I have a question regarding multiple SMTP servers in my domain.
Currently we have 3 Domino servers - two of them just do Notes Routing, the third does Notes Routing and is our SMTP server.
The only reason I want to enable SMTP on the other two servers is so that “scan-to-email” documents can be sent from scan device directly to the Domino server in the local office - vs. what it does now…local server—>SMTP server—>back to local server—>user mailbox.
So the question is…how can I set up SMTP on two other servers and ONLY allow email from a couple of devices, while all users’ SMTP mail continues to use my main SMTP server?
The users in the offices whose servers are NOT doing SMTP are complaining that it takes too long for the scanned doc to show up in their inbox, while in my local office (we have the SMTP server), the scanned docs appear almost instantly.
Subject: Implement Multiple SMTP Servers without affecting users’ email?
Not sure how enabling SMTP on the other servers is going to help you. How will you tell the device to send to a particular server based on the user? For instance, if Paul is on server1 and Susan is on server2, you scan a doc and send to both, how will you tell the device to send 1 doc to server1 and 1 doc to server2 instead of sending them to server3?
I think you need to figure out why there is a delay sending from your SMTP server to the other 2 servers; this would come dwon to how your mail routing topology is setup.
Subject: RE: Implement Multiple SMTP Servers without affecting users’ email?
Hi Paul, thanks for your response.
You make a great point, and I hadn’t really thought about that.
I guess my train of thought is that most of my users scan & send to themselves vs. directly to outside parties. What I was thinking was that we simply program the scanners with the SMTP address of the Domino server local to the office they are in, which should lead to almost instant delivery (since the SMTP server would also be the user’s home server). Then at the same time, I would have to make it so that the users’ regular outbound SMTP mail still routes to the primary SMTP server.
Am I still thinking backwards?
As for my topology…It’s pretty basic.
ServerA - Mail Routing & SMTP
ServerB - Mail Routing only
ServerC - Mail Routing only
Servers are all configured to route at once if there is one message waiting. In theory, there really should not be a delay of more than a couple seconds.
Subject: RE: Implement Multiple SMTP Servers without affecting users’ email?
I guess that could work [setting the device to use the local server] but keeping in mind it would only affect local users. If they are only scanning to themselvres I guess it doesn’t matter. I have not tested this but I think you should just be able to enable the SMTP Listener task in the server doc(s) and not add SMTP as a mail routing task and “I think” it will work for your needs.
Getting back to the delay (which has me more perplexed), if a user scans a doc to themself can you see the doc sitting in the mail.box on the SMTP server waiting to transfer or is the lag on your network waiting for the scanner to pass the doc over to the SMTP server? What speed connection do you have between the offices?
Subject: RE: Implement Multiple SMTP Servers without affecting users’ email?
I have never really watched mail.box as a user at one of the remote offices scans a doc to themself, so I can’t answer that question accurately. My initial thought is that it’s the scanner itself that takes awhile to create the PDF file.
They recently got new machines (the big lag time was on the old equipment…), and have installed the drivers locally (OUCH!) on every PC, so they can “scan to desktop” instead of emailing…as they think it takes too long. To my knowledge, they haven’t even tried emailing with the new machines yet. I’m going to have my tech person on site test the email function & see how long it takes with the new machines. If it still lags, I will try the SMTP listener task & see what happens.
Our network is connected via 1.5MB MPLS circuits, so there shouldn’t be a speed issue.
Thanks so much for your input - keep it coming, if you think of anything!