MS Exchange Server and redirect inbox rules

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Leeward
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MS Exchange Server and redirect inbox rules

#1

Post by Leeward »

I thought some of you might know more than I do about this...

My university's IT services is telling me that due to university policy we are not allowed to create an inbox rule that redirects mail to another address because it "puts too much strain on the server". Are they full of it or is this really something you wouldn't want several thousand people doing? On top of it, the CS department got themselves their own mail server and theirs is configured to allow it, because they and IT get along so badly that they generally don't communicate other than through thinly veiled "f*** you" gestures.

I don't know about anyone else but I already have 5 email addresses to monitor so it's a little inconvenient, but I want to do my research before asking them what's up with that.
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Franky
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Re: MS Exchange Server and redirect inbox rules

#2

Post by Franky »

It is possible if the the exchange server is not powerful enough. There is however an option on the exchange management console itself to automatically do this without duplicating transaction data but this can only be done by the administrators.
Leeward
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Re: MS Exchange Server and redirect inbox rules

#3

Post by Leeward »

They have a pretty powerful server as far as I'm aware, and they just upgraded the version of Exchange and Outlook Web App, as well as increased our individual storage space from 50MB to 1GB. With that in mind it sounds just a little bit like BS to me that they can't do it.
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Re: MS Exchange Server and redirect inbox rules

#4

Post by Franky »

Leeward wrote:They have a pretty powerful server as far as I'm aware, and they just upgraded the version of Exchange and Outlook Web App, as well as increased our individual storage space from 50MB to 1GB. With that in mind it sounds just a little bit like BS to me that they can't do it.
The upgrade in storage might be the reason. Without an auto archive tool such as enterprise vault 1GB per individual is rough on the transaction logs. Now the logs can fill up even more drastically with duplicate data all over the show. Even large corporations sometimes disable this feature with hundreds of exchange servers distributed to have just 15% CPU idle time. Enabling rules that uses resources directly from exchange on the client side is bad news.
Leeward
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Re: MS Exchange Server and redirect inbox rules

#5

Post by Leeward »

But it was like that before the storage upgrade, and you just said that they can do it without transaction duplication?
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Re: MS Exchange Server and redirect inbox rules

#6

Post by Franky »

Yes but it's a forwarding technique on the server and not a rule.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/libr ... 50%29.aspx
Leeward
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Re: MS Exchange Server and redirect inbox rules

#7

Post by Leeward »

Okay, but then why is there apparently a difference between forwarding and redirection? Forwarding looks like the message comes from whoever forwarded it and a duplicate is kept in the outbox; redirection looks like the message comes from whoever sent it originally, and in theory only sends the message back out verbatim to the redirect address without storing a duplicate. Is the distinction only visible on the client side?
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Re: MS Exchange Server and redirect inbox rules

#8

Post by Franky »

The transaction logs and processing don't get duplicated on the server.
Leeward
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Re: MS Exchange Server and redirect inbox rules

#9

Post by Leeward »

I'm not sure how that means it's problematic.

Also I just realised that they did not upgrade storage space for everyone, just me after I complained. Now I don't know if they'll charge me for it because they normally only do that for custom usernames, which I did not request.
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Fluke
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Re: MS Exchange Server and redirect inbox rules

#10

Post by Fluke »

They probably have an underpowered server and are minimizing any possible overheads. Also I don't know why they'd do that, our College enables us to do that.

Another reason might be (assuming this is a local email) that they do not want to clog up their upload with millions of spam emails being forwarded (because students have TONS of spam).
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Re: MS Exchange Server and redirect inbox rules

#11

Post by Leeward »

Fluke wrote:Another reason might be (assuming this is a local email) that they do not want to clog up their upload with millions of spam emails being forwarded (because students have TONS of spam).
Turns out you were right. It was disabled because of abuse and security concerns (i.e. spammers and account hijacks), as well as intellectual property rights issues. This is why we can't have nice things.
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