Boiling the kettle? That’s not possible just yet on Open Telekom Cloud, but you can do a lot of other things - like setting up mail servers. If you have set up a server running Windows, you can simply install a mail service on top.

The only problem is that if you are regularly sending out large amounts of mail from your mail server, anti-spam databases will quickly put it on the list of unwanted senders - in other words, it will be blacklisted. When this happens, the IP address from which unsolicited mail is sent will be classified as untrustworthy and, in the future, e-mails sent from there will end up in the virtual bin immediately after leaving the mail server. The IP address is “burnt” and the added value of the mail server disappears.

To avoid such unwanted consequences, Open Telekom Cloud has been working with a secure mailgate service since the end of February. The service ensures official and secure delivery of outgoing e-mails and prevents blacklisting. The IP address of the sender is encoded and the sending and receiving emails is protected, as anti-spam and anti-virus filters can be activated by the user.

Using the secure mailgate service is very easy as the current mail server can be used with almost no adjustments. The mail server carries a mail host address and in return its public IP is registered on the mail host. Outgoing mail is therefore sent via the secure mailgate service and confirmed as legitimate. If required, incoming mail can also be routed via the mailgate service.

Once set up, the secure mailgate service must be used for sending e-mails direct from Open Telekom Cloud. If you run or want to run a service that involves sending e-mails to customers or contacts, this service is compulsory and free of charge until the end of 2017.