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This probably crosses boundaries between topic headings, and I hope posting it here is OK... This about a single existing domain which uses a 2nd, shorter domain for email and it is routed as an add-on domain pointing to Google Apps email. We have been using a hosting company that has been reliable, but recently it has become unreliable to an unacceptable level. It is time to consider making things work better. Please recommend what can be done (hopefully on a least-cost basis) to increase the reliability of emails sent to our domain reaching us, as well as visitors being able to reach the website when hosting goes down. (I have read through the DynDNS offerings a couple of times and frankly though it looks like things can be done this way, I feel uncertain about what to choose and how to move forward to get things working again quickly...) A second/separate hosting provider is already arranged. There must be specific things like backup email routing as well as DNS failover or whatever it may be called that does these things together, right ? Please help, as right now the domain's email being down is a HUGE concern for this one-man office. Thanks.
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The 'Style' you refer to is the correct one for this type of forum, though I can understand it isn't what you're used to.
Yes, that is the closest. As I explained above the only things involved in email delivery as far as your domain goes are your domain's DNS servers and your domain's mail servers (the MX records). In summary, to resolve your email delivery problem move your DNS to Dyn, using the instructions I've previously posted. At this point in time don't worry about how the technology works, just trust that I know what I'm doing ;) There are lots of detailed guide on how email delivery works and other forums better suited to expanding your understanding on the technical details.
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The simplest solution is to switch the email (and you don't have to switch anything else) to a more reliable provider. If your email provider is unreliable then simply adding DynDNS's services into the loop won't make the provider more reliable, it just means that the problem is hidden from people emailing you. I really wouldn't recommend trying to fail over email delivery between multiple providers - that is just a recipe for trouble if you don't know exactly what you're doing. If you've already found Google Apps reliable (personally I have) then simply switch all your email to it. As for DNS, I've personally found Standard DNS reliable, despite Dyn coming under regular DDoS attacks. For a more meaningful answer we would really need to know what the problem is - is it with the DNS service you're currently using, the email provider or something else?
Ah, so in that case just switch to Standard DNS (the process is explained here). Having a reliable DNS service should resolve your problems with email delivery. For the web hosting the Standard DNS package doesn't include any form of failover. You could do one of a number of things:
As to do (3) or (4) you'd need a second host anyway, I'd suggest that your best approach is to look at (1). There are plenty of reliable hosts out there - this forum can help you find them. Having the Google App Engine as a fall back host may work out cost effective in conjunction with (3) or (4). I've changed
Ah, no. What happens is that the DNS server for
Remember that it's the domain's MX records, not the server's records, that matter for email.
Yes, though it's only free for low volume sites.
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Cry Havoc, I thank you again for your replies - but they really seem to avoid giving clear answers more than helping upon my way, so I hope someone else will jump in here and make these things clearer in words which I can understand. Also, your 'style' of editing and re-editing the one reply makes this site avoid sending notifications which I really need as I do not live on any single site... I mean the above respectfully and intend no offense by any of it. ================================================================== One confusion I keep banging into is the actual place at which the email changes to it's heading into the Google servers. My impression is that since I set the MX records in cPanel at the host, that the emails must reach the host's server(s)before heading around to Google's server(s). I have also been told that my understanding of this is incorrect and that the MX records instead get stored somehow in other global DNS servers so that the email does NOT have to reach the host's servers for delivery... Which is correct, please ?
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Cry Havoc, I thank you for your reply - but it still falls short of clarity for me; please pardon my stupidity !!! Assuming: Am I correct so far ? I see no need to change away from Google Apps wonderful & free email services. The hosting has been fine for a good long while and if they don't straighten up and fly right I'll ditch 'em, but for right now I do not desire to forfeit the remaining 10 months which are paid for already... SO=> If my site is up on 2 identically configured servers with some sort of failover protection keeping things up & visible, and BOTH have their MX records pointing to the Google Apps email destination, what is the problem with THAT idea precisely, please ? The hosting I use, BTW, was found via WHT and was repeatedly cited as being THE most reliable though not cheap - only now they've hit some bumps in the road (convenient timing as I just paid for the coming year in October...). Finally, I've no clue how this applies in this situation: "Switch to Google App Engine" By the above do you mean to host the site on Google's free web hosting ? Thanks for helping me out !!!
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Hopefully I can make this a bit more clear as my initial posting seems to have made confusion: "Mydomain.com" is pointing to a hosting service. In that hosting's cPanel the MX records point incoming emails to Google's wonderfully reliable email servers. When the hosting gets bollixed up, the site goes down AND the emails don't flow through to their usual, intended (and utterly reliable) destination. The site being down is not too big a deal by itself - BUT, the emails not arriving is a HUGE problem !!! So I ask: Would using and add-on DNS service be best, along with multiple hosting services, or should I simply set the nameservers as in the below and do it manually: The site is just static HTML pages with no SQL or anything dynamic, so having 2 copies will be no problem that way. Thanks !
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