Our current database servers are about at their capacity, so we have started taking steps to migrate to new hardware.

Over the next few weeks historical Mailive! data, that's everything over a week old, will be migrated to the new set database servers. As the data is moved it will also be averaged several different ways. This will dramatically increase the speed at which reports can be generated.

The last 3 months have already been completed, and by current estimates it may take up to an additional week to complete the migration. Until all the data has been moved and averaged pulling reports for dates before October 2011 may be slow. It will depend on what date range is requested and where the migration process is at the time.

If there are any questions let us know: http://www.knowledgefront.com/support/

Knowledge Front’s round trip SMTP monitoring, Mailive!, has been updated to support TLS (Transport Layer Security) when sending its test e-mails. Each SMTP monitor can be configured individually with one of three settings.

On:	Delivery will always use TLS and record a failure if the STARTTLS command does not succeed or if the SMTP transmission fails to complete in any way.
Auto:	When the SMTP session begins Mailive! sends the EHLO command to the SMTP server being tested and the response includes the capabilities of the SMTP Server. If STARTTLS is in the response then the test will attempt to use TLS and record a failure if the session breaks or the delivery does not succeed. If there is no STARTTLS then delivery happens the old fashioned way, with no encryption
Off:	When sending a test e-mail Mailive! will never attempt to initiate TLS, even if advertised in the EHLO response of the receiving server.

For newly added monitors the default will be Auto. Monitors already present in the system will have “Use TLS” set to Off to remain compatible with how it has been up to this point.

We have tested against many different types of servers, but if you run into any problems please let us know. There are many varieties of servers with different levels of TLS support and it can be a challenge to find them all.

Contact us any time with questions: http://www.knowledgefront.com/support/

On Friday, January 7th at 7:00am (Central) there will be a couple of changes to Mailive! alerting.

In the US and Canada SMS alerts coming from Mailive! will begin to be delivered from 1-952-314-5455. This is the same number currently used for voice call alerts. The short code 35842 will still be used for International SMS and as a backup for SMS alert delivery.

Email alerts for Mailive! will now come from alert@knowledgefront.com instead of mailive@knowledgefront.com. This is to alleviate issues arising from using mailive@knowledgefront.com for both test messages and alerts. There is no change to the round trip test process - this is only for the alert messages.

For questions or additional information please contact us

A short time ago Mailive! alerting was upgraded to use true SMS alerting versus sending text messages through the cell providers SMTP to SMS gateways (ie. 6125551212@txt.att.net) which had the possibility of being delayed on their gateway with no real quality of service guarantee.

We have worked hard and to beef up our technology and are pleased to offer true SMS alerting as an added feature. So instead of

Mailive! -> SMTP Gateway -> SMS Aggregator -> Your phone

it looks more like

Mailive! SMS Aggregator -> Your phone

Fast. Simple. Reliable. Just like alerting should be.

While account administrators have had the ability to add users to Mailive! the new users were created with read-only permissions. Now the account administrator can set which users should have the ability to update e-mail monitors, configure new alerts, and disable alerts.

For the account administrator (usually the person who originally set up Mailive!) user administration is available under the Account Settings menu item.

If there are any questions or suggestions feel free to contact us any time.

It is not always desirable to receive both up and down notifications for each alert configured Mailive!. This is especially true when setting multiple alerts which are delivered to the same recipient.

Simply check the Down Only option when configuring an alert and the system will only send the down notification. When the alert is reset no up alert will be sent, but is always recorded and displayed when viewing the event history.

When performing maintenance it is now easy to disable alerts for a specified period of time inside of Mailive! Simply go to Alert Configuration and there are options available to disable all alerts, disable alerts for a specific server, or disable a single alert.

When disabling an alert it is possible to choose from several different timeframes. By using this method there will is no chance that the disabled alerts will be forgotten. Once the disabled time has expired alerts will automatically begin working again.

It is always possible to extend or shorten the disabled alert period by performing the same actions and selecting a different timeframe. The disabled alerts may also be enabled by server/alert or system wide.

When alerts are disabled the system will present a notification letting you know there are alerts currently disabled.

Wanted to write a quick post to let everyone know that CSV export has been made available in Mailive!

Now, while viewing a single server's report, the associated data used to generate the report is available for download. Simply click the Export this data as CSV link to retrieve the data and use in Excel or import into an internal system.

We are constantly striving to improve Mailive!, so if there are any features or improvements you would like to see feel free to contact us and let us know. Thanks!

A regularly requested feature for Mailive! has been put into place. Now, instead of needing to wait until the next automatic test is initiated by the system, users have the ability to trigger a test message whenever they like.

Simply click the [ trigger test transaction ] while viewing the graph and history for the server and a test will be initiated immediately. This should make it much easier to catch errors in mail queues and follow logs while troubleshooting. It's fun and easy!

Very often when diagnosing mail problems it is helpful to see exactly what SMTP responses are being generated for every step of the transaction. Frequently the root cause can be found by closely inspecting the responses from the HELO and RCPT TO portions of the SMTP conversation. Now Mailive! can help out.

Recently Mailive! began recording outgoing SMTP sessions for all test messages the system sends. Now they can be viewed through the interface as shown here.

If there is a problem connecting to the mail server being tested there will be no output to capture. If any portion of the SMTP transcript is able to initiate there should be some evidence available to inspect.

Hopefully this will help diagnose some of the more transient and hard to find problems.

For the last year KnowledgeFront has provided a free MX Lookup tool to provide an external view of what the Domain Name System is reporting for MX records.

Last week this tool received a nice update. Now, it not only performs the DNS query using Knowledge Front's servers, but finds the authoritative name servers (NS records) for the domain entered and queries those servers for the MX records directly. This can give a better idea of what is being cached vs. what is currently being reported by the authoritative name servers.

Feel free to give it a try and if there are any questions don't hesitate to contact us.

Recently the Mailive! web site underwent a complete rewrite paving the way for future enhancements. The future is now and there have been several new features added in the last few weeks.

Trigger test alert on request

If you just entered a new alert and want to make sure the recipients and text all appear the way you want now you can trigger a test alert. After a new alert has been saved, or while editing an existing alert, pushing the "Test this alert" button will send both the Up and Down notifications for the alert. The messages will be recorded in the event history and prepend the subject with *TEST* making it clear this was not an actual alert.

Custom timeframes in reports

Instead of only having hardcoded timeframe selections Mailive! now has the ability to generate graphs and event history based on custom start and end days. Fortunately there is no data retention limit, so any data collected for the life of the server is available for reporting!

Viewing raw responses

Starting in May Mailive! began storing all responses to test messages. Viewing the headers from these messages can be a very helpful trouble shooting technique when diagnosing delays.

There are many more changes planned for release in the near future. We are constantly striving to improve the service. If you have any questions or would like to request a feature feel free to email support@knowledgefront.com

Thanks!