Roller Networks (RollerNet) Opinions?

[petergh]

Hi all,

I've just signed up for a hosted mail account with Roller Networks after stumbling upon their name in a recent thread. First impressions so far, both with the web site, the documentation, and first-hand experiences with support (SethM here on the forum) have been very positive, so I'm thinking about using them as my main email host.

I see that their name has come up a few times in some old threads, but I was wondering if anyone is still using them as their email host, and what their impressions are?

Feel free to chime in with anything that comes to mind when you think "Rollernet"...

Thanks,
Peter

[Berenburger]

I use it as a secondary account. It does reminds me of TuffMail: very customizable (it's like having your own mail server) and rock solid.
Another unique points compared to other service providers are:

• Extended and searchable mail logs (I never seen another provider offering that).
• Online backup with mail mirror.
• Message queuing for a couple of weeks
• Owns their own datacenter
• A lot of development.
• Very communicative in what's going on and keep them busy (system status, blog, forum)
• Up to date webmail clients.

It's clearly that Roller Network is made to address the needs of technically savvy customers and therefore less suitable for novice. Although there is an extensive (context based) help.

[petergh]

Berenburger,

Thank you for your input. While I can't speak for their reliability after less than a week, I do agree with and appreciate the other points you brought up. I've always liked Tuffmail for their fine-grained account manager; in many ways it's like having your own mail server, and Rollernet gives me similar control of my mail setup.

However, I think Rollernet trumps Tuffmail in these - to me - important areas, some of which you also mentioned in your post:

* Development of new features
* Communication with customers (system status, blog, forum)
* Up-to-date webmail clients
* Web site design (account manger, etc.)

For someone used to Google Apps Premier support, Rollernet support has so far been superior in being fast, personal, technically competent, and solution-oriented. There's also no first-line and second-line support - you deal with the techies directly. In this respect they are also akin to Tuffmail and superior to Google Apps.

Anyone else have any experiences with Rollernet they want to share?

Peter

[petergh]

I just noticed that Rollernet has a list of outages since 2007 that have impacted customers: http://www.rollernet.us/wordpress/outages/.

A total of ~33 minutes in the last ~4 years translates to 100-(33/(4*60*24*365))% = 99.99998% uptime!

This rests, of course, on the premise that the list is accurate and up-to-date, but I have no reason to assume otherwise.

[SethM]

Originally Posted by petergh

I just noticed that Rollernet has a list of outages since 2007 that have impacted customers: http://www.rollernet.us/wordpress/outages/.

A total of ~33 minutes in the last ~4 years translates to 100-(33/(4*60*24*365))% = 99.99998% uptime!

This rests, of course, on the premise that the list is accurate and up-to-date, but I have no reason to assume otherwise.

I certainly do try to make it as accurate as possible. IMHO disclosure is important, not fancy statements about 100% uptime with a list of things in fine print that don't count against it. Rollernet also subscribes to the "eat your own dogfood" principle - we use the same services and control center for our business operations that our customers do. The easiest way to verify this is to take a look at the MX records for rollernet.us. We want our services to work well for us the same as for our customers. Part of the reason I believe it works as well as it does is because Rollernet operates our own datacenter with our own equipment. Although this is not without its own perils (i.e. facility outages are our responsibility alone) it does allow us to maintain a wide range of control over our operating environment and fix things faster if something does happen.

It's a shame I don't see Rollernet mentioned on these forums that often, but it's nice to see that there aren't any major complaints when we are.

[digp]

Your CP is too technical and complex.

Otherwise very reliable when I tested your services.

[SethM]

We will be working with a designer to help at least make it easier to navigate. Right now they're starting with the main website.

[digp]

If you need a beta tester do let me know.

[ioneja]

Originally Posted by digp

Your CP is too technical and complex.

I'd have to agree... the CP is too technical and complex -- even for someone who wants all that power (which I do). I found it confusing to even set up the basics... but I'm wiped out today after a long day of work, so maybe I missed something obvious. It's the type of power I appreciate, but it should be separated out from the basic tasks so it is easy to get going right out of the box.

Also -- for Seth -- I'm demoing your service (a free "basic" account) -- but I can't seem to actually set up a basic mailbox (to test via POP/IMAP/SMTP/Webmail) -- what I am missing? Apologies if the question is stupid, I must be blind right now. It says it requires an upgrade to my account. So is a free trial only a free trial to the CP itself, but no email access to test?

