Identifying and Establishing the Best E-mail Network Architecture

Posted by arlene

From a technical side, you need to assemble both proper software and reliable service providers and integrate them into your existing business systems in order to make effective use of business e-mail:

How much e-mail traffic can you expect? The answer to this query will direct how much bandwidth you arrange for your company. Underestimating can result in delays, and overestimating may mean overpaying. Remember to include not only outbound but inbound messages. Also, the type of files being sent will have a great impact on the speed and reliability of your e-mail connection: mostly-text is a much lighter load than are sounds, pictures, or especially video attachments. If e-mail traffic will share a “pipe” with other Internet use, that other use must be factored in.


What e-mail features do you need and want? Choosing e-mail software that can send and receive a variety of formats is important. If your business demands accurate tracking and forwarding of messages to the right people, detailed and flexible filtering is a must, and form-generation can help you automate your intra-office procedures. Security needs may require easy-to-use encryption tools, and if you have a mobile workforce, you’ll want mail servers accessible via the Web or software allowing easy exchange of mail between PCs and devices such as 3Com’s Palm organizer. If you are standardizing across international offices, you may choose a software package that has multiple language versions (although you should make sure that all can be centrally managed).

What e-mail sending and client software are others in your industry using? Beyond helping you match any competitive advantage they might have found, their choice may reflect a needs analysis applicable to your company, too. You may even want to collaborate with your competitors, if feasible, to pressure the software vendor to add or improve features particularly beneficial to your field.

Does your internal IS staff have sufficient knowledge to implement, integrate, and train your users on the new e-mail system? If not, will you need the software vendor to supply required services, or are consultants available who would be able to support your company?

Once your company has completed its investigations, the answers can help you shape an RFP (request for proposals) which you can send out to vendors. Even if you are doing all acquisition and implementation in-house, filling out the above checklist would be a useful reference for you and your colleagues both before implementation, and afterward as a benchmark of how the system you’ve selected fulfills your goals.

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