Help!--Looking for Exchange/Outlook Hosting Company

[John Smith]

My hosting company tells me we can no longer connect using Outlook over the
Internet--they are blaming this on the blaster worm and are insisting my
slespeople and I use Outlook Web, which is not practical. We cannot share
calanders, delegate users, or communicate the way we used too; this is very
annoying.

They also suggested using a VPN connection...right. Has anyone tried Outlook
over a VPN? Especially on a dial-up? Salespeople do travel.

Anyway, without the speaches and the BS about how "insecure" this is...is
there a solution? None of our salespeople were affected until our ISP
decided to cut us off, and our hosting company at the knees.

Any "real", "practical", and "business" suggestions would be nice.

Thank you.

 

[Mark Arnold [MVP]]

My hosting company tells me we can no longer connect using Outlook over the
Internet--they are blaming this on the blaster worm and are insisting my
slespeople and I use Outlook Web, which is not practical. We cannot share
calanders, delegate users, or communicate the way we used too; this is very
annoying.

They also suggested using a VPN connection...right. Has anyone tried Outlook
over a VPN? Especially on a dial-up? Salespeople do travel.

Anyway, without the speaches and the BS about how "insecure" this is...is
there a solution? None of our salespeople were affected until our ISP
decided to cut us off, and our hosting company at the knees.

Any "real", "practical", and "business" suggestions would be nice.

Thank you.

Your ISP should never have had the RPC ports open in the first place
to be honest.
If you can't use OWA for functrionality reasons then then dialup to
Internet and VPN to your office is a good secure solution.
You can get all manner of small office solutions but
http://www.sonicwall.com/ is a good value and easy to use system.

Mark Arnold MCSA MCSE MVP, (e-mail address removed)
FAQ: http://www.swinc.com/resource/exchange.htm &
http:http://www.swinc.com/resource/e2kfaq.htm

 

[Mark Arnold [MVP]]

I'd interpreted this users request as an ISP rather than a hosting
company. No hosting company in the UK would ever have contemplated
TCP135-139 access into their network and I assumed that US companies
would be the same, no?.
If they had a VPN connection they would surely have told the user to
connect to their vpn service rather than "suggested" that they use
one.

Look for a hosting company that actual understands a lot about Exchange. The master list is at http://www.crowcanyon.com/ExchangeASP.htm, but I don't know how current it is. I work a lot with Intermedia.net, which hosts my web site. They provide a VPN to their Exchange customers.

Mark Arnold MCSA MCSE MVP, (e-mail address removed)
FAQ: http://www.swinc.com/resource/exchange.htm &
http:http://www.swinc.com/resource/e2kfaq.htm

 

[Martin Blackstone [MVP - Exchange]]

One thing you will want to consider is even if you find a corporate ISP that
allows 135, your users are still going have ISP's that don't. What then?

--
Martin Blackstone
MVP - Exchange

http://www.swinc.com/resource/exchange.htm


http://www.swinc.com/resource/e2kfaq_appxc.htm

 

[David M. Streb, MCSE]

Hi John:

Part of the problem is that 135 is a very dangerous port to have open. Our
company has been heavily affected by the port blockage as well. In our case,
we were utilizing Microsoft's ISA Server to protect, monitor, and control
access to the port and never had a problem with it; but it seems we were the
exception and not the rule.

We are currently testing a newer protocol called "RPC over HTTP". This
protocol uses Port 80 and encapsulates the RPC protocol within it using SSL
as the connectivity stream. We have been having a very high rate of success
using this method while working very closely with Microsoft PSS to ensure
its security and success.

The only drawback is you need to have Outlook 11 on the client machines. Not
a problem except its in beta form, which means once its released, you would
need to buy the retail version before the beta version expires.If you are in
that much of a pinch, feel free to drop me a line and we'll add you to the
beta team--understand it may not be a permanent solution--but it does look
very promising. We have been working primarily with established clients who
simply, like you, could not use the VPN option for a variety of reasons, and
OWA simply was not functional enough.

--
David M. Streb, MCSE
Microsoft Certified Partner
Specializing in Exchange
and FrontPage Hosting
http://www.exiis.net
Dave at exiis dot net
You might assume that, but these days I'd expect anything to happen with
some of these companies.

I'd interpreted this users request as an ISP rather than a hosting
company. No hosting company in the UK would ever have contemplated
TCP135-139 access into their network and I assumed that US companies
would be the same, no?.
If they had a VPN connection they would surely have told the user to
connect to their vpn service rather than "suggested" that they use
one.

The master list is at http://www.crowcanyon.com/ExchangeASP.htm, but I don't
know how current it is. I work a lot with Intermedia.net, which hosts my
web site. They provide a VPN to their Exchange customers.

 

[Brian Tillman]

My hosting company tells me we can no longer connect using Outlook over the

Internet--they are blaming this on the blaster worm and are insisting my
slespeople and I use Outlook Web, which is not practical. We cannot share
calanders, delegate users, or communicate the way we used too; this is very
annoying.

Hewlett Packard is one company that will provide outsource mail services
using Exchange and Outlook. That's who we're using.
--
Brian Tillman Internet: Brian.Tillman at smiths-aerospace dot com
Smiths Aerospace Addresses modified to prevent SPAM.
3290 Patterson Ave. SE, MS 1B3 Replace "at" with "@", "dot" with "."
Grand Rapids, MI 49512-1991
This opinion doesn't represent that of my company

 

[John Smith]

I want to thank everyone for their assistance, especially David Streb with
Exiis.

He has been able to get my entire company back on line within just a few
hours--without complicated VPN solutions and without requiring us to use the
web interface.

Best of luck to everyone!