[SethM]

A paid account is required for any of the upgraded features - that includes mail boxes. The basic "free" account only lets you do things like Secondary DNS and Secondary MX and SMTP Redirection for low traffic. And look at everything. There are people that have used the free account for years before upgrading; we've actually signed some colocations out of free accounts.

Although if someone asks I'm not adverse to throwing them a week of the first level as a trial. If you want to email support with your account name I can do that for you. The main reason is concerns about spammers using it to spew crap and then abandon the account, so rather than spending time playing whack-a-mole with abuse reports it's easier on everyone (and less harmful to delivery rates for existing customers) to just make it a paid-only feature.

[ioneja]

Originally Posted by SethM

A paid account is required for any of the upgraded features - that includes mail boxes. The basic "free" account only lets you do things like Secondary DNS and Secondary MX and SMTP Redirection for low traffic. And look at everything. There are people that have used the free account for years before upgrading; we've actually signed some colocations out of free accounts.

Although if someone asks I'm not adverse to throwing them a week of the first level as a trial. If you want to email support with your account name I can do that for you. The main reason is concerns about spammers using it to spew crap and then abandon the account, so rather than spending time playing whack-a-mole with abuse reports it's easier on everyone (and less harmful to delivery rates for existing customers) to just make it a paid-only feature.

Thanks for the clarification. I may take you up on the demo mailbox. I mainly wanted to see how headers behaved using SMTP (via Thunderbird, etc.) and Webmail. I wanted to see if the main authenticated account is imprinted in the headers, or if an alias can be used... also IP addresses, handling of domains, etc. FastMail is actually quite good about that overall issue, for example, especially when using their webmail. But Rackspace mail is not as good in terms of hiding your IP or original account the last time I checked. Anyway, if you could share some info with how IPs/accounts, etc., are listed in the headers, that would probably answer what I wanted to find out.

As for the power of the Rollernet backend, it's pretty obvious how powerful it is... could use a bit of streamlining with the interface to simplify the basic first steps, but otherwise really impressive. Congrats on that.

[SethM]

Originally Posted by ioneja

Thanks for the clarification. I may take you up on the demo mailbox. I mainly wanted to see how headers behaved using SMTP (via Thunderbird, etc.) and Webmail. I wanted to see if the main authenticated account is imprinted in the headers, or if an alias can be used... also IP addresses, handling of domains, etc. FastMail is actually quite good about that overall issue, for example, especially when using their webmail. But Rackspace mail is not as good in terms of hiding your IP or original account the last time I checked. Anyway, if you could share some info with how IPs/accounts, etc., are listed in the headers, that would probably answer what I wanted to find out.

Postfix does insert the "authenticated sender" line in its header entry. We don't generally obscure headers, so it sounds like that might not be what you're looking for. We probably have a lower abuse rate than a provider that does obscure information, though, so there's that.

[soromak]

Originally Posted by SethM

Postfix does insert the "authenticated sender" line in its header entry. We don't generally obscure headers, so it sounds like that might not be what you're looking for. We probably have a lower abuse rate than a provider that does obscure information, though, so there's that.

Hm, I see your reason to do that, but sometimes it is better not to reveal your smtp login info when you send e-mail using alias, so your permanent login is not being harvested.
Also, I don't see any need of obscuring headers..it's just a matter of setting smtpd_sasl_authenticated_header = no in main.cf, doesn't it?

[SethM]

Originally Posted by soromak

Hm, I see your reason to do that, but sometimes it is better not to reveal your smtp login info when you send e-mail using alias, so your permanent login is not being harvested.
Also, I don't see any need of obscuring headers..it's just a matter of setting smtpd_sasl_authenticated_header = no in main.cf, doesn't it?

Yeah, I could just turn off smtpd_sasl_authenticated_header if it's an issue. We insert an X header of our own with an internal ID anyway, so it's not critical to leave on. By not obscuring I meant we just pass SMTP headers through untouched (other than inserting) on our AUTH service, so client IP addresses would be in the headers. Although I believe (haven't checked in a long time) SquirrelMail will still insert its own "logged in as" header, I could just snip that out of the source.

[ioneja]

Originally Posted by soromak

...so your permanent login is not being harvested....

My thoughts exactly.