I’ve been resisting blogging this piece for about two months, but it bugs me so I’ve given in.
I’ve been working with somebody who hasn’t upgraded their mail server for a while now and they have been using a well known local company (which I will not be naming or identifying in any way). Sadly I am only involved on the domain side of things and not the implementation. Thankfully for the end users I know enough about their setup to save them from the ‘experts’ doing the work.
The first thing to do was install a new ADSL line ready for the shiny new Exchange server. The first I was aware of this was a request to point the MX record at the IP of the new ADSL connection. I almost did this on the assumption of some degree of technical competence, and more significantly the assumption that they had installed the new server they were talking about. I wasn’t completely convinced though, so double checked. The new server was not installed, and they knew little if anything about the existing setup. They were unaware of the following information: