Good Morning, all backup network services for DC1 and DC3 in Melbourne City were restored overnight.
No services were affected.

The weather bureau has issued a warning for severe hail storms and flooding again today, so please be alert when travelling.
If your hosted application systems are not in failover-ready mode, please issue a complete backup today via your administation console.

Not sure? Contact our helpdesk at www.em3.com.au, click on Support and key your customer details.

Network Operations
em3 People and Technology

No doubt our Melbourne customers will already be aware of the CBD hail storms and flooding currently taking place.
This has affected our backup DataCentre network for DC1 and DC3 located in Melbourne City.

No services are down or interrupted, however the network outage does affect our ability to failover in the event of complete systems outage at DC1 and DC3.

At this stage we are working with our network providers and will advise when the backup network is again available.

This only applies to our 2 DataCentre facilities located in the Melbourne City area.
At the moment no customers are impacted by this event.

Network Operations
em3 People and Technology
My Hosted Exchange Australia

Hi again, Darren here from My Hosted Exchange.
Our Aussie team have joined our Kiwi counterparts for testing of two leading mobile phone handsets – the Apple iPhone 3Gs and Nokia’s e75.

Today, the team are travelling around Akaroa, near Christchurch, with a goal of testing how these devices cope with internet access and email communications under ‘not so good’ signal strength.

You see, there’s been a lot of talk and ‘noise’ in the industry regarding these handsets and just how reliable they are in challenging conditions.
I personally have used both phones, however I no longer use either. This is probably a good thing as my opinion won’t sway and testing outcomes.

Stay tuned as we head around regional (and metropolitan cities) in New Zealand to find challenging terrain for testing of these leading handsets on the Telecom and Vodafone networks.

Cheers,

Darren
My Hosted Exchange

After much pressure from our New Zealand counter parts, we’ve finally agreed on the Kiwi country as our testing ground for the new Apple iPhone 3Gs and Nokia e75 handsets.
We chose New Zealand for the challenging terrain and marginal reception areas, of which (in comparison to Australia and Telstra coverage) there are many.

The goal is to thoroughly test not only the speed of the new Apple iPhone 3Gs, but the ability to connect with our My Hosted Exchange email service in regional areas.
One of the most talked about support issues for mobile phones connected to Hosted Exchange platforms is the ability to connect and operate with Hosted Microsoft Exchange Server whilst travelling away from metropolitan areas where signal strength is not the same quality as we take for granted in CBD areas.

So, 2 of our tech team members are off to New Zealand, where the local team in Auckland are taking them on a trip down the Coromandel Peninsula to Tauranga, then onto the south of the North Island to Wellington and beyond.

The timing of this exercise is certainly interesting, as the last few days have been a disaster for New Zealand’s leading mobile phone provider, Telecom, with another outage on their XT (3G aka: Telstra) mobile network for customers in the south of the north island, which is where our team will be this week.

Stay tuned, the results could be very interesting.
If you’d like to follow the trek with our New Zealand friends, you can do that via Twitter – follow em3_Australia or our team at My Hosted Exchange (MyHostedExchAU).

I travel between Australia and New Zealand often for business and family, so I’m personally keen to see the results on not only the effect of marginal reception whilst using Hosted Exchange services, but the overall performance of both the Apple iPhone 3Gs and the Nokia e75 handsets.

Best,

Darren Moss
General Manager
Australia and New Zealand