and no less than 1.5Mbps elsewhere. Go figure!

Wrong, maintenance occurs constantly through out the day. Read the Google data center inner workings

At Yahoo it was throughout the night US time. Our IT guys in China couldn't get a great response from Google either, hence us bringing mail to HK, which incidentally has proved no problem for our stateside guys either.




Google have 24x7 phone support too:

Google Apps – Compare editions and sign your business up

And where is the support located?

[jaykay]

jaykay, is it really that good? what are some negatives?

The only initial problem we had was mail from one of our China sites could not get through to us, it was rejected immediately by the spam server. However this was due to the crazy set up in China which our own network admins refused to fix as they did not want to lose face over doing something wrong.

This was resolved again by hk.com who put in a bypass for this mail. Not ideal but then again not the fault or our mail provider